Rosewood Strat

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bluesguy72

New member
Anybody hear own or play a solid rosewood strat? or an ash or alder strat with a solid rosewood neck for that matter? how does it sound? ive read that it actually sounds thinner than a one piece maple neck.. i find this hard to believe, thanks for any help.
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

i just find this hard to believe haha, like i trust your opinion and value it. But man john english's personal strat was alder with an all rosewood neck.. and he was the boss haha. anyways thanks for the input bro
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

This is what rosewood is described as:

Rosewood:
Heavy, oily wood, a Rosewood neck will produce excellent sustain while also smoothening out the highs. Generally with greater sustain comes a brighter top end. This is not true of Rosewood. It mutes the high frequency overtones, producing a strong fundamental that still has the complexities of mid and low mid overtones.

I always thought that maple was the bright and brittle, rosewood was the smoother and more mids-oriented wood.

Might be different if the entire guitar or neck was made of it, depends on how well it supports string tension.
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

IMO, the reason why Fender style guitars tend to be made to the ash/maple or alder/maple/rosewood recipes is because these consistently sound better than any other combinations that have been tried.

The Fender Custom Shop produced a few instruments in black limba (AKA Koa). These looked stunning but failed to start a trend for production instruments in the same materials. Rosewood wood also look stunning but, with regular pickups, the tone would be "wrong".
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

Have you Guys ever tried a rosewood neck, or a korina guitar? A real korina guitar, not those epi's, they look like korina, but aren't.


A rosewood neck on a strat sounds massively thicker than a maple neck.

A rosewood body gives you smoother mids,softer lows and singing, howling highs. I've got a rosewood guitar.

A rw neck is used by santana for a reason:its smooth,mellow tone.

And korina is the ultimate tonewood.chunky mids,cutting highs yet sweet enough to not pierce your eardrums,and lows right enough for nearly all applications.

How I know all this?
I have these woods!
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

I have a Warmoth strat. Swamp ash body and Rosewood neck (Indian neck/Brazilian fretboard). It has S.D. Phat Cat - Kinman Blues pickups. It sounds great, like a classic strat but definitely on the fat side. To make it super bright you'll have to adjust the treble way up on the amp. The neck is fat (1.0'' all the way) so maybe the thickness affects tone too. For sure it affects the guitars neck stability as it was only adjusted once four years ago and it's still the same. I should mention it has a single rod, not the double expanding truss rod Warmoth is famous.

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You can never be sure with woods and wood combinations but if you use quality woods and hardware you will not make a bad guitar no matter what you'll use. I used rosewood at the time cause I wanted a dark color neck with that body and a neck wood it could stay unfinished. I'm sure it would turn out great if I had used an all maple neck too, all my Warmoths sound and feel great to me.
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

i think im gunna go for it, but my question is alder, or hard ash? and what kind of pickups would go well with it?
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

bluesguy72 said:
i think im gunna go for it, but my question is alder, or hard ash? and what kind of pickups would go well with it?
Click to expand...

Depends what sounds you like, what amp(s) you have, what pickups you'll put, how heavy you want the guitar to be etc... Alder is a pretty versatile wood soundwise. You can find it on vintage strats and metal guitars. You don't see hard ash too often these days except from Fender cheaper models. Some early Van Halen fans use it for their Kramer clones. It would be heavy though, you can't request a light hard ash body!
 
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Re: Rosewood Strat

yes, but i just figured thats what the old 54 strats were built with, and im running through a vox ac15c1 currently and i dont want it to be too warm, and i dont want it to be too bright, i was considering going with the klein jazzy cats, they are beautiful sounding
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

please don't make the mistake of thinking that a laminate top on a strat of 1/8'' will make an iota of difference in tone :) it really won't. you'd have to go to at leastt 0,5 milimeters or more to make some kind of difference.

I'd go with alder for a warmer tone, compared with hard ash. imho it's got more balance.

But I'd rather go with korina. I've tried a korina strat with bloodwood neck and ebony board, and that guitar was more strat than most strats I've ever tried, even customshops. the neck was nice and mellow, smooth and honky, slightly nasal, the in-between position was quacky, as quacky as it gets, and the bridge was bold and honky, but never shreeky or shrill. really, best strat I've ever tried.
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

My only concern would be weight and balance. If you had a light alder body with a rosewood neck (especially a CBS headstock), it might be neck-heavy like an SG. A solid rosewood guitar? Call a chiropractor!!!
 
Re: Rosewood Strat

IanBallard said:
My only concern would be weight and balance. If you had a light alder body with a rosewood neck (especially a CBS headstock), it might be neck-heavy like an SG. A solid rosewood guitar? Call a chiropractor!!!
Click to expand...

I have a les Paul, pau ferro neckthru, rosewood top,purpleheart back.what am I supposed to do? Call a lifttruck?
 
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