Fender Maple vs Rosewood Fingerboards & Tone

[Mark Hammer]

I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and suggest that the actual basis for any maple vs rosewood tonal difference may well lie at the fret/fretboard junction After all, the string is effectively terminated at one end by the bridge, and at the other end by either the nut or the fret. Just as the saddle/bridge and bridge/body junction impacts on the sustain and other tonal properties, so you would expect that the fret/fretboard junction would impact on tonal properties.

Having said that, however, I would qualify this assertion by suggesting that fretboard wood may start to play much less of a role once we start to factor in things like fret composition and size, tang, whether the fret is glued or or held in by friction alone. In other words, there will be circumstances where there ARE robust tonal differences (i.e., the folk wisdom is not fundamentally baseless), but also circumstances where there aren't (i.e., other factors will over-ride any maple/rosewood differences).

I think it is also important to focus here on the fact that we are discussing Fender-type necks, which are a) bolt-on, and b) almost always maple. I love rosewood fingerboards, but then I also associate them with mahogany necks, which have always felt more resonant and soulful in my hands. Under those circumstances, what I mentally attribute to rosewood is really depending on a bunch of other factors.

The "pure" effect of having the fingerboard be either rosewood, or ebony, or maple, or something else entirely, requires factoring out a lot of other things.

[Mike Sulzer]

If you string up a solid body guitar, you compress the wood fibers on the fret board side of the neck and stretch those on the back of the neck. The fibers in the middle are less important. (A tube keeps much of the strength of a solid cylinder.) So you can see why the fret board material can matter even though it is only about 1/4" thick (effectively a bit less if you consider the weakening effect of the slots).

It is the longitudinal stiffness and losses that matter, as well as the mass. Looking in section 5.3 of "Acoustics for Violin and Guitar Makers" (google it), we see that the longitutinal stiffness of rosewood is about 30% higher than that of maple. It is also a bit denser. This is for Indian rosewood. Brazilian is about 60% stiffer than maple.

The differences between the high and low frequency losses are interesting. These are listed as bandwidths; a wider bandwidth means higher losses. Compared to rosewood, maple has higher losses at low frequencies, but lower losses at higher frequencies. This probably explains why maple is brighter (at least by my ear), but it would be nice to have some data at intermediate frequencies. (Again, this is for Indian; Brazilian is similar at low frequencies, but is very low loss at high frequencies; so you should not expect it to sound the same as Indian.)

[uvacom]

I think there are a lot of valid points being made here. On the one hand, wood is a complex material and we can quantify the characteristics of wood many different ways. I think especially the two posts above mine present good hypotheses on how the characteristics of fretboatd wood change the overall tone of a guitar.

On the other hand, the very simple generalizations that David makes are not only quite valid, but neccessary, because the overall system that is a guitar is extremely complex from a physics standpoint, yet we need to make basic, convenient, intuitive decisions on what woods to choose when building or buying a guitar. If everybody needed to be a physicist to choose a fretboard wood, we would have very few luthiers and NO customers. So we make generalizations that generally hold. Do they tell the whole story? No. But they tell enough to make the necessary choice for most people in most situations.

[Ron Burati]

As a player of both maple and rosewood fretboard Fenders sine the mid 60s, my opinion is that the difference in tone is over-rated. I've built dozens of Strats and swapped the M and RW necks between them. So many other facters are far mor influential on the tonal response. I think there's a perceived difference, which I myself have fallen victim to, but not so much a real one.

That's what my own experience tells me. YMMV

[tedmich]

lets try this one: wood makes a difference (likely very slight) but in no predictable way because of extremely high variance between individual wood samples, combined with non-scientific "lumping" of specific wood species (how many "rosewoods" are we talking about?).

Two pieces of "rosewood" can be from different continents and species, as well as having different ages, lignin content, mineral content, Janka hardness, density, total moisture, moisture distribution, residual stress, grain topology, finish etc etc etc

Given these uncontrolled variables it should be quite possible to make a solid body electric guitar or bass made of "rosewood" which conformed to any preconceived expectation of tone in a blind test.

beauty (and "tone") is way more than skin deep

[Mike Sulzer]

Despite individual variations in the qualities of examples of a wood species, there are certainly average differences between species that are significant. For example, the characteristics of eastern maple and central american mahogany do not overlap to a significant extent when considering natural variations. Density and stiffness are measurable.

lets try this one: wood makes a difference (likely very slight) but in no predictable way because of extremely high variance between individual wood samples, combined with non-scientific "lumping" of specific wood species (how many "rosewoods" are we talking about?).

Two pieces of "rosewood" can be from different continents and species, as well as having different ages, lignin content, mineral content, Janka hardness, density, total moisture, moisture distribution, residual stress, grain topology, finish etc etc etc

Given these uncontrolled variables it should be quite possible to make a solid body electric guitar or bass made of "rosewood" which conformed to any preconceived expectation of tone in a blind test.

beauty (and "tone") is way more than skin deep

[David Schwab]

lets try this one: wood makes a difference (likely very slight) but in no predictable way because of extremely high variance between individual wood samples, combined with non-scientific "lumping" of specific wood species (how many "rosewoods" are we talking about?).

Experience doesn't bare that out. When you average everything out, the woods still fall within the tonal description. Yes, wood varies, even within the same board. But you will never find basswood sounding like maple.


We are generally talking East Indian Rosewood these days, as that's the most common rosewood used on production guitars.

[belwar]

Off Topic question.. Does anyone have a pictures of the side dots on a fender rosewood fretboard neck?

bel

[chrisnation]

I'm going to go much further out on this 'ere limb that Mark is perched on and say something that will have all the woodists steaming.

