Necks: Maple or Rosewood?

[Katastrophe]

It's a good thing this thread was resurrected...

For my money, from here on out, I will be buying guitars with maple FBs. My rosewood guitars are great, but they just don't have the "feel" that the Strat neck does.

[Lev]

Can I be different and say I prefer Rosewood!!

[tunghaichuan***]

I find that rosewood is warm, maple is bright. I primarily play Fender strats and/or copies. With stock, bright single coils, I like to use a rosewood board; it takes some of the edge off of the pickups.

My main guitar has a maple neck with a separate maple fretboard. The pickups are Seymour Duncan Hot Stack Strats which aren't as bright as true single coils as they are stacked single coil sized humbuckers. I find the brightness of the maple neck compliments the pickups. Although, I've never tried it, I'd think that single coils would be too bright in that guitar.

tung

[tot_Ou_tard]

Depends on the ax, solid body single coils want maple and semi-hollows work well with rosewood.

That's my opinion.

[sunvalleylaw]

Can I be different and say I prefer Rosewood!!

But of course! Different is good! And I like the sound of everything you have posted with that nice rosewood fretboard strat you play.

I find I waffle on this question and come back to "it depends". On my Fully, that I want to be basically a garage rocker guitar with some versatility, I want the rosewood. When I tried strats when I was buying last year, the Highway One strat I passed up in favor of mine had a rosewood fretboard and was much duskier in tone. I chose the brighter, chimier strat I have. Other things like pups and body finish, etc. may have contributed to that perceived difference. So I left my vote for both the same. If I had to take one guitar only, I pick maple.

[Plank_Spanker]

While maple is nice and has it's place, I prefer rosewood - or better yet ebony. Two of my Gibsons have ebony boards and I love the feel of it. I think rosewood sounds great on Strats. It sorta tames the wild side highs they tend towards.

[pes_laul]

depends on the guitar and music you like maple goes good on strats rosewood goes good on ibanez except for the 350MGX which is awsome