Why do, if you do, prefer one fingerboard material over the others?

[Greenman72]

I like the color of the rosewood. That is all.

BUT - I have to agree with whoever said it before me: the headstock should either match the body or the fretboard. You should NOT have a beautiful "dark night" colored instrument with a rosewood fingerboard and an orange headstock. (Talking to you,Fender.).

 

[BioDriver]

Maple for aesthetics and ease of care (e.g. I don't need to oil it like I do rosewood or wenge)

 

[Jogobass]

Ebony for a fretless fingerboard. Because traditionally string instruments have been having ebony boards for hundreds of years. Some will disagree but I think I can recognize ebony on a fretless by sound alone. Epoxy coated woods sound similar but lack warmth. Rosewood is softer and it sounds like it has different mids in its character.

 

[dustinymichaels]

My old eyes feel more comfortable with a darker board. It helps me see the strings better than a lighter background. I like ALL of the variety of tones though.

Good point. I'm getting old eyes, too!

 

[bobba66]

I like maple because it reminds me of waffles.

 

[Cleezmo]

I have and play maple, rosewood, composite (Modulus), and ebony (fretless).

For fretless, I prefer ebony - I've had rosewood boards on previous fretless instruments, and I like ebony better.

For fretted - it almost doesn't matter; I like them all, but if I had to pick one, I'd probably pick satin maple. Looks good, feels fast, all good. But at this point aesthetics will probably be the deciding factor on fretboard for my next bass.

The only type of board I've tried that I actively dislike is GLOSS maple. I do not like the gloss board feel - yeah, I know, I'm not supposed to actually 'feel' the board because of strings and frets, but whatever - it feels weird to me.

 

[RGerhart]

I used to have a strong preference for rosewood, but I guess I'm kind of a fingerboard whore at this point--they're all great in my book. They each have their own sound and feel, so I can appreciate them all.

I definitely still lean towards rosewood and ebony, but a good maple 'board is great, too.

 

[bigdaddybass12]

Not maple, GC had a beautiful Fender P bass, great price, maple fretboard. Played it, had to put back on the wall. Maple just doesn't look right !!

 

[J Wilson]

For me, maple is OK (IF it's a separate fingerboard, 1-piece necks are iffy for me unless the wood was very carefully selected), rosewood or pau ferro or laurel is my sweet spot, and I really like ebony for strength and endurance (and sometimes, on the right bass with really good ears, you can hear a little high-end zing from it).

One place it really shows up is on the price scale: My Squiers, the fingerboards are barely more than veneer depth, all the way to the Alembics with a solid 1/4" ebony fingerboard. Regardless of the wood, I find the thicker the fingerboard, the more stable they generally behave, regardless of the wood selected.

 

[Hot Rats]

Ebony and rosewood for the look. Occasionally maple but It has to be on a very specific body and color.

 

[tbz]

The Indian Laurel everyone is using seems like garbage.

It is. I first heard about that material in a Guitar World article in the 90s that explained how sub $100 bargain tier off brand guitars were made.

At time of publication, even $200 squires came with actual rosewood.

 

[Lowbrow]

Rosewood on a P Bass cause it looks cooler.

 

[Nightsprinter]

Re: the laurel talk -

I'm not a big fan. But much like pau ferro for me, it depends on the slab you wind up with. Some look very nice, many look cheap, pale, and dry. I briefly bought (and sent back- not due to the fretboard quality-separate qc issues) 3 separate mtd import basses which all had the Indian laurel. 2 of them had boards that looked quite nice, 1 of them was markedly less attractive. I think laurel can be kinda bland looking. Like an old barn door. Apparently bay leaf comes from laurel trees. I like those quite a bit more than the wood.

 

[cnltb]

I'm used to brazilian rosewood.
No need to have something else on the next one.

 

[mindwell]

Rosewood. Because it's harder and I can hear a difference in how it SOUNDS.

 

[staurosjohn]

For me itsa 'color-match' and/or what's available I added the Squier (Cali Blue w/maple) since the group shot

 

[shirojiro]

I used to prefer rosewood, but I like both fingerboard woods. I feel like maple is a little more snappy, but it's subtle and could all be in my head.

The only fingerboard that I didn't like was the synthetic one that came on a Squier VM Fretless Jazz bass, the one that looked like Jaco's bass. That board felt too bright and clicky to me.

 

[58kites]

Ebony for a fretless fingerboard. Because traditionally string instruments have been having ebony boards for hundreds of years. Some will disagree but I think I can recognize ebony on a fretless by sound alone. Epoxy coated woods sound similar but lack warmth. Rosewood is softer and it sounds like it has different mids in its character.

Rosewood and Ebony are closer to each other in hardness than Rosewood is to Hard Maple.
Rock Maple 1450 Janka Hardness
Brazilian Rosewood 2790 Janka Harness
African Ebony 3080 Janka Hardness

It should be harder to discern Rosewood from Ebony but most people that talk about hearing fretboards (on fretted electric basses with lots of different pickups and string and amps) say things about Maple (like "it's snappy") to indicate how hard Maple sounds and how soft Rosewood sounds.
It seems that most people have heard that Ebony is hard.
I don't think anybody can tell the three apart from each other in a blind test on the 34" scale fretted electric bass.
Ebony gets used for fretless basses because roundwound electric bass strings could theoretically do most damage to Maple less with Rosewood and least with Ebony.

 

[58kites]

For me itsa 'color-match' and/or what's available

View attachment 5289973

All I can say for sure is that you have nice basses!

 

[Discount Bassy]

I'm a big fan of the sonic properties inherent exclusively to phenolic fingerboards, even though I can't hear or quantify any of them. On fretted instruments, it sounds like a fretted instrument. On my fretless, it sounds like a fretless instrument. That being said, care and maintenance are also pretty easy.