Fender Maple vs Rosewood Fingerboards & Tone

[David Schwab]

Trying to be helpful:

Woods

That's for an acoustic guitar. That's a very different animal than a solid body.

[Earl Norton]

Neither one is or ever was an animal. However, I think the basic properties of the wood used do not change with the application.

[Chuck H]

I said:

First, wood is porous. This is density, not so much hard and soft. Wood also has hardness. Density is commonly equated with hardness in woods but it only tells part of the story.

Rosewood actually has a more brittle, ridgid (hardness in my book) structure than maple. Maple is softer but much denser than rosewood.

Whatta know, it makes more sense in context. The important point I was making is that it's common in the wood world for dense wood to be called hard wood. And that does a disservice to explain woods resonant properties. It's a nod to other crafts and construction to indicate a woods strength and tooling properties.

I don't reduce guitars to "strings, frets and pickups"... show me where I said that?

here:

Also you don't want or get vibrations transfered back to the bridge and body. Why would you? Unless you are playing an acoustic guitar

and:

the idea of a solid body is to prevent the string's energy from being turned into acoustic energy.

"I" got the impression from these statements that you see woods resonant properties as a concession rather than an asset. But by your last post I see I misjudged. But just read the quotes, my conclusion wasn't a stretch.

You know what Chuck, just post some photos of all the guitars you built along with sound clips.

This is just pissy dick waving. You need to get your panties unbunched. I build amps, not guitars. But I have built guitars and I haven't put a guitar into a shop since I was 15. I do all my own repairs and many for other players. It's more relevant that I have plenty of experience using and repairing guitars of many different constructions.

I did build the guitars I use now. But I won't post pics because I'm sure yours are prettier than mine But we've all met "experts" that, while experienced, seem to be missing what we see as an obvious truth. I happen to disagree with you on this. But take it down a notch and don't pop a vien in your head over it.

Chuck

[David Schwab]

Neither one is or ever was an animal. However, I think the basic properties of the wood used do not change with the application.

If you read the link, they talk about how various back and side woods put more energy into the vibrating top, etc.

Solid bodies don't work this way, so it's not exactly applicable.

You can discuss the properties of the wood used for braces too, and that also wont mean a thing to a solid body.

The link I posted to Mike Tobias is more applicable, and while he's known for building basses, he has build many great guitars.

And "is a different animal" is a common saying.

"is a different animal" - Google Search

[imaradiostar]

I'm gonna call it and say there are elements that aren't being mentioned. If wood science was as simple as hardness, density, and porosity there wouldn't be such a huge industry for finding specific types of wood for specific tasks.

David, I appreciate your knowledge in many areas but I can't help but feel that you're oversimplifying things.

Wood is in many ways a plastic or polymer. It has other elements that are physical structures (like a truss or beam) that are visually observable. The hardness, density, moisture content, other chemical/resin content and countless other things come into play. It's not as simple as the above discussion.

Unless a person is a dendrologist (tree scientist), a chemist, a mechanical engineer, a NVH engineer (noise vibration and harshness), a professional luthier and a kickin' guitar player with tone like Eric Johnson it's tough to really know what about a given wood makes it sound a certain way and how it all truly happens.

There are a lot of winning combos out there- maple, alder, poplar, ebony, rosewood, mahogany, etc all were the old standards. There are newer woods that continue to gain favor- Korina (I guess it's an old one too, but more popular now), Wenge, Padouk, etc...pretty much any wood can find a useful place on an instrument somewhere. I just built a Pawlonia strat and while it still needs a little tweaking it sounds pretty great and only weighs about 6 pounds. I'm friends with a local guitar builder that has found that it's a lot easier to get top-quality cherry or walnut (common local woods) than it is to get many other imported woods. Anyone who plays them thinks they sound great but in the end many buy mahogany guitars because they're afraid that other woods are in some way substandard- even though the average cherry or walnut around here is far nicer than all but the more expensive mahogany.

It can take many years for the public to learn that there are good sounds to be found in many different kinds of wood!

My observations?

