Rosewood/Maple Finger Boards - Tone difference?

[brandonwong]

Whoa, tone differences MAYBE, but action? How exactly does Ebony allow for a lower action than any other wood board?

To my own experience, i have also experienced this as most of my maple necks resonate more and buzz a little more easily than my ebony or wenge type fingerboard.

This maybe due to the fac that ebony more fundamental tone to it whereas maple causes the neck to resonate more.

Luthiers, any clues?

 

[Fretless5verfan]

I would also like to throw out that callouses make a difference in the attack. If a very experienced player had really developed leathery callouses, it would sound very different than that same player with bare fingers. This is accentuated the lighter you play.

I think the same is true with fingernails vs. no fingernails. I think your attack sounds a little plectrum-like if you have them.

 

[Akami]

There was a guy at a Namm show a couple of years ago that had a few Basses made of some sort of stone.the sonic out put had more of a compressed focus with a very soft edge to it but I'm more than sure other key elements played a part in the tone as well.


there's also is a company that makes solid stone guitars and they are heavy.


can any one tell the difference if a guitar player was using a nylon,graphite,copper,brass,etc. pic all the same gauge

I remember reading something about those, but can you imagine what they weigh!

I don't know if I could tell what pick someone else was using but I hate metal or nylon picks, my favorite being plastic for sound.
Anyway I use tortex picks. Kind of a combination between the sound of plastic with the durability of nylon.

 

[JAUQO III-X]

I remember reading something about those, but can you imagine what they weigh!

The Basses and the guitars that I picked up were very heavy.

as far as picks go I use Dunlop nylon .38mm

 

[Sadowsky]

The fretboard absolutely makes no difference in sound. Fretting and playability yeah, but think about it. The pickups are down in the body, that is where you get the tonal differences in your wood on the bass. When a note is played on a fretted instrument, it is pushing off of metal, that is where the vibration ends. You cannot get any different tone from a different fretboard only different playability. The neck however can probably make a difference.

Absolute nonsense. How can the neck "probably make a difference" and the fingerboard doesn't????? I am in the position of basically building the same bass over and over and I can absolutely, positively tell you that maple is much brighter than rosewood and ebony has the most punch. Most people never get that opportunity. You can't compare apples to oranges on this one. I have nothing to gain by advocating one fingerboard over the other--it just is a fact. Show me a quote from any reputable bass builder who says otherwise.

Roger

 

[JAUQO III-X]

maple is much brighter than rosewood and ebony has the most punch. Most people never get that opportunity.

Thank you Roger.

 

[SamJ]

Absolute nonsense. How can the neck "probably make a difference" and the fingerboard doesn't????? I am in the position of basically building the same bass over and over and I can absolutely, positively tell you that maple is much brighter than rosewood and ebony has the most punch. Most people never get that opportunity. You can't compare apples to oranges on this one. I have nothing to gain by advocating one fingerboard over the other--it just is a fact. Show me a quote from any reputable bass builder who says otherwise.

Roger

Roger, this is interesting.. I had always thought ebony was the brightest. so I guess not.. This is good to know! Good to have true experts on this board, and not just know-it-alls.

 

[Drake Kennedy]

Absolute nonsense. How can the neck "probably make a difference" and the fingerboard doesn't????? I am in the position of basically building the same bass over and over and I can absolutely, positively tell you that maple is much brighter than rosewood and ebony has the most punch. Most people never get that opportunity. You can't compare apples to oranges on this one. I have nothing to gain by advocating one fingerboard over the other--it just is a fact. Show me a quote from any reputable bass builder who says otherwise.

Roger

Although I respectfully disagree with your opinion on the fingerboard making the most difference, you hit the nail on the head there.

 

[BassinGas]

I am no pro but have had a few 100 basses in my hands over the last 40 years and found that all guitars are different. Same model, same company, same year, same wood, same pups, same amp, diiferent sound if you listen really hard with a blindfold. I just seem to like them in the first 15 seconds or put them down. Lately some of the cheaper models have impressed me more then the big buck units. I don't know, is this a trend? I don't get it why so many praise certain pieces when I only see beauty but hear mud, buzz, humm and flat spots???

 

[westland]

When a note is played on a fretted instrument, it is pushing off of metal, that is where the vibration ends. You cannot get any different tone from a different fretboard only different playability. The neck however can probably make a difference.

This quote seems to capture the reasoning behind the 'fretboard doesn't matter' side of this argument. Obviously this is false, because every fret, piece of wood, and so forth on a bass is glued or screwed onto everything else. The vibration does not stop at the fret unless you acoustically isolate it (with a foot of air for example). But instead you glue and wedge frets into the wood so they vibrate as one. The density and elasticity of the fretboard essentially determines how the string and fret vibrate. Everything is acoustically coupled on a bass, and the entire instruments vibration patterns (tone) depend on all of the components.

 

[Bassist30]

Rosewood/Maple Finger Boards - Tone difference?

