Can't Afford An Ebony Board > Best Alternative?
 

So after browsing through the price list i've decided even though I would like to have Ebony as a fretboard but it will really push the price way above my range, whats my best alternative which will give me the closest tone and performance which is available on a Roscoe?

Thanking you all in advance.

Cocobolo. More stable, great tone and IMO prettier (especially exhibition grade).

Cocobolo is a good recommendation. Not quite the same tone but close in a lot of respects and very nice.

Of course you could always try to find a used Roscoe with an ebony board ;)

Another vote for cocobolo.


Andre

For tone: cocobolo; for appearance: wenge.

:)

Why not just save a little longer and get ebony, if that's what you really want?

FWIW, there is a reason for our pricing structure on ebony. It isn't as reliably stable as urban myth will imply - it is very temperamental and tends to "come home for TLC" on too regular a basis.

Since the original poster is in Australia, I strongly recommend AGAINST ebony for this reason. It isn't a 100% guarantee there will be an issue, but it's definitely a better than 50/50 chance that it will require some special attention AFTER it's been in the field for a bit. Cocobolo and wenge are the polar opposites, from the stability/reliability perspective - the essentially NEVER require special attention.

:)

Wenge. Great board and looks cool.

Don't select the fingerboard in a vacuum. What other woods are you considering for the body, top, and neck?

Good point Vroom.
Still giving those parts of the equation some thought. I'm thinking of something like Paduk for a body as I tried a bass with a Paduk body maple top, laminated maple neck with Paduk stringers and an ebony board board with Lane Poor pickups and it was gorgeous!

Not sure if Roscoe are made with Paduk bodies but, does anybody know if there are bodies similar to the sound of Paduk. Ash maybe or Mahogany? Possibly Alder maybe?