I still say there are other aspects not being pinpointed- rosewood "fuzzes" or "furries" up the notes and maple retains an upper midrange clarity that's not as simple as "maple is just brighter." Maple can retain that clarity even when used with hotter pickups and treble rolloff- you can't go anywhere in Nashville without hearing a Teleplayer with a nice midrangey tele bridge tone. Ebony can retain clarity like maple without the "furries" or rosewood but still doesn't have that cutting upper mid clarity like an all maple (slab or skunk) neck. I have a PRS SE EG that's made of some strange Asian wood (they call it mahog but I think it's a meranti) and no matter what pickups or strings I use it has a unique furriness to the sound that reminds me of a neck pickup with a treble rolloff. It sounds a lot like a strat but played side-by-side with one it's obvious that it's not maple, mahogany, alder or poplar. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's musically useful but tough to pin down.

OK, I've said my 2 cents, flame on.

jamie

[David Schwab]

This is just pissy dick waving. You need to get your panties unbunched. I build amps, not guitars.

No, it's saying back up what you are saying with some data. You can't.

I'm talking from experience, and you aren't qualified to give that opinion since you don't build guitars.

[David Schwab]

David, I appreciate your knowledge in many areas but I can't help but feel that you're oversimplifying things.

Yes, I was making a generalization. But if you take a common platform and change just the fingerboard for example, or just the body wood, and not the entire design, then those generalizations will hold true most of the time.

If you take the time to see what other experienced builders say, and I'm talking about people with more experience than any of us, they say the same thing.

While I'll be the first to say there is a lot of crap on the internet, a quick search turns up the following:

Bass Article: "Everything You Need To Know About Wood"

The second way to rate woods are by its color. Light colored woods are generally brighter than dark woods.

(Now keep in mind that modern bass players expect a very clear tone and aren't married to "vintage", so you will see basses mentioned a lot in the discussion of woods. Guitar players like the same thing over and over again.)

http://www.jemsite.com/jem/wood.htm

Fretboard Woods:

Perhaps more significant than neck wood, the fretboard is the place your string launches from. It is the “bridge” on the other side. Fretboard differences are as dramatic as those between a hardtail and a tremolo.

Maple:
Very bright and dense, Maple is highly reflective. When used on a fretboard, Maple encourages tremendous amounts of higher overtones and its tight, almost filtered away bass favors harmonics and variations in pick attack.

Rosewood:
The most common fretboard, Rosewood is naturally oily, and works well for any surface that sees frequent human contact. The sound is richer in fundamental than Maple because the stray overtones are absorbed into the oily pores

Ebony:
Ebony has a snappy, crisp attack with the density of Maple, but with more brittle grains, oilier pores, and a stronger fundamental tone than Maple. It has a tremendous amount of percussive overtones in the pick attack, that mute out shortly thereafter to foster great, long, sustain.

Pao Ferro:
Quite simply, Pao Ferro is a wood that falls between Rosewood and Ebony, and the tone follows suit. It has a snappier attack than rosewood, with good sustain, and its warmer sounding than Ebony. Some consider Pao Ferro to represent their favorite aspects of the two.

Taylor Guitars - Woods - Tone

The Tone Zone: Tonewoods and their Relative Frequency Ranges
One of the most common ways to describe a wood’s tonal properties is in terms of its frequency range, which is often broken down into low-end frequencies, midrange and high-end frequencies.
Picture it as a visual spectrum, as we’ve done in the chart above, with the lower frequencies on the left and the higher frequencies on the right. The graph line for each wood visually depicts its general tonal range. Rosewood and ovangkol, for example, tend to resonate with more low-end frequencies, whereas koa, cocobolo and maple tend to sound brighter from having more top-end frequencies. Note also rosewood’s “scooped” midrange and ovangkol’s fuller midrange. The dotted lines for walnut and koa denote the expansion of low-end frequency range as the guitar opens up after a period of playing it.

WarrZONE.com: Wood Science

TONE QUALITIES OF WOODS

Generally, woods that are light in color will have a ‘brighter’ sound than darker woods, meaning that the tones produced have more high frequency response. Maple (bright) is one extreme and padauk (dark) is another.

http://www.mtdbass.com/articles/quest_for_tone.pdf

A second, even more simplistic, way to rank woods is by color: light woods are generally brighter than dark woods. Sound silly? Think about it--light -colored woods such as maple, alder, ash, and poplar are all brighter sounding than dark woods such as walnut, koa, zebrawood, and rosewood.

