What is it with maple necks?

[FPFL]

On the SD pickup description pages maple is the preferred neck type for only a tiny number of the humbucking pups, while rosewood shows up for everything... Why? I prefer maple for the feel but wonder what is so different in tone.

Along that line, what is a good 'bucker pickup for a maple necked guitar if you want tight bass even mids and highs? Assume mahogany body, maple top, string thru bridge.


Thanks!

-P

 

[Kosh Naranek]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

The majority of guitars out there have rosewood fretboards.

Those guidelines on the pickup description pages are just that - guidelines. They're based on the fact that maple fretboards tend to make a guitar sound more trebly, so putting a very bright pickup like the Jazz in a bright sounding guitar may be too much.

Only you can be the judge of what your guitar's natural tone tends toward, whether bright, dark or balanced. There are guitars with maple fretboards out there that sound dark.

Based on what you say you're looking for in guitar tone, the Custom Custom is a great choice. So is the original Parallel Axis, and the Custom.

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

I was also going to suggest either the Custom Custom or the Original PATB. I lean towards the PATB, because in my superstrat with a maple board, it was FINALLY the pickup that nailed the tone I was looking for.

Good post by Kosh...those are guidelines only. You have to decide what works best, because there is no right answer.

 

[sufferinrewind]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Only you can be the judge of what your guitar's natural tone tends toward, whether bright, dark or balanced. There are guitars with maple fretboards out there that sound dark.

+1

Tone is subjective. What others might consider icepick or mush may be tone heaven to others. It's all about what YOU like, and what tone you're after. The JB is the perfect example. Some hate it, say it has icepick highs and mushy lows and sounds like crap while others think it is perfect and swear by it...

It's all up to you and what you like.

 

[Orange]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Maple is the brighter wood for guitars. Rosewood is one of the darkest, along with mahogamy. Ebony is as bright as maple.
Maple and ebony gives definition and brighter notes when playing. Good for funk !
Also avoid mudiness on mahogamy guitars neck pickups.

If i were you i wouldn't pay too much attention to this when choosing a p-up.
The body wood is more significant.

 

[CenterStaqeSilver]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Maple is the brighter wood for guitars. Rosewood is one of the darkest, along with mahogamy. Ebony is as bright as maple.
Maple and ebony gives definition and brighter notes when playing. Good for funk !
Also avoid mudiness on mahogamy guitars neck pickups.

If i were you i wouldn't pay too much attention to this when choosing a p-up.
The body wood is more significant.

This is a hot topic for me, I have a custom made guitar with an ash body, a maple neck and ebony fingerboard. I LOVE clarity of tone and I want all the overtones/harmonics, not have them lost by the guitar. I'd rather start bright and tone down the treble with controls. I'm going to have a Jazz in the mid/neck and a Holy Grail 1500 in the bridge in a guitar that is a Tele/SG crossbreed. I think the tone of a good SG is great, but also want the clarity of the single coil and want really, a strat/SG crossbreed. The guitar cutaways look like an SG. Come to think of it, I HATE the sound of a tele. Strat and SG are my heaven. If I have to lose the Jazz and adjust, that's OK, but I've played so many guitars with crappy tone quality in stores, including major names, that I think I'm on to a good idea. I'm seriously considering making an entirely new custom guitar based on what tone I want, then what pickups, then choose the wood, shape, bridge style, etc.........everything in reverse from what you get in stores. making an electric is fun, once you know what exactly the specs, ha ha ha.

 

[Orange]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Well the Ibanez on my picture is a custom made one. i wanted a Medium / Bassy 1980's souding body so i bought this japanese-made RG basswood body. And more clarity and attack so i got this jem-like Ebony fretboard. also git a Bigger neck than the usual ultra thin Wizard 2, more similar to a jackson or ESP. You guessed it, this guitar is designed to play hard rocking heavy riffs and screaming leads ^^

Roght now i'm in the process of choosing the right pickups.
I ordered The screaming demon, that was obviousely the perfect choice for this project.
A Jb could also be a good choice i think, or a Steve's special but i liked the fact that the sh-12 has less output.

I usually don't try to balance the guitar's natural tone by using a pickup that has a different EQ or color, on the contrary i like pickups that can really emphasize on each guitar's attributes. I mean if you want a bright tone and screaming harmonics out of a Les Paul, you're obviousely barking at the wrong tree.......

