When you're intimately attached to your instrument you can notice the subtle differences, does that translate to others being able to? No. I can with mine, not because I'm an audiophile, but because I know my instrument. I'm not pushing the tonal differences in the wood, but they sound different to me, more when I'm unplugged or slapping, this does not translate into a major difference at volume. I think the biggest difference to me is the feel, maple feels slicker, faster & snappier to me. Could be my imagination, but it works for me. I have both maple & rosewood & neither affects my ability to play, it just comes down to preference. So feel free to 'scientifically' prove me wrong or insult me, I don't care if I'm right or wrong. I'ma do my thing with the thing the way I want to & think what I wanna think...
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Maple or Rosewood??
- Thread starter tat2clod
- Start date
I'll agree with those who say it makes a difference which may be heard but I think other aspects of a build matter much more. By way of example I have two USA STD P basses which would be identical except one has has an Allparts all-maple Jazz style neck installed, while the other has it's original maple/ rosewood neck, which is wider and has graphite stiffening bars. They sound quite different from each other, with the rosewood one being substantially brighter sounding. Go figure. I think this is due to overall neck construction differences nulling out whatever difference the board may make. Also note that rosewood is substantially harder and denser than maple, for what that's worth.
Caveat: I also have left ear damage from a 1984 Iron Maiden concert. *I* think I hear perfectly fine, but I know that there are some frequencies I just can't hear. They don't exist for me; my kids can hear them. Senses are funny - like how bees see some colours we can not. Makes me wonder how my voice "actually" sounds, but there's no way to communicate it to me as explanations will have no point of reference - like explaining the colour blue to someone who's been blind from birth - plus your perception of my voice is based on whatever flaws your hearing has in turn.
Having said that, Beethoven was nearly deaf but could still write masterpieces and could still tell a crappy piano from a good one. Other senses (like touch/vibration) supplement our hearing.
Having said that, Beethoven was nearly deaf but could still write masterpieces and could still tell a crappy piano from a good one. Other senses (like touch/vibration) supplement our hearing.
The 'best post of the year' award goes to... BurningSkies most obviously! Don't say he didn't warn you all!. You had to keep going didn't you? Paid the price too!
You all had to look at this long list & realize how 'feakin' redundant this thread is...
Serves you all right I say..Either way, BurningSkies deserves our undying respect for helping this post remain humourous. Mucha thank you!!
Marc
Rookie to this sight, far from a newbie player. Thanx for the enlightenment. This is far from the end apparently as history tends to repeat itself. Gidja...The 'best post of the year' award goes to... BurningSkies most obviously! Don't say he didn't warn you all!. You had to keep going didn't you? Paid the price too!
Either way, BurningSkies deserves our undying respect for helping this post remain humourous. Mucha thank you!!
Marc
the metal frets are not suspended in air. they rely on being mounted in the fret board in order to maintain their position. A really soft material like rubber will make the strings deader because the fretted end of the string, relying on the fret to "stop" the string, will lose energy through the fret to the rubber. The same fret mounted to steel will lose almost no energy to the fretboard, so will sustain longer. This is a simple model, and of course the differnce in woods is not that great. But ebony is a very hard dense wood. Rosewood is soft in comparison.
BTW all this talk of people who hear NO difference is actually uplifting to me in a way. I get kind of depressed about my hearing loss sometimes. I used to have really, really good hearing. I could hear all kinds of harmonic overtones that I don't now. Good pianos have amazing upper harmonics. Door creaks do too actually, well some do. Bird songs have them. Havent heard any of that in years since I blew away a lot of my hearing with loud music, and plus the age related upper freq loss. So I get kind of bummed when I think about it.
But I can still clearly hear the difference between an ebony, maple and rosewood fretboards. Thats why I own one of each! I can console myself that while I cant hear those upper partials anymore. I still have good detail in the limited range I do hear. And for those of you that are younger and/or havent blown out all your upper range. How can you not hear it? Ebony and maple are similar to each other, but rosewood is way different sounding. It even kind of rounds off the attack a bit. Pau Ferro is an odd duck because it looks like soft rosewood, but it is as hard sounding as ebony.
