Rosewood VS Ebony Fingerboard

[cratz2]

I'm pretty easy to please. I have rosewood, ebony, glossy maple and satin maple as fretboards on different guitars.

 

Between rosewood and ebony, I prefer either as long as it has little visible grain and the rosewood on my Robert Cray neck is as nearly dark as any ebony I've ever owned.

 

I think if I were to start building my own necks/guitars, I'd probably go with rosewood, then stain them black.

[scuzzo]

between the two after going through amps peds and cabs and such.. i dont think the sonic difference is that apparent.. i guess there may be some fine difference in tone.. i have never had a guitar that played faster just because of fret board material.. its just not a factor to me.. 6 one... i guess

[Schtang]

Rosewood for me. I find the feel of Ebony too hard. Sounds wise Ebony is too compressed as opposed to the bright sound of maple and warm sound of rosewood. Ebony is a bit like a PRS guitar neither here or there.

[asb]

I like the percussive snap of ebony.

I like the warm tones of rosewood.

 

So I have guitars with both.

 

WOOT!

[FineLine]

 

I personally find maple fret boards to be sticky. I can't play them, my fingers stick all over the place. Ebony, as stated above, has a slicker feel. For me its a night and day difference between ebony and maple.

 

 

...ditto ...I CANNOT play a maple fretboard either, for the same reason!

[GIBSONBLUES]

hmmmmm

[Jim_Soloway]

 

...ditto ...I CANNOT play a maple fretboard either, for the same reason!

 

 

I used to feel the same way about maple and then I realized it was really just that so many maple fingerboards had horrible, thick, gooey finishes. Shoot a maple board with a thin finish of satin nitro and it's no problem.

[guitarcapo]

ebony:

 

wears better.

holds a fret tang better

takes inlays better

discolors less

historically is THE fingerboard wood on all stringed instruments

less porous

denser and more resistant to string tension

 

Rosewood:

 

fails better

[benzem]

Both for me thanks

 

My dlx strat rosewood Mmmm smooth and so pretty

 

My AS200 semi ebony oh ya that is the {censored}.

 

And I prefer RW on LP's. Dark rosewood(pref braz)

[V-man]

I have guitars in the double digit range. All but three have ebony boards, the others being rosewood. I am rather bothered by 2 of the three guitars that have rosewoodboards, and will replace one with ebony once it wears out.

 

Rosewood belongs on natural, traditional burst, and cherry guitars. Everything else either looks better with ebony or is plain hideous with rosewood. This is the reason why I will never buy a standard Gibson V in Ebony finish.

[guitarcapo]

Let it also be said that ebony is also very reactive to temperature and humidity. How you store your guitars and the climate of where you live and keep your guitars should be taken into consideration. My personal favorite fretboard wood is Cocobolo. Look at the cocobolo fretboard on this Soloway.

 

 

Knothole fail.

 

quartersawn for me, thanks

[docjeffrey]

Brazilian Rosewood is not dark Doc. I'd expect to see chestnuts and browns and reddish hues in Brazilian. What you see on that ESP is classic good quality Indian rosewood The below are a good mix of whats best about Brazilian

 

Yes, I understand what you are saying, but if you look at old Martins and Gibsons, the Brazilian fretboards are not highly figured. They are usually quartersawn and very dark, made even darker by years of playing.

 

[Jkater]

Most of my guitars are ebony but I really like the couple of rosewood fretboards I have.

 

Ebony is supposed to have better note definition. As to "bright" and "warm", etc. so many other factors are at play that it's hard to really point to the sonic differences.

[Alex W]

To be contradictory and quote "Runn3r", the difference in tone between Rosewood and Ebony is psychosomatic. That big metal bar that (trussrod) that runs the length of your neck has a far larger impact in tone than the difference between Ebony and Rosewood.

 

I know the tone snobs on here won't agree but I'd wager 100% of you would not be able to tell the difference between two nearly identical guitars, one with a rosewood board, and one with an ebony board. They feel different and you play differently according to feel. This tricks your brain into thinking they sound different.

[bigconig]

 

To be contradictory and quote "Runn3r", the difference in tone between Rosewood and Ebony is psychosomatic. That big metal bar that (trussrod) that runs the length of your neck has a far larger impact in tone than the difference between Ebony and Rosewood. I know the tone snobs on here won't agree but I'd wager 100% of you would not be able to tell the difference between two nearly identical guitars, one with a rosewood board, and one with an ebony board. They feel different and you play differently according to feel. This tricks your brain into thinking they sound different.

 

 

 

yup. I have to agree.

[SuproSuper Man]

I like em both, nice warm brown of rosewood looks cool on some axes especially when its oiled up so that the grain shows ,,,,but a black ebony on say a acoustic with a clean white top looks awesome too...

[Spike Li]

I know the tone snobs on here won't agree but I'd wager 100% of you would not be able to tell the difference between two nearly identical guitars, one with a rosewood board, and one with an ebony board. They feel different and you play differently according to feel. This tricks your brain into thinking they sound different.

 

Yeah, im of the school of thought that wood affects the tone of the guitar, but I think that the mass of a fretboard is so comparatively small that any affect it would have on tone is so small it would barely be noticeable.

 

That being said, I have 2 explorers, one with rosewood and one with ebony... all i have to do is restring both of them to compare and finally find out for myself whether or not it makes a difference... I just hate restringing tho

[Annoying Twit]

I played a MIJ ESP guitar that had a, what seemed to be polished, ebony fretboard. When bending notes, it felt smooth to the point of being glossy. And almost felt like I was playing a glass fretboard. Hard and very smooth. I really liked that feel.

 

It's still the guitar that I've played that felt the best. And I even liked the clean sound from the EMG pickups, despite some people claiming that EMG pickups are one-trick high-gain ponies.

 

I just wish that the guitar didn't cost