On a solid body electric instrument it makes no difference at all what wood, where. There. I've said it.

Now, wearing my scientist's protective helmet and goggles, for the reason. As Mark Hammer said, the note is terminated by metal at the bridge end and metal on a fret. Let's just stick to fretted notes for now. [If guitar-makers were sensible and used metal nuts, like the splendid Wilkinson, there could be no difference between fretted and open notes but they don't, so the material of nuts may contribute minutely to the vibration characteristics of an open note. Nothing to do with the wood, tho'.

So we have a steel wire terminated at both ends by running over metal. The length of the wire sounding the note does not touch wood at any point. Good old Faraday's Left hand Law ensures that the movement of the steel string [the conductor] in the field generated by the magnets in our pick-ups generates EMF [electro-motive force]in the windings of the pick-ups. This is the signal that heads off to our amps and may, depending on our level of talent, be turned into music. The pick-ups don't give a tinker's toss what the wood is. The characteristics of the EMF generated in the pick-up windings is solely dependent on the frequency and amplitude of the vibration of the string in the zone of the magnetic field of the pick-up magnets.

Different woods on a fretboard may feel different under the fingers but once fretted, the metal-to-metal length of the string defines the note. The characteristics of the strings' and pick-ups' materials & construction determine the signal output - nothing else.

With all the variables that do impinge on the output of a guitar pick-up, as transmitted by the loudspeaker of the amp, from the string, pick-up, other electronics in the guitar signal path, guitar-amp cable and then all that stuff in the amp, I defy anyone to pick a wood either of neck, fretboard or body, in a blind test of a goodly selection.

Scott Grove [YouTube 'groovydjs] did a blind run through 18 guitars of all sorts and configurations, for us to pick out the single coils from the humbuckers. Because of the remarkable variety of characteristics of the construction used by the guitars' makers, the conclusions, amongst the responses to this test was, on the whole - we wuz foxed.

Now, if a bunch of guitaristas cannot reliably pick s/c from h/b over 19 guitars, I rate the chances of picking maple from rosewood from Uncle Tom Cobley over a selection of guitars as - zero.

Now, ParceForce has, in the middle of this rant, delivered a billy-doo telling me that my 1987 Ibanez Roadstar [s/s/s, rosewood f/b but what the hell] is at their tender mercy till I cough up GBP41.69. Then it's mine!

I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and suggest that the actual basis for any maple vs rosewood tonal difference may well lie at the fret/fretboard junction After all, the string is effectively terminated at one end by the bridge, and at the other end by either the nut or the fret. Just as the saddle/bridge and bridge/body junction impacts on the sustain and other tonal properties, so you would expect that the fret/fretboard junction would impact on tonal properties.

Having said that, however, I would qualify this assertion by suggesting that fretboard wood may start to play much less of a role once we start to factor in things like fret composition and size, tang, whether the fret is glued or or held in by friction alone. In other words, there will be circumstances where there ARE robust tonal differences (i.e., the folk wisdom is not fundamentally baseless), but also circumstances where there aren't (i.e., other factors will over-ride any maple/rosewood differences).

I think it is also important to focus here on the fact that we are discussing Fender-type necks, which are a) bolt-on, and b) almost always maple. I love rosewood fingerboards, but then I also associate them with mahogany necks, which have always felt more resonant and soulful in my hands. Under those circumstances, what I mentally attribute to rosewood is really depending on a bunch of other factors.

The "pure" effect of having the fingerboard be either rosewood, or ebony, or maple, or something else entirely, requires factoring out a lot of other things.

[Sweetfinger]

On a solid body electric instrument it makes no difference at all what wood, where. There. I've said it.... The characteristics of the strings' and pick-ups' materials & construction determine the signal output - nothing else.

Really? I can see that you've thought a lot about this. Maybe think some more after reading some materials and engineering textbooks.

[Steve Conner]

Totally. For instance it's a well known fact that guitar necks are made of depleted-uranium-loaded superconducting concrete that doesn't flex or resonate in any way.

[chrisnation]

That would indeed be heavy, man.

Totally. For instance it's a well known fact that guitar necks are made of depleted-uranium-loaded superconducting concrete that doesn't flex or resonate in any way.

[chrisnation]

Sort of, Sweets.

I was going to do Materials Science at Brunel University but as I have always been a Petrol Head, I did Polymer Technology instead. On the basis that if I did so, I had a job offer on the slate to go straight into Dunlop Tyres F1 Racing Dept. How I got mixed up in rock and roll - I dunno. There was something about 1968 ...

I know what I wrote is deeply upsetting to many people who have cherished the voodoo of wood and all that stuff but there it is. I'm a heretic.

Really? I can see that you've thought a lot about this. Maybe think some more after reading some materials and engineering textbooks.

[Steve Conner]

Well, since you're a tyre expert, try a rubber fingerboard and see how that sounds.

Try these experiments:

Put your ear to the guitar's headstock and twang the strings. Unless your guitar is very unlike mine, that headstock vibrates quite a bit. In fact the whole neck is vibrating at several frequencies.

Where did that energy to vibrate it come from? It was transmitted from the strings through the nut.

From the above, it follows that the guitar neck absorbs energy from the strings at some frequencies more than others, therefore it colours the sound of the strings.

So now all you have to believe is that changing the neck wood changes those resonant frequencies, and is that really so far-fetched?

[Chuck H]

I'll take this a logical two steps further.

If the metal to metal termination breaks any vibration of the wood, how does an acoustic guitar work??? There are many that use a metal bridge.

Also:

If you ordered a cusom scale neck for your Strat and loaded it with two humbucher pick guard and a pair of PAF's, would the tone be indistinguishable from a Les Paul???