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Rosewood vs. Maple vs. Ebony? Help me choose.

#81
To me, rosewood is warmer than maple & maple is faster than rosewood. To my bassplaying buddy, there is no difference in tone but rosewood is faster than maple. We have both been playing for 30+ years.

Goes to show you that there is no accounting for personal taste in spite of all the expert opinions.
 
#82
basswave said:
Thanks for Acknowledgment Resin.
BTW: How do you like that MC 5-fin bonzer (I have 3 of them and love them) Ops sorry wrong forum. :hiding:
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Haha, well I have 2 Bonzers, one of them is the best board I have ever owned, when the waves pick up over at newbreak... the other one I don't think they finished shaping the fins... the profile is all weird and it doesn't turn well, I need to shave them down a little. But yeah, that's other discussion for other place. :D
 
#83
WarriorJoe7 said:
hardness and stiffness are 2 different things. Hardness would affect how easily you can dent the fingerboard. Stiffness would affect many bassists perception of the solidness of the bassneck.

Carvin's necks for instance always feel very stiff like a graphite neck. There might be other factors but certainly the thick ebony board is one.

though hadness probably does have some minimal effect on sound (this sould seem impossible to test) I would imagine stiffness to be much more influential.


And this is a little off topic, and is realted to the fact that stiffness and hardness do not correlate at all. Some stiff woods are not suited for fingerboards because they are not hard enough to hold frets in place. Some hard woods are not used because they are not stiff enough to support the neck (may eventually warp.) In short just because a wood can be bent easily doesn't mean it can be dented easily and vice versa.

Furthermore if you guys are going to go look for numbers... look for stiffness not hardness
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Well, this list: http://woodmonsters.net/stiffnesschart.aspx

shows rosewood (Brazilian) to also be stiffer than maple. So it is both harder and stiffer. That still seems contrary to the conventional wisdom that rosewood is warmer than maple.
 
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#84
dvh said:
Well, this list: http://woodmonsters.net/stiffnesschart.aspx

shows rosewood (Brazilian) to also be stiffer than maple. So it is both harder and stiffer. That still seems contrary to the conventional wisdom that rosewood is warmer than maple.
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stiffness and warmness have nothing to do with each other. Stiffness has to do with how the neck feels. warmness has to do with how the wood sounds. No correlation.
 
#86
Thanks all for the advice; this turned into a huge discussion... you got to love this forum. After adding the options I wanted the ebony neck became unaffordable. I went to GC to try out maple because I never had. Being a lefty I played 3 upside down basses, one rose fretless and two J basses, one maple and one rose neck. Hard to tell if the difference in tone was due to the bass or my trying to hard to hear a difference. However, I think I slightly prefer the rosewood in most categories, feel, tone, appearance. I ordered the peg face to match my black body and a vintage tint satin finish and narrow but tall frets. the frets are close to standard "Jumbo" height but narrower, I figured this would make muting the strings easier. Am I correct? Should I call and switch to Jumbos before its to late?
 
#90
There will be cases where a rosewood board will be bright than a maple board, and vice versa- there are so many different variables, even down to the tree that was harvested... really have to try 'em out to make the determinations-
 
#91
Real, african, black ebony is rare and very expensive; I would check to make sure that the ebony is real and its more than a paper thin veneer.

I prefer maple as it is easier to "see" and much less common than rosewood. Some makers, like Phantom for example, won't even talk to you about a custom in maple.

My Fender USA Deluxe Ash Jazz Bass has the natural ash body, the maple neck, maple fretboard and head and the black pickguard and matches my '52 Tele- very old school.

All of my other basses - German Hofner, '65 VOX Cougar , & Fender Jaguar have rosewood fretboards.

As for sounding different? I wish I had that good an ear; between string choices, pickup choices, setups, amp varieties, equalizers, etc. it seems you can almost make any bass sound like another.

I like the suggestion of going with what looks the best to you. Of course, if you want that "road worn" look after a few decades of playing the same bass, go with maple.
 
#94
otis_thick said:
On our neck through body instruments, the top and body woods have very little effect on the tone. Since the strings don't go over a neck joint.....
Most of our instruments have a Honduras Mahogany (Swietinia macrophylla) body. Mahogany is a very neutral wood, both in color and sound, and allows for flexibilty in top wood choices as well as consistency of tone from bass to bass
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That's just marketing talk. It's just not physically possible. Either wood makes a difference or it doesn't. If you believe it does, as this Alembic dude obviously does, how can there be a "neutral" wood? Mahogany will have its sound just like every other wood. Who decides what wood is "neutral" and what woods are not?

There are guys on this board who claim all kinds of things about the sonic properties of mahogany.

Just sayin'..........
 
#96
I'm surprised no one has pointed out that Roger Sadowsky has weighed in on TB several times that he feels the fingerboard wood makes a bigger contribution to tonal characteristics than body wood. A brief search ought to yield his posts.

When I was ordering a Sadowsky, Kevin Drexeler was quite adamant about the differences between fingerboard woods. I was was determined to get ebony because that is what is on my double bass. Then I stumbled upon this:

Link Removed click on GS5 in the upper left, and you will get sound clips for different fingerboard woods.

I ended up getting Brazilian Rosewood, and it has the warm sound I was seeking. Not cheap. :eek:
 
#98
dvh said:
So what makes rosewood warmer sounding then? We now know that rosewood is both harder and stiffer than maple, which we all know is brighter. ;)
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I think it's the combination of oils in the rosewood and finish on maple that make rosewood sound warmer on average, probably mostly the oils in rosewood because the fret is seated below the finish on maple. And let me stress the phrase "on average." I have less experience than many here, but I notice a little extra "snap" and an occasional "snarl" from maple that I haven't detected on my basses with rosewood boards.
 

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