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Most of my Strats that I have a bridge humbucker in have a rosewood fingerboard...seems to give a guitar a slightly richer and fuller tone. But I'd feel safe trying any bucker in any guitar regardless of whether the fingerboard is maple or rosewood. If it sounds good, then it is good. Lot's of killer guitar tones have been produced by maple fingerboard Strats with a bridge humbucker...EVH for one! I have a couple of maple fingerboard Strats with bridge buckers...59B in one and a JB in the other. Sounds fine! Lew

 

[RadVortex]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Call me crazy :banana: ,but all of my strats have rosewood fingerboards and all of my Tele's have maple. IMO maple seems to enhance the tone of a Tele, but it doesn't seem to work the same for a strat.

 

[ErikH]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Ok, you're crazy....LOL. Maple vs. Rosewood has the same effect on a Strat as it does a Tele. There's more bite from maple on Strats, smoother with rosewood. I like maple boards myself but when it comes to glassy vintage singles, gimme rosewood. Tele's I like with maple. I just love that bite they have with it. All 3 of my Strats have maple boards. Some time next year it will be 4.

 

[WGTP]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Check out the Warmouth Site for discriptions of the effects of different woods on the tone. Hard Maple seems to be the spankiest.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

On the SD pickup description pages maple is the preferred neck type for only a tiny number of the humbucking pups, while rosewood shows up for everything... Why? I prefer maple for the feel but wonder what is so different in tone. Along that line, what is a good 'bucker pickup for a maple necked guitar if you want tight bass even mids and highs? Assume mahogany body, maple top, string thru bridge. Thanks! -P

I asked Alex about this at SD, and basically neck wood is 20% of tone while body wood is the rest of the tone (on average, since no piece of wood in the same species is the exact same). "Hard rock" maple is VERY bright, birdseye maple is still very bright. Rosewood is very warm. I turned this into sort of a math equation using the Warmoth Wood Description Tone Meter pictures and when I looked at what pickups certain guitars come with versus what the Tone Wizard recommends versus what has sounded good to my ears in the past, it is very true.

So what I would say is this: trust the Tone Wizard, and ask us forum members. As for maple-necked guitars, with a mahogany body, that guitar is still going to be on the warm side, but might have a bit of a bright attack. Still, I'm getting "normal" results from the Tone Wizard, and such a guitar (50% being "perfectly balanced" in terms of the Warmoth tone meter thingy and my math) is 35% (which is on the warm side), versus alder + rosewood is probably the most balanced tone, etc.

I have an Ibanez with a rosewood fretboard but maple body, and that sucker is way too bright. I've had such a hard time finding pickups that sound good in it, so go figure. A solid-body maple electric guitar is rare, and as a result, so is pickup demand for it, and so are pickup choices. To be fair, though, my Lite Ash Strat (ash + maple fretboard) is on the bright side (69%), and it does have brightness to it, even with alnico ii staggered pickups in it. Also, I have a solid-quilt-maple-top Ovation guitar, and that thing is bright as well (I have to almost EQ the treble out of it to get it to sound warm lol).

Hope that sort of helps.

 

[aleclee]

Pet Peeve

Pet Peeve

This is a guitar with a rosewood fretboard (on a maple neck)

This is a guitar with a rosewood neck

 

[MartinSixStringCustoms]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

I don't think the tonal difference between a maple board and rosewood board is all that much personally.

 

[RadVortex]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Honestly, I think there is a bigger difference in the feel of a rosewood or maple fingerboard than there is a difference in tone. I think the difference is there, but it's just not severe. I'm pretty sure if a pickup sounds good, it'll sound good whichever fingerboard you're using. The body wood would make a considerable difference in the sound though.

 

[Diego]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

My Ibanez has a maple neck/fretboard and it's not as bright as you'd expect. Acoustically it's very even, but it leans towards the mids a bit. It sounds beautiful! And the JB on bridge should be a recipe for disaster checking the woods, but it sounds great.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

THANK YOU aleclee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Sorry man, alot of people refer to the fretboard as the neck...but this is wrong and is completely different, we know what you mean but people please watch it because its a major difference.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

My Ibanez has a maple neck/fretboard and it's not as bright as you'd expect. Acoustically it's very even, but it leans towards the mids a bit. It sounds beautiful! And the JB on bridge should be a recipe for disaster checking the woods, but it sounds great.

Well if yours is maple neck + basswood body like the RG1570, basswood is warm but maple is bright, yet since the body wood is 80% of the sound of an electric woods, your guitar is sitting at 52%, which is right smack dab in the center of "balanced".

My math isn't perfect, but warm body wood + bright fretboard wood usually means you have a balanced guitar.

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Maple is preferd on those pages for alnico 2 pickups. They are less bright then A5s.
With most guitars you can go with both... regardless of the fretboard type of wood...

 

[