Getting back to acoustic guitars:

Maple Street Guitars - Acoustic, Classical and Electric Guitars - FAQs

Rosewood imparts dark, rich, chocolate tones to the sound of a guitar.
...

Maple has long been used for other stringed instruments, as well as guitars. It is lighter than rosewood, often lighter in weight than mahogany; and in acoustic steel-string and classical instruments it provides the brightest, most sparkling tone.

And so on. It's not just me saying it. You have to think about why one wood might be darker in color than another. Many of the darker woods are oily.

[imaradiostar]

It would seem that the consensus is that darker woods sounds darker! I guess I was over complicating things.

I was only trying to say there can be other contributors and it's tough to understand all of them. I sure don't.

I'd also like to remind everyone of all the experts and professionals selling hi-fi snake oil- crazy capacitors and wires and heaven knows what else. Even guys I respect like Ken Fischer said some CRAAAAZY stuff in interviews that made me question if they really understand how or why things are what they are. Say nothing for that guitar instructional video with a certain builder of expensive amps featured in part of the video!

I appreciate all the quotes though- that was fast!

The Taylor quote touches on the aspect I hear in rosewood- I've read it other places as well. I don't know why but that mid scoop sound of rosewood drives me nuts sometimes, especially on a strat.

I should be asleep. Good discussion here- hope we can keep it mostly civil!

jamie

[black_labb]

sorry if i've skipped through alot

there is more to it than softness and hardness. there is the density (weight), elasticity and dampening factor. the instrument vibrating is energy taken from the string's vibration, which is why the instruments timber changes the tone.

the density and the weight along with the shape of the part will give certain resonant frequencies. close to those frequencies the instruments construction doesnt leak too much vibration. other frequencies will leak vibrations/energy from the string. things like a bolt on neck where the mechanical connection isnt very well coupled will often leak lower frequencies, where an oily timber will dampen high frequency resonance and drain hf from the strings energy.

just pointing out that there is alot more to it than just hardness of the wood.

[Steve Conner]

there is more to it than softness and hardness. there is the density (weight), elasticity and dampening factor.

That's what the layman tends to call "softness and hardness", though. But you're right, they're not technically the same thing: soft vs. hard is only one degree of freedom, but density, elasticity and damping factor are three independent properties, so three degrees of freedom.

I think the most important thing on a solid body guitar or bass is probably the neck vibrating as a cantilevered beam. In other words, bending like the bow part of a bow and arrow, the strings being the "bowstring". You can see how the string could couple a lot of energy into that mode, and depending on the resonant frequency of the neck by itself, some low notes could be emphasized or deadened.

And the fingerboard could have a big effect on that, because it gets compressed and stretched when the neck bends. Using hard wood for the fingerboard will make the "bow" harder to "pull", just like the way they laminated strips of wood in the old longbows to make them shoot further.

The whole thing has other resonant modes, to be sure, related to the dimensions of it and the speed of sound in timber.

[David Schwab]

sorry if i've skipped through alot

there is more to it than softness and hardness. there is the density (weight), elasticity and dampening factor. the instrument vibrating is energy taken from the string's vibration, which is why the instruments timber changes the tone.

That's true, but remember that instruments are not from a single piece of wood. And while you get certain tonal qualities from a hard stiff neck wood, you lose some warmth, so a cool thing to do is use a soft light wood for a guitar neck, and then reinforce it with carbon graphite. We made some great sounding guitars with poplar and basswood necks. They have a nice resonant vocal quality.

This guitar has a poplar neck, EIRW fingerboard, korina body and a curly oak top. There's an 1/8" layer of purpleheart between the top and body. It's an amazing sounding guitar. The woods were picked just because we had them laying around the shop. We liked poplar necks because of the old Danelectros. I made some basses from the korina, so we had some of that, and the oak was just cool!



Instruments do loosen up after a while. One of my basses had started out being very bright like a piano, and then after a week or two of playing the tone started to warm up. Now 15 years later it's a very warm but clear sounding bass.

the density and the weight along with the shape of the part will give certain resonant frequencies. close to those frequencies the instruments construction doesnt leak too much vibration. other frequencies will leak vibrations/energy from the string. things like a bolt on neck where the mechanical connection isnt very well coupled will often leak lower frequencies, where an oily timber will dampen high frequency resonance and drain hf from the strings energy.

just pointing out that there is alot more to it than just hardness of the wood.

