Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

  • Ebony

    Votes: 44 62.9%

  • Rosewood

    Votes: 26 37.1%
  • Total voters
    70
  • Poll closed .
MetalManiac

MetalManiac

Li'l Junior Member
Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard?
WHY?
( I am so sick of these " i like it" with no explanations. Those types of re[ponces only give an indication of popularity and nothing else. That is not bad in and of itself, but it serves a limited purpose.
Please elaborate on why , even if its something like you enjoy the feel or the look ( Ebony is Darker) better.
For those of you with more advanced aesthetic perception, what exactly is the tonal variation of the Ebony Vs. Rosewood Board that draws you towards one or the other?
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Les Pauls are already warm and thick guitars inherently, so I think an ebony board is better to brighten things up a bit. They also look better, in my opinion. If it's good enough for a Stradivarius, it's good enough for a Les Paul. ;)

I've already said that if I was in the market for a Les Paulish guitar, it would be an Agile neck-through and all the Agile top end "AL" models come with ebony stock. My friend is a Les Paul nut and bought an Agile AL-3100 set neck and it blows away his Heritage, Standard and Custom, in my opinion, in definition, clarity and midrange bite and that's with the stock Korean AlNiCo pickups!! The main difference is that all his Gibbys have rosewood and the Agile has an ebony board. The maple cap might be 3/4" on the Agile, so that might be a contributor as well.
 
Last edited:
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Good point! Some would say the Maple Cap gives a brighter tone to the Paul, and therefore
a Rosewood board serves to give the better tonal balance. I personally think the Rosewood board Les Pauls have the better range of warmth and tonal balance. This is particualrly true of the old Brazillian Rosewood fretboards.
I have one Les Paul. Its a Standard model. It has a Indian Rosewood fretboard, but I could just as easily live with a Ebony .
for me , being a Strat guy, that one Les Paul is all I'll ever want or need .
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

I love the look and feel of an ebony board, and I like the added brightness, especially in the neck pickup. The smoothness of the board is really, really appealing.

I have never owned a LP with an ebony board, but I did have a USA Dean Hardtail with an ebony board and that was the most comfortable playing neck & fretboard I have ever had. The way the Hardtail was designed with an extra thick and higher top cutaway made it sound very, very close in tone to several LP Custom's that I played.

As much as I love Les Pauls, I think I want a Dean Hardtail over a Les Paul Custom. I still want some LP standards with rosewood boards, but to me there is something about the slinky feel of ebony that I really dig. Plus I think it looks so classy.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

MetalManiac said:
Good point! Some would say the Maple Cap gives a brighter tone to the Paul, and therefore
a Rosewood board serves to give the better tonal balance. I personally think the Rosewood board Les Pauls have the better range of warmth and tonal balance. This is particualrly true of the old Brazillian Rosewood fretboards.
I have one Les Paul. Its a Standard model. It has a Indian Rosewood fretboard, but I could just as easily live with a Ebony .
for me , being a Strat guy, that one Les Paul is all I'll ever want or need .
Click to expand...

Actually, what I was saying it that the Agile had a thicker cap than a regular Les Paul. But, I don't think it made the Agile "too bright" at all having both the thicker cap and ebony board. I've always felt modern Les Pauls were muddy-sounding. The only really awesome-sounding Les Paul to me was a 1960 that one of my old bosses owned. Newer ones just sound "onky" and too muddy in the midrange to me. The Agile captured that "old LP" sound that the 1960 had to my ear.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Personally I'm a fan of ebony. I like the extra sizzle you get from it, and its like, black.

