Favorite Type Of Neck?????

[MAXIFUNK]

What is your favorite type of neck fretboard?
Maple, Rosewood, Ebony, or Exotic wood what do love what do you hate?

I currently have 3 maple and 3 rosewood and a borrowed LP with Ebony fretboard. I am starting to lean towards maple and ebony as my favorites.

[Katastrophe]

I like maple fretboards.... But, I wouldn't pass up a guitar just because it had a different wood on the fretboard. It's all about overall tone!

[Eric]

I don't know why, but I really dislike maple fretboards. Rosewood or Ebony are great, but I just can't get behind maple.

[hubberjub]

I have all three on various guitars. I like how smooth the ebony or maple (because of the finish) feels as compared to rosewood. It's not enough to make me want to get rid of my rosewood board guitars. I like the look of maple boards on Fenders. I don't like that they tend to put such a heavy finish on over the board. It doesn't feel natural. Maple looks really cool when it starts to wear. My 1991 Strat has worn through the finish on the fret board and is starting to discolor.

[Tone2TheBone]

I got one of each. It's all good.

[Bloozcat]

Yes, all of the above....

I've got examples of all four listed and like each of them. Too many variables to consider just one wood without limiting the criteria to one or two guitars. Now, if you said, "Which fretboard do you like best on a Stratocaster or a Tele", then I could give a more specific, detailed answer.

I know, I'm very technical about things like this...;)

[sumitomo]

Yep! I likes 'em all too,but isn't this guitar related?Sumi:D

[deeaa]

I voted maple, although most of my guitars have rosewood fretboards and I wouldn't change them to maple. For general use, if I could only have one guitar I'd probably go rosewood, but I still like the feel of maple the nicest for lively lead playing especially...it's just not for all kind of playing.

[marnold]

I've always liked maple, but it is a purely aesthetic thing for me. I despise the ones that have a deep amber tint to them, though.

I will say that a fretless bass with an epoxied ebony fretboard is awfully sexy.

[Jimi75]

I used to believe in the magic power of maple...years and years ago, but in the end I figured it all doesn't matter, to me at least.

I am pretty much with Marnold regarding the aesthetics.

[Perfect Stranger]

Maple may look cooler, but nothing beat the playability of ebony!

[Katastrophe]

I will say that a fretless bass with an epoxied ebony fretboard is awfully sexy.


You are absolutely right about that. Can't play one worth a darn, but they are pretty!

[sunvalleylaw]

I really, really like my maple board on my strat. I like the Hagstrom board too though. It is their proprietary synthetic that is made to be like ebony. Very smooth and consistent, and easy to play. I have never owned a rosewood board on an electric, but I love the one on my Martin acoustic. Warm. So I guess I pick all of the above, depending on the guitar and if I like it overall.

[wingsdad]

Glossed Maple board/hard rock maple neck gets my vote. It has nothing to do with looks, because I don't play with my eyes. It's for for the slick feel, ease of slides & bends & pushes & pulloffs, light touch and ease of maintenance. That's why my #1 for 30 years,the one electric guitar I'd hang onto if I had to shuck all the rest, is my STRAT.

[sunvalleylaw]

. . . .if I had to shuck all the rest, is my STRAT.

That is my "gun to the head" answer too, my maple fretboard strat, though mine is semigloss.

[wingsdad]

I can certainly understand why folks prefer semi-gloss or no gloss on a maple board, since the gloss tends to 'kill' sustain and add brightness...which maple does anyway, especially compared to rosewood, while ebony is pretty much in between the two...hard enough to have some slickness, soft enough to have some warmth.

Bear in mind that Leo Fender originally went with maple on the Tele and Strat as those guitars were designed with input and field testing by Southern California Country Western players, including his partner George Fullerton. It was also cheap and easy, simple to work with. No dummy, when his marketers told him players wanted less bite and more meat as the 60's rolled in and the Les Paul was stealing market, he relented and started spending some money gluing rosewood slabs on.

[MAXIFUNK]

I can certainly understand why folks prefer semi-gloss or no gloss on a maple board, since the gloss tends to 'kill' sustain and add brightness...

See this may just answer something I have wondered about for a while.
My pink paisley strat is by far the best sounding clean tone guitar I own.
I thought that the bigger neck or pickups where the main reason for this. But it does a highly glossed neck so they may pay an even bigger part in to it's tone than I had ever considered before reading your comment WD.

[kiteman]

Does ebony really have a finish over them? I thought they're just hard almost like maple.

Anyway I like ebony but I like rosewood too and they have their purposes. Ebony have the softness of the rosewood and the hardness of the maple (does that make sense?) I have two guitars with ebony and one guitar with rosewood and I can feel/hear the difference. Sometimes I switch the guitars depending on the songs.

I had a guitar with maple and it was nice but rather bright but then it's a tele and that what makes a tele a tele. :)

[deeaa]

I am very interested in what are the things that make guitars sound clearly different from each other. Of course everything has an impact, but by and large most changes that players seem to accredit much in sonic quality are rather small or easily counteracted. These include body wood type, which really seems to have very little effect (it seems layers/combination structures, seams etc. make much more of a difference than wood material itself), bridge type (a floyd can definitely sustain just as well as a gibson type bridge although few seem to believe it) and, in many cases, pickup differences are often exaggerated.

BUT it seems to me neck materials and construction can have a surprisingly strong impact on an electric's sound.

I would really want to find out what makes my two strats so different in sound, but it does appear that the one with all-maple neck is clearly spankier and lively and cuts thru better, while still has just as warm and good a sound otherwise.

The two are identical in all but these aspects:

- All-maple vs. maple/rosewood neck
- superlight zinc block vs. zinc block
- no pickguard, 1 pickup vs. two pickups with hardware inside.

It could well be that the neck is what makes the biggest difference. In that, though, I wonder if that is due more to it being one piece vs. two piece than the fretboard material, really.

It would make a LOT of sense to me that a neck made of a single piece of wood would vibrate much more freely and consistently, and better transform the sound throughout the instrument/affect the way strings vibrate with the vibration. And conversely a glued on fretboard would act as a vibration dampening layer as the two wood surfaces don't vibrate exactly the same and thus dampen each other. This would seem to be confirmed by my other guitar that has a maple neck BUT not one piece, but maple/birdseye maple glued together AND headstock also glued, so it's 3 piece really. And even with same pickup, not nearly as spanky as the one with 1-piece maple.

This effect, I believe, is what makes a Les Paul sound different from the others, the maple cap vibrates differently from the body mahogany and dampens certain higher frequencies giving the les its signature midrangey warm sound.

All in all, it is my belief that the biggest changes in electric guitar sound (aside the action and intonation, pickup height and the actual pickup position and tone etc. controls - these are the key aspects always) - can be found in things directly related to string vibration and the way strings act in relation to the rest of the hardware. These include:

- Pickup type (single, bucker, active, passive, p-90, power etc,)
- Scale
- Headstock and bridge tilt, i.e. is it straight and 90 degree at one end like strat or 20 or so degrees cantilever like on gibsons
- nut installation and material
- bridge material, including the block
- and now, the neck construction it seems...

[otaypanky]

I have all of them and love them all. I don't have a favorite. I am sure folks are correct about each different fretboard wood contributing to the sound of the instrument. But a number of times over the years I have had people comment on the fact that they have seen and heard me play using all different types of guitars and different amps and that I always have the same tone. One guy even asked how I did that ~ lol.
Anyway, I guess whatever slight difference in tone a particular wood may contribute to the tone, the input of the player and a tweak of a knob makes
negligible.