One thing people often don't take into consideration is standing waves inside a solid body. Instruments with non parallel surfaces have a different tone. You can often hear this in carved tops. Back when I worked for American Showster, the owner had a patent on a body with a tear drop cross section. His reasoning was that because the body was thinner on the bass side, it gave the low strings a brighter sound, and the treble strings a fatter tone. He attributed this to more mass under the treble strings.

We cut one of the bodies in half one day and found that were the bridge was, the body was of uniform thickness. So there wasn't more mass under the strings, but the guitar did exhibit the effects he mentioned.

I figured it was a combination of using basswood and the fact that the top and back where not parallel.

You always see luthiers listening to tap tones, and trying to tune each plate to a pitch. Of course as soon as you glue to pieces together, you change that pitch. But I always liked the idea that every part should have a nice tap tone. When I was using black paper phenolic for fingerboards I noticed that while it was nice and hard, it was rather flexible, and when tapped produced a dull thud. That wasn't very musical sounding.

I took some inspiration from Ned Steinberger, who used alternating layers of maple and carbon fiber for his first NS Double Basses (my partner in SGD worked with him building the first four basses, including Tony Levin's bass), so I laminated some maple and purpleheart veneer on the bottom of the fingerboard. After that it produced a nice long ringing tone when tapped.

Did that help the tone of the instrument? I didn't do an AB comparison, but the fact that its damping qualities changed makes me think it did help at east a little. Phenolic has an interesting tone when used for a fingerboard, especially on fretless basses, but it's nasty stuff to work with.

[Chuck H]

I said:

I build amps, not guitars. But I have built guitars and I haven't put a guitar into a shop since I was 15. I do all my own repairs and many for other players. It's more relevant that I have plenty of experience using and repairing guitars of many different constructions.

I did build the guitars I use now. But I won't post pics because I'm sure yours are prettier than mine

Again with the out of context. Your so bent on making me wrong that you are failing to be right about this one thing. It's like your insane. I must have pushed one of your buttons hard, eh?

No, it's saying back up what you are saying with some data. You can't.

That whole statement is based on your out of context quote.

I'm talking from experience, and you aren't qualified to give that opinion since you don't build guitars.

Read my 'in context' statement above. I am as qualified as anyone to make a statement on this matter. You seem to think that links constitute fact. Most of what you've linked is opinion. Just because something is on line and link-able doesn't make it fact. I'm not posting links because I don't want to take an hour searching for links that are biased in my favor just to make you wrong. I'm not interested in making you wrong. This isn't 'beat up on David' time for me. Look, we're both "gear" guys. I lean toward amps and you lean toward guitars. You know a bit about electronics and I know a bit about wood. If you were to post a contrary opinion on one of my amp threads I would think "Hmmm? This is a guy who deserves consideration". You've failed to afford me this courtesy. For all your experience your coming up short on integrity and grace, David.

I did get up my own a$$ a bit on the 'light wood=bright, dark wood=dark issue. But I'll stand that it's a generalization. If koa is darker sounding than basswood then my a$$ is a banjo. And there are enough other contradictions that this kind of generalization could be misleading to the lay-builder.

It's a FACT that the general consensus is that maple has a bright attack and a quick decay while rosewood has a softer attack and more sustain. By your reasoning this is a contradiction. My reasoning explains this phenomenon (with a nod to your mention of rosewood being oily, which is very valid).

Rosewood is more "live" than maple by it's virtue of greater sustain. At least to me. A bright tick on top of a note is less exciting, to me, than a ringing note with adequate top end. But I will concede that most players hear bright as lively.

Think of wood like a honeycomb. Maple has smaller combs made of a softer material. Rosewood has larger combs made of a harder material. Enough harder that it's a FACT that rosewood has a higher 'specific gravity' than maple. Maple absorbs more vibration overall than rosewood. It's the balance of that absorption that gives a wood it's tone. But it's the hardness of it's matrix that allows sustain. Now think about how that effects resonance and hopefully you'll see where I'm coming from.

Peace

Chuck

[Sweetfinger]

I said:

I build amps, not guitars.
Chuck

I'll just mosey on in here and put my couple o' gobs in the spittoon.....