Rosewood I have on almost every guitar I own. Nice, but its like alder - nondescript tone-wise.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Ebony for posing Rosewood for playing.
Ebony is fine enough but its brittle. It needs a lot of care and looking after plus it is a lot more inconsistent. One more modern point, while the force grown rosewood is as good tonally (even if it is a bit stripy) force grown ebony is only good for veneers. Most of the ebony used in guitars comes from illegal logging in Africa which makes it harder to get in the EU. Gibson have been fined a few times. Yamaha and Ibanez use old stock ebony.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

John_L said:
Ebony for posing Rosewood for playing.
Ebony is fine enough but its brittle. It needs a lot of care and looking after plus it is a lot more inconsistent. One more modern point, while the force grown rosewood is as good tonally (even if it is a bit stripy) force grown ebony is only good for veneers. Most of the ebony used in guitars comes from illegal logging in Africa which makes it harder to get in the EU. Gibson have been fined a few times. Yamaha and Ibanez use old stock ebony.
Click to expand...

Good points. I'm a rosewood man myself.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

i love the snap and pop i get out of my Custom with the ebony board

it's a modern Custom so it's got a maple cap too -- makes for a very bright, but still very beefy Les Paul.

It was hard for me to wrap my head around, but my Les Paul was simultaneously brighter AND warmer than all of my other guitars. That didn't change until I got the Lite Ash Tele...and i bet if i put bright, twangy single-coils in the Paul it'd be brighter still.

I like rosewood Les Pauls but I can't get them to snap and pop correctly.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

2 of my LP's have Ebony, the other 5 have Rosewood. All have the same pickups. Honestly, the difference in fretboard wood doesn't make much of a diference in tone. I don't know of anyone who could be blind folded and tell the difference by sound alone from switching between one of the Ebony board LPs and one of the Rosewoods.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Lucid_Lunatic said:
2 of my LP's have Ebony, the other 5 have Rosewood. All have the same pickups. Honestly, the difference in fretboard wood doesn't make much of a diference in tone. I don't know of anyone who could be blind folded and tell the difference by sound alone from switching between one of the Ebony board LPs and one of the Rosewoods.
Click to expand...

One thing with a Gibson and Gibsonalikes is how much of the fretboard is taken away by the large inlays. I think there is more of a difference with a dot inlay.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Ebony over Rosewood, regardless of the type of guitar.

WHY? Cause I don't like the feel of rosewood, I like a spankier tone from my fertboard that lends to a faster, crisper attack and cause ebony just plain looks better.

Ironically, I have 3 guitars with rosewood fretboards (two of them my favorites) and only one with Ebony...
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

I don't know what the big deal would be if you were to play on ebony 'stead'a rosewood on a genuine LP, but I really dig the ebony fretboard on my USA Jackson Soloist. It's glassy and makes my pickups sound excellent. I think it also adds to the sustain. It works really well for high gain, scooped mids, and general muddiness, but it does not cure mud, sloppy playing, or unbalanced equipment.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

I have both...I can't tell any tonal difference (in the fretboard wood, the guitars sound totally different)

It's all about feel for me, ebony I like the action a little higher (and I like decently high action to begin with) because of how smooth it is. With rosewood you get some fight out of bends, which I love, but it also means I put the action slightly lower.

It's one of the things I care about least on a Les Paul (which is funny considering I won't go within a mile of a Les Paul with a Nashville style TOM bridge). Standards have rosewood, Customs have ebony...that's all

However, NOTHING makes me crazier than an Epi Black Beauty with a rosewood board. There are few things in this world uglier than that.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

Hard to make generalizations here. The typical ebony board LP is a Custom, all mahogany. The rosewood board model is usually maple-topped mahogany. In other words, there are other factors attributing to the sonic differences besides the fretboard wood.

I have a Norlin era LP Custom. It has a maple top on a mahogany body, ebony board, but it also has a maple neck. My LP Classic is more traditional, with the mahogany neck. Of the two, I prefer the sound of the Custom, but it's for more reasons than simply the fretboard.
 
Re: Poll- Les Paul Ebony Fretboard VS. Les Paul Rosewood Fretboard ?

cvansickle said:
The typical ebony board LP is a Custom, all mahogany. The rosewood board model is usually maple-topped mahogany.
Click to expand...

The current LP Customs are maple topped as well. From the Gibson website:

"Today’s Les Paul Custom is based on the model from the mid-1950s, but with several modern appointments. The body is crafted with a hand-carved maple top, which is fitted to a body made from a solid piece of mahogany..."
 
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