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Blindfold Test: Maple vs Rosewood

Which audio is maple, which is rosewood?

  • Audio 1 is maple, audio 2 is rosewood.

    Votes: 208 40.5%

  • Audio 2 is maple, audio 1 is rosewood.

    Votes: 305 59.5%
  • Total voters
    513
#101
Thanks for the answer Joe! Good test, really enjoyed thinking about that.

I do feel that I hear a difference between the two, however they were so similar that I wouldn't have been able to imagine how one from the other, if you get my meaning. Like I wouldn't have been able to say 'hey I'd prefer a maple board on this, would make it sound zingier'. Similarly from that, it's useful to have the comparison between the two because if all I'd had was the one I identified as having more clank, I wouldn't have thought it sounded so clanky, it would've only been in context that I thought it sounded clanky.

Looks like it's back to the drawing board for what board I'd get on a custom!

Mark
 
#102
mcgraham said:
Thanks for the answer Joe! Good test, really enjoyed thinking about that.

I do feel that I hear a difference between the two, however they were so similar that I wouldn't have been able to imagine how one from the other, if you get my meaning. Like I wouldn't have been able to say 'hey I'd prefer a maple board on this, would make it sound zingier'. Similarly from that, it's useful to have the comparison between the two because if all I'd had was the one I identified as having more clank, I wouldn't have thought it sounded so clanky, it would've only been in context that I thought it sounded clanky.

Looks like it's back to the drawing board for what board I'd get on a custom!

Mark
Click to expand...

I think I know what you mean! It's funny for me because I'd been using the jazz bass with the maple board for a while now and I'm not a huge fan of having a finished fingerboard, but I toughed it out because I thought I preferred the 'sound' of maple. After the test though, I realized that in my ears, the difference was so minute, I should go with feel as a priority and adjust my EQ or technique a bit if I have to in order to get the desired sound. Now I'm loving the jazz bass with the rosewood board! At a rehearsal tonight, I didn't even notice any difference other than the feel.

Of course, I need a tort pickguard now for the 60s Fender vibe...
 
#103
Thanks for posting; yeah, I wasn't surprised, though... I knew within about 3 seconds of each clip which was which; I'm not really sure how, I mean, there was nothing specific that I heard, I just could tell that the first one had a darker sound. I'm not sure if it was fret noise or clank or attack or what, but I didn't even have to think about it... funny how our brains work that way.
 
#108
I cant tell. I use both bass necks. I do hear a slight difference in tone, but that could be due to technique, as the parts are not exactly alike. Again, I think a slapped bass part would tell a little more, as for my ears, aggressive slapping seams to accentuate the difference between the two neck woods. Good stuff!
 
#112
Hey Joe,

While All Blues is really cool tune and you play it well, perhaps it's not the best selection to try and hear the differences maple and rose wood. (best meaning a tune which make those differences readily apparent) Because it is played pizzacato, differences in the tone are subtle though most listeners were able to hear it. Curious to know if the something with some slap would have made the differences much more apparent and easier to detect. My guess is it would.

Cool thread, thanks for the work you put in to make the thing happen.
 
#113
Wow... I couldn't believe that I was right on this one. I have always felt that maple boards are a bit thicker and feel heavier to push down on the strings. This was something I imagined while listening to both tracks.

Very much enjoyed this poll Joe! Thanks!
 
#116
peaveyuser said:
It doesn't matter, feel and looks are the only reason you should go for one over the other.
Click to expand...

Play enough basses with each fingerboard and you will see that's not true.

I purposely didn't use rosewood fingerboards and went with phenolic because I knew what tone it would have.

And actually the neck makes the biggest difference in tone.

Back in the early 80's I made an 8-string bass. I hadn't yet made a neck from scratch, so I used a maple fingerboard Fender neck I had. I spliced on a new headstock. The bass had an alder body.

It got a very harsh tone... mostly showing off the octave strings. I had to notch the mods with a varitone to warm it up.

After that I wound some low-Z pickups which helped a lot.

Then I decided to make a neck from scratch for this bass. I used maple and walnut. Ebony fingerboard, two truss rods, and carbon graphite.

The new neck made it sound like a new bass! Much tighter deeper lows, and smooth highs and mids.

That demonstrated to me how important neck design and materials is.
 
#117
I'm curious about all these comments about the "feel" of maple vs. rosewood. If you're playing a fretted instrument, how are you "feeling" the fretboard? I mean there's a little thin slice of it above the G which your hand might run along, but are you "feeling" that edge? And if you were comparing a rock-hard piece of wood against a relatively soft piece of wood I could imagine an attentive player feeling more or less "give" in the frets when playing aggressively, but even that's a bit of a stretch. So with a fretted board, what is this "feel" y'all are actually referring to?
 
#118
bongomania said:
I'm curious about all these comments about the "feel" of maple vs. rosewood. If you're playing a fretted instrument, how are you "feeling" the fretboard? I mean there's a little thin slice of it above the G which your hand might run along, but are you "feeling" that edge? And if you were comparing a rock-hard piece of wood against a relatively soft piece of wood I could imagine an attentive player feeling more or less "give" in the frets when playing aggressively, but even that's a bit of a stretch. So with a fretted board, what is this "feel" y'all are actually referring to?
Click to expand...


hmm, at risk of being criticized for sloppy technique and heavy fretting i'll give my assessment of this.

a significant portion of my finger contacts the board when fretting, more so with guitar than bass because of string gauge and fret size. there is a roughness to every rosewood board i've touched that isn't there with maple, or to make a more drastic comparison, ebony is even smoother imho. it's especially noticeable during bending. just an observation during the last 20 years of playing, ymmv.
 
#120
I recently tried to do this with an ampeg SVTII non pre and a QSC 2402 with a presonus tube pre.
I think I have the crappy clip somewhere. I ran them both through acme cabs and used a morley ABswitch to go between the 2. I could not really tell a difference at all. I deleted the file. Also, both were cranked so my apartment was rattling like a tin box ruining the sound.

Jonathan
 

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