Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

toneseeker

toneseeker

New member
I'm trying to decide on a fingerboard wood for my strat i'm making. I'm kind of leaning towards the maple, but i'm still not decided.
The body wood will be Alder, or if I can get it, some old growth pine from a barn that was torn down near my house.

I just want a good strat sound, i'm not looking for anyone's tone in particular, just mine.
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

i prefer maple to rosewood.


realy started to dislike the feel of rosewood and i'm trying to replace the neck on my charvel fusion with a custom one. but it's gonna be ebony more than likely =P


though, next guitar definately will have a maple/maple neck
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

I prefer maple on Strats and Tele's, except on sunburst Strats, then it has to be rosewood. To me rosewood looks better with burst finishes.
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

What is the tonal difference between the two? Is maple supposed to be brighter?
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

I always liked Rosewood until recently when I played this really nice guitar with a Maple fretboard. Played amazingly well, felt great..
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

Maple may be a little brighter. It'll have a bit more bite, where the rosewood will have a bit warmer tone.

I prefer maple or ebony to rosewood, but solely because of feel. I love the look and sound of rosewood in the right application (there's some strats included in that), but it has to be an exquisite piece of rosewood for me to handle it.
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

I have one of each right now, and the maple certainly has more snap and bite than the rosewood. It all depends on what you want out of it, I guess.
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

I used to prefer maple to rosewood until I reallized there's just not that much difference. How "bright" a guitar is depends on so many other factors than a sliver of wood on the neck, certain guitars with mapleboards will be muddier than certain guitars with rosewood for different causes entirely, so it's not a judge of the sound of a guitar at all... Approach each case on an individual basis.

That said ebony is beautiful :laugh2: some axes look better with maple, some with rosewood (I prefer rosewood on strats usually)

slade
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

Maple! Nothing else will do.

9 times out of ten, a Strat will have a maple neck, and so with rosewood fingerboards, it looks like the neck is wearing a coat of some kind. From the front, the maple headstock looks a bit naff to me with the rosewood boards. So for me, maple certainly looks better.

My Dad has the theory that one-piece maple necks are more resonant then the rosewood capped ones because one peice of wood is likely to be more resonant than 2 or 3 pieces.

As far as playing goes, I prefer the feel of maple fingerboards. I can't explain why, I just do.
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

Maple. As for the finish, the back of the neck will need finish anyways so spraying the board is no big deal. Just take a notched penny to remove it from the frets and you're good to go.
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

Rosewood sucks IMO.

Unless it's glazed, but unless you go glazed, go maple.

Maple is just more comfortable.
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

Maple, thats what my 2 have now, although my next one will be rosewood just for a change, try both!
 
Re: Strats: Maple or Rosewood?

bigalthethird said:
Ebony. It's better than both (at least to me).
Click to expand...

I'm reserving Ebony for my super strat project.

Thanks guys, I've decided....
MAPLE IT IS!

Another thing that was making the decision hard, was that I could get a Rosewood fingerboard with a compound radius (10"-16"), but not the maple. To me the compound radius is subtle, and I can hardly tell the difference (I have a compound on my homebrew Les Paul).
 
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