Rosewood boards sound the same as maple

[Sir Axeman]

That guy again!! But proof enough for those that are willing to accept the truth.



This guy apart from his harsh seething attitude problem often talks a lot of sense. And watching some of his other vids he comes across as a 'normal' bloke sometimes instead of a loon. And he can play to!! Watch his country lessons/playing!

[Bidley]

This was posted here a while back. I agree with him, actually, I can't hear the difference for love nor money, the only reason I ever thought they sounded different is because it's the dreaded "accepted wisdom".

[ICBM]

Proof enough for those who are willing to accept a badly-recorded, unscientific demo heard at Youtube sound quality as proof of anything, yes.

[monquixote]

Lace Sensors having no magnetic drag is balls.

Also comparing them without fretting notes doesn't seem like a fair test.

This test is much fairer as it uses the exact same guitar body. The necks do sound slightly different, but not enough to not make my primary choice based on what feels nicer.

[evilmags]

They really don't. Don't have a maple 6 string at the moment but compared to ebony it sounds warmer and slightly less attack. Trying to tell from a you tube void is impossible.

[Basher]

In a completely unscientific test, I've just recorded the same riff on my two "strats", one with a rosewood fingerboard, the other maple.

The results were that at first, I thought the rosewood was brighter. Then I tried to balance the gain (the rosewood guitar has lower output lace pickups) by normalising the tracks. This time the rosewood sounded brighter in one part of the recording, the maple in another!

My conclusion is that it makes so little difference as to be utterly irrelevant to me and I would only prefer one over the other based on feel. I'm not saying that there isn't a difference but to my ears it's too subtle to call and no more or less important than any one of many other variables.

(If anyone's interested, here was my test riff: Castles Made of Wood)

[koneguitarist]

I think this idea came about due to 50`s and 60`s strats sounding different, and the only noticeable difference being fretboard material.
Now before we all start shouting what about staggered versus flat poles on pickups, Alder versus Ash bodies , all of this makes small differences. But we didn`t know all of this back then in late 60`s and 70`s. Now with the advent of the internet and the sheer amount of information being shared, we even know what type of screws are right for each guitar let alone, caps/potsand saddles.
you can have two guitars made exactly as possible and they will still sound different , maybe only slightly maybe huge amounts, but you cannot make a piece of wood sound like another, only hope it sounds similar.
Lets just play them.

[monquixote]

In a completely unscientific test, I've just recorded the same riff on my two "strats", one with a rosewood fingerboard, the other maple.

The results were that at first, I thought the rosewood was brighter. Then I tried to balance the gain (the rosewood guitar has lower output lace pickups) by normalising the tracks. This time the rosewood sounded brighter in one part of the recording, the maple in another!

My conclusion is that it makes so little difference as to be utterly irrelevant to me and I would only prefer one over the other based on feel. I'm not saying that there isn't a difference but to my ears it's too subtle to call and no more or less important than any one of many other variables.

(If anyone's interested, here was my test riff: Castles Made of Wood)

Was the rosewood first?

[pintspiller]

Lace Sensors having no magnetic drag is balls.

Also comparing them without fretting notes doesn't seem like a fair test.

This test is much fairer as it uses the exact same guitar body. The necks do sound slightly different, but not enough to not make my primary choice based on what feels nicer.

that really was an eye-opener. i've never owned a maple-fretboard guitar, and not sure if i've played one.

to me it just sounds like the microphone was moved bit.

i did play a guitar with an ebony fretboard once. i didn't really like the feel under my fingers. mind you it was a gibson L5-S and i either hated or didn't understand how to get the tone/pickup correctly.

in-line with the title of the thread, i too had an eye-opener a few years ago while trying a selection of guitars with view to getting another guitar. at this time i had a gsg gypsy and a gibson sg and fancied getting a 335-style guitar. to me a semi-solid electric sounded much like a solid-body electric. in the end i bought a hollow-body - different tone when amped up and more sustain than the semi-solid when not. mind you, i think the bigsby may have something to do with he sound too

[pintspiller]

tone is mostly in the fingers anyway. i've had jams and rehearsals where i've swapped guitars with others (some being similar guitars and some being different), and each player having a tone that wasn't remarkably different