fretboard material

[bholder]

Fascinating.

 

[Chrisk-K]

Virtually no difference.

 

[Charlzm]

I don't care for the look of maple. I can't say if I have heard a difference in sound since I don't have two identical basses except for the fretboards.

 

[Westsailor]

Main reason I don't like maple boards is they can get dirty/nasty looking. Granted, my rosewood board is dirty/nasty but you just don't see it.

 

[bearfoot]

 

[AztecViking]

I have good a bass player friend who swears that "maple is better for slapping". He's utterly convinced of it.

 

[Pirate Captain]

CITES

 

[bholder]

I firmly believe there may or may not be any difference at all. Reality is purely subjective. We are each all alone in our subjectivity. Entropy always wins. Despair! Oh sorry, got carried away....

 

[70s Custom Mod]

I've always heard that RW produces a warmer sound than maple. But I recently saw a You Tube video by a member here who brought out that RW is harder than maple, based on the Janka hardness scale. He suggested RW produces a brighter sound.

Janka Hardness chart for Exotic Wood and Domestic Wood | Bell Forest Products

 

[GIBrat51]

You should really never, ever ask an engineer questions like this. Because the answer you will always get to a "does ...... make a difference ?" question, is - Yes, it does. In the engineer's world of sub-microscopic minutiae, and measurements in parts-per-trillion, absolutely everything makes a difference. Even the act of measuring something makes a difference (can you say Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?). So, since I'm a retired engineer, my answer is - of course - yes, it does. The question you're really asking, though, is "does it make enough difference to matter?" And the answer to that question, is that it's mostly subjective. As you can see by the answers you've gotten already... Does it really, truly, matter to you? To me, it doesn't make enough of a difference to matter. Any slight difference would be overwhelmed by things that make a much larger difference - like strings. Personally, I would be much more concerned about how the neck feels in my hand, than what the fret board is made of. Any possible tonal difference can be fixed by the tone controls on the bass and the amp. That, after all, is what they're there for...

 

[bholder]

And Ebony is harder still and sounds brighter. Or darker. Or the same. Depending on who you ask. So much fun!

 

[Bill Whitehurst]

I will reuse this answer from another simular question;
yes, it does make a difference...
whether you notice it or like it is less certain.

I think we can all agree that it will look different
and that, alone, will cause you to expect to hear a change.

 

[Trabeen]

Why would maple be brighter than rosewood?

Because the internet says that it is.

 

[JIO]

A local bass player put a maple-fretboard neck on his Blacktop & said it was brighter, but from the audience I could not hear a difference.

This is a question and answer that sums it up - what do you want? ... a home player and/or a live player? Ideally both right? In the comfort of your home - your bass sounds great! In a live situation, it's all about definition/delineation and feel - in the mix. As long as the bass that sounds good in your home practice room sounds good live (even if the comparison does not exactly match) - in like Flint. Live I hone it to a specific sonic delivery. At home I enjoy the intimate tone.

 

[JIO]

Because the internet says that it is.

Apparently you're attempting to be snarky/funny...

 

[tfer]

I've always heard that RW produces a warmer sound than maple. But I recently saw a You Tube video by a member here who brought out that RW is harder than maple, based on the Janka hardness scale. He suggested RW produces a brighter sound.

Janka Hardness chart for Exotic Wood and Domestic Wood | Bell Forest Products

Rosewood is much harder than maple, but it has an open grain, where maple and ebony are closed.

IME, open grain wood tends to 'soak up' higher frequencies.

I can hear the difference between all 3, and it's obvious, but when I play in a store I rarely plug in unless I'm buying. So electronics are not a factor.

 

[mikewalker]

I've pretty much played them all (several different kinds of maple, several different kinds of rosewood, pau ferro, ebony, maccassar ebony, the blackest of blackity-black pure jet black ebony ( seller said it was Gaboon - I'm not so sure, but I haven't seen any like it for 30 years now!) , ziricote, padouk, bocote, purpleheart, cocobolo, bubinga, zebrawood, snakewood, wenge, walnut, grenadillo, kingwood...) but my favorite fretboard "wood" is [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] (aka 'xxx paper phenolic")

 

[howlin]

IME this is utter silliness.

What? TalkBass?

 

[-Asdfgh-]

This video demonstrates pretty well what difference body and neck/fret board wood will do for your tone (especially notice how much the brown maple neck/fret board with ash body stands out. The newer Japan made bass with basswood body comes close in snapyness since basswood also is supposed to be mid heavy like ash, but still not quite there, as it lacks the maple fret board which is supposed to emphasis the treble and mids response as well.)

I guess Killed_by_Death is right though, won't make much of a noticeable difference in the mix.:

The pickups are not identical across the examples, so it's fairly meaningless in terms of determining any differences. There are youtube videos out there in which all electronics are the same, and strumming (on a guitar) is automated. No discernable audible difference with different neck fretboard woods or body woods.

My darkest sounding bass has a maple fretboard. It has different pickups.

About the only difference it's likely to make is in dead spots. But if the wood made a lot of difference to tone, then it would be a bad thing, as it would effectively mean your bass would have to be all dead spots.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

No sonic difference whatsoever, unless the placebo effect sways you significantly.

It will look different though, as long as your vision is in full working order.

Yes, I'd select for neck curvature, stability, fretwork and prettiness, not sound.