Have a look at this. "A dramatic and shocking demonstration of how your brain gets fooled to see something that is not there because of your biases, prejudices and expectations"
Youtube Simon Singh "stairway to heaven" "a dramatic demonstration of the power of mental frames" posted by velango (can't work out how to get the link up on here)
This really freaked me out, because I really could hear the words in what had previously seemed like a load of mush.
I don't think it's too much of a leap to imagine a situation where someone sees a maple board and his perception of the sound is coloured by the received wisdom on maple boards, rather than it's happening to be a snappy-sounding bass.
I've even seen Sad owners say how surprised they were when their RV5 turned out to be brighter than their MV5 - instruments DO sound different from each other of course, but I don't think you can automatically say what one will sound like by looking at the woods it's made from, especially not just the fretboard
And Alrod - you think I'm sarcastic because I say people really believe they can hear something that others can't? Surely that's better than what you accused me of saying - that they're liars? You also say "why do you bother posting on threads about tone if you can't even hear the difference?...What value are you adding?" I thought it was a debate, so I thought the fact that several people hear no difference is pertinent to that debate. I've never said all instruments sound the same, only that I think the warmoth-type list of ingredients for a tone recipe is simplistic to say the least, and, by the way, the guy who's opinions you are so disparaging about is a master luthier who has personal experience of building instruments from different woods going back 30 years - once again, because he doesn't agree with your beliefs, you resort to ad hominem arguments - "sounds like an assembly line worker to me", and the implication that he must be deaf.
Anyone who disagrees with you gets some sort of abuse.
If you do a count up, it looks like most say that if the fretboard wood does make a difference, it's insignificant compared with differences caused by other factors. So it comes down to "I can hear it, you can't, so there must be something wrong with your hearing" again.
One big circle.
Again.
Youtube Simon Singh "stairway to heaven" "a dramatic demonstration of the power of mental frames" posted by velango (can't work out how to get the link up on here)
This really freaked me out, because I really could hear the words in what had previously seemed like a load of mush.
I don't think it's too much of a leap to imagine a situation where someone sees a maple board and his perception of the sound is coloured by the received wisdom on maple boards, rather than it's happening to be a snappy-sounding bass.
I've even seen Sad owners say how surprised they were when their RV5 turned out to be brighter than their MV5 - instruments DO sound different from each other of course, but I don't think you can automatically say what one will sound like by looking at the woods it's made from, especially not just the fretboard
And Alrod - you think I'm sarcastic because I say people really believe they can hear something that others can't? Surely that's better than what you accused me of saying - that they're liars? You also say "why do you bother posting on threads about tone if you can't even hear the difference?...What value are you adding?" I thought it was a debate, so I thought the fact that several people hear no difference is pertinent to that debate. I've never said all instruments sound the same, only that I think the warmoth-type list of ingredients for a tone recipe is simplistic to say the least, and, by the way, the guy who's opinions you are so disparaging about is a master luthier who has personal experience of building instruments from different woods going back 30 years - once again, because he doesn't agree with your beliefs, you resort to ad hominem arguments - "sounds like an assembly line worker to me", and the implication that he must be deaf.
Anyone who disagrees with you gets some sort of abuse.
If you do a count up, it looks like most say that if the fretboard wood does make a difference, it's insignificant compared with differences caused by other factors. So it comes down to "I can hear it, you can't, so there must be something wrong with your hearing" again.
One big circle.
Again.
Even the same bass will sound different at different times of the day.
Everyone that has posted has made good points, it's a subject that people have different opinions on and that's ok.
At the end of the day, the only important thing is the music, no matter what tools you use, as long as you are happy and true to yourself.
Even though it's a dead horse, I like the dialogue of this thread. I'm all for people disagreeing with me, that's what makes us unique.
Everyone that has posted has made good points, it's a subject that people have different opinions on and that's ok.
At the end of the day, the only important thing is the music, no matter what tools you use, as long as you are happy and true to yourself.
Even though it's a dead horse, I like the dialogue of this thread. I'm all for people disagreeing with me, that's what makes us unique.
I have basses with both, but love the sound I get out of my Fender Dlx pictured, but does it really sound any different than the RW? Sometimes I think the mind associates sound with color, example -lighter color= more trebly tone, or darker color= more deeper mello tone , is this fact, don't know might be all perception. Who knows. Love them both though, and you can't go wrong either way!