I don't know if anybody gave this site yet but you can read a nice article by Mike Tobias

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[jobo4]

Absolute nonsense. How can the neck "probably make a difference" and the fingerboard doesn't????? I am in the position of basically building the same bass over and over and I can absolutely, positively tell you that maple is much brighter than rosewood and ebony has the most punch. Most people never get that opportunity. You can't compare apples to oranges on this one. I have nothing to gain by advocating one fingerboard over the other--it just is a fact. Show me a quote from any reputable bass builder who says otherwise.

Roger

It seems Roger put the skids to this debate. So from now on when I listen to the Roots bassist Hub, I'll make sure to note the zingy, bright tone he gets from his maple boarded jazz and Geddy Lee's deep, rich tone from his rosewood boarded Ric.

With respect to Roger's incredible talent and superb quality control, we do have ears, and his opinion is not the end of the matter.

 

[Sadowsky]

Again, apples to apples please. You can't compare the tone of a Jazz bass to a Ric! Of course a Ric will sound brighter, regardless of woods.

Roger

 

[galaxis]

I just got through posting that Spalted Maple bodies have no effect on sound. But I must admit that I feel maple fretboards sound a heck of a lot brighter than rosewood. I only like maple. Once I tried one, I never went back.
And you guys arguing about searching vs replying....cmon, just answer the guy, he took the time to ask you a question. Include your link as well, but say what you feel and do't be rude to the guy!
Steve

PS -please read my Sukop post and help me with my polish problem!

 

[paulraphael]

Aparently Leo Fender once made a guitar out of a granite tabletop (for experimental purposes, not for gigging ... i assume). because it had so little resonance in the audible frequencies, it came pretty close to giving the pure sound of the strings and pickups: metalic, bright, and with sustain that went on for minutes.

It supported the idea that someone brought up that a lot of the wood's contibution is subtractive. And like most people are saying, it plays a huge role in how the strings resonate, sustain, and ultimately sound.

I trust Roger's experience with the different kinds of fingerboard woods. Probably when you hear things that don't jibe with this, it's because it's not an apples/apples comparison. there are so many other variables in design and construction and even the variances from one piece of the same kind of wood to another.

as a sidenote, I sent a bass back to G&L because it had an outrageous dead spot on one note. They replaced the neck with a brand new one. When it came back, it had a less dead dead spot, but the deadness had spread to the neighboring fret. What did I learn from this? Life is complicated.

 

[markjazzbassist]

ill just echo what everyone else says

rosewood = dark and warm

maple = brighter and cuts more

 

[Fretless5verfan]

It seems Roger put the skids to this debate. So from now on when I listen to the Roots bassist Hub, I'll make sure to note the zingy, bright tone he gets from his maple boarded jazz and Geddy Lee's deep, rich tone from his rosewood boarded Ric.

With respect to Roger's incredible talent and superb quality control, we do have ears, and his opinion is not the end of the matter.

That is the silliest thing i've heard in a long time lol. You can't even compare an Ash J to an Alder J and have it be a fair comparison, let alone a J and a freakin' Ric!! Come on!

 

[jzucker]

Absolute nonsense. How can the neck "probably make a difference" and the fingerboard doesn't????? I am in the position of basically building the same bass over and over and I can absolutely, positively tell you that maple is much brighter than rosewood and ebony has the most punch. Most people never get that opportunity. You can't compare apples to oranges on this one. I have nothing to gain by advocating one fingerboard over the other--it just is a fact. Show me a quote from any reputable bass builder who says otherwise.

Roger

Thanks Roger. That's what I've been saying all along but somehow an entire school of (un)thought has come along suggesting that the woods used don't make a difference. My suspicion is that it's simply a justification for the 10-top and 20 lam bodies folks are having made. My theory has always been that just because a wood looks great doesn't mean it belongs on an instrument. There's a reason that most of the best bass and guitar tones we've heard have been on a relatively small set of wood combinations.

 

[jzucker]

With respect to Roger's incredible talent and superb quality control, we do have ears, and his opinion is not the end of the matter.

But his experience carries a lot of weight. Many times in these forums folks want to beat their chest and claim that everyone's opinions are equally valid. Sure, in an utopian world Roger's opin is no more valid than a kid who's been playing 5 months and wearing a hockey mask for gigs but in the real world, folks like Roger who have not only been in the trenches but are making instruments for hundreds (if not thousands) of folks in the trenches carries more weight.

Sorry to be politically incorrect but that's just the way it is.

You can still have your opinion but in an open forum, someone's qualifications give their opinion more or less weight...

 

[Fretless5verfan]

Thanks Roger. That's what I've been saying all along but somehow an entire school of (un)thought has come along suggesting that the woods used don't make a difference. My suspicion is that it's simply a justification for the 10-top and 20 lam bodies folks are having made.

Not likely being that they usually spend just as much if not more time picking a body wood than a top...explicitly for tone reasons.