The wood is just as important in a combo amp as it is in an electric guitar. Build two dimensionally identical amps out of dissimilar materials and you'll definitely hear the differences. Amps with particle board baffles and cabs sound different that fingerjointed pine and plywood baffles. To further add to the mystique, even old plywood is different than current plywood. I've held pieces of vintage 50's or 60's plywood that ring like a bell when tapped, and modern plywood just goes "thunk".

As for my experience with necks- Managing a music store can have its advantages, like when I wanted to hear for MYSELF where the "magic" was located in a Strat. I spent a whole night playing ten standard Mex Strats. I switched pickguard assemblies and necks trying to see what tonal qualities would transfer with the part and which qualities stayed with the body.

The pertinent lesson was that quite a surprising amount of the tone is actually in the neck and will travel with it to whatever body the neck is attached to.

There are some generalizations about Maple, RW, and Ebony in previous posts, but one point hasn't been sufficiently stressed: There is quite a bit of variation in sound even between necks with similar woods- enough that some Maple boards can stray into the sonic "territory" of Rosewood and some RW boards can be very "Maple like" in character. Ebony almost always has that "zing" to it and is probably easiest to pigeonhole.

Everything makes a difference on a guitar from the neck wood, body wood, the body and neck shape, down to the number of pieces used to make a body or neck and where the glue joints are located. Even different parts of the same tree will sound different when made into guitars. The problem is that people start to obsess about their wood and hardware and whatever, including those variable that really can't be controlled, and end up chasing the ghost of their own tail.

The really easy solution to me has been the tried and true method of simply finding a "good one" and buying it. Works great for me, maybe not so great for the builder who's trying to make EVERY guitar "the ONE!"
I will say that I've had very good luck with bodies made from a pine frame with Masonite top and back. I wonder what a Masonite fingerboard would sound like?..........

[David Schwab]

I said:

Again with the out of context. Your so bent on making me wrong that you are failing to be right about this one thing. It's like your insane. I must have pushed one of your buttons hard, eh?

Chuck, someone asked a question, and I gave my opinion based on my experience making necks with different fingerboards, and playing many more.

YOU jumped in with your reasoning why my opinion was wrong, but didn't back it up with anything, and it seems to also not agree with other builders who I cited. You gave some vague descriptions of the tones of various fingerboards, like saying rosewood transfers more vibrations to the body or whatever, but did you give some actual data on that?

Also no two pieces of the same type wood are the same. So that whole molecular structure thing was generalizing as well.

I'm not trying to prove you wrong, but I don't agree with a lot of what you are saying. It does not match my experience. I'm giving my opinion to answer someone's question. I'm citing others giving the same opinion. If you want to prove yourself right, be my guest. But you haven't done that yet.

I don't build amps, but I'm sure if I came here and said output transformers have no effect on the tone, you would correct that, right?

[David Schwab]

While most of us are aware that a solid maple neck/fingerboard on a Fender Stratocaster or Telecaster tends to produce a brighter overall tone while necks with rosewood fingerboards have a slightly darker sound, what actually accounts for this?

Is it attributable to the rosewood layer/laminate, the overall hardness of a solid maple neck/fingerboard configuration or perhaps the individual densities of rosewood & maple fingerboards?

Gluing on a fingerboard will generally make the neck stiffer, which should make it brighter. There is no advantage to once pieces necks. Laminated necks are stronger.

So the difference in tone is the rosewood. While it i a hard wood, it is very oily, and it just sounds different. Ebony sounds different too, as does Pau Ferro, etc.

Lastly, exactly how does this impact/effect the transfer of tone to the body & pickups as both are essentially identical bolt-on style necks connected to similar slabs of ash or alder?

It doesn't transfer tone to the body or pickups. It effects the way the string vibrates, and that is picked up as a certain tone. The less energy absorb by the body, the more sustain and generally brighter the tone. The more energy absorbed, and it starts to sound like an acoustic instrument. We all know solid bodies sustain more than an arch top, right? Now listen to a composite guitar with a graphite neck, etc. Very different tone, because it's not being absorbed as much. That's because it's harder and stiffer.

If you make both the body and neck from granite, they will have very little influence on the tone, even though they will vibrate to an extent.

You can mount a neck not on the body, and as long as both halves are rigid, you will get a good tone. You don't need any vibrations going back to the body from the neck, and the body will still influence the tone.