I'm lusting for an unlined maple fretless.......clean slate...
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You are correct twinjet, he said he does not know why. I guess its hard for me to have an aversion to something and not know why. So I ask your pardon and I sit corrected.
I find ebony boards to be bright and articulate sounding. On darker sounding setups, this is a definite plus, and can really cut through a mix. On setups that are already bright sounding, it can easily become too much.
- Sep 8, 2015
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- Endorsed by Fusion ( maker of killer gig bags)
I've seen pink ivory Fingerboards
Exactly the opposite for me. Maple, especially Birdseye maple is right on the money for me. Both ebony, and maple are extremely hard hardwoods. I really am interested in why I don't seem to have any love for ebony boards. I've never tried a bass with a Madagascar ebony board. Could be I just haven't played enough basses with different wood combinations. I would love to own a Smith. I was looking really hard at a few Smiths recently, but the ebony boards on the Smiths was the deal breaker.
Well, in theory, broccoli dried, compressed, and mixed with the proper compounds could make viable composite fretboard material. And it might retain some of it's cool green color.
Although asparagus would probably be stronger due to it's fiberous nature.
OP - have you tried an Alembic? Their default fingerboard material is ebony, and it feels fantastic (to me anyway).
You know you don't actually have the freedom to say whatever you want on a privately owned website, right?
- Sep 8, 2015
- 1,120
- 1,050
- 49
- Disclosures
- Endorsed by Fusion ( maker of killer gig bags)
Broccoli talk is dangerous around me, I'll dehydrate it into a powder and snort it. Popeye is my hero though to be honest.. I like maple boards both because of looks and sound, if I were into the look of rosewood I would go with ebony for its sound qualities. Hey I like a dark beer sometimes, maybe I'll try a ebony bass one day. (immediately visits carvin/ "kiesel" custom shop site and starts designing a headless vader)
- Sep 8, 2015
- 1,120
- 1,050
- 49
- Disclosures
- Endorsed by Fusion ( maker of killer gig bags)
An interesting fact around ebony, is that in the early 90's when Stuart Hamm was developing the Urge bass with Fender, they tried an ebony fretboard as that's what the Kubicki Ex Factors that Stuart played had. They thought the result sounded too bright so they went for Pau Ferro instead.
Does this explain how when I've owned a guitar with a ebony board it developed a dry white powdery look after a while? Do they need to excessively dry ebony weeks prior to effective building guitars with it?
Thread title should be updated to: why do I hate ebony fingerboards? (and a random consensus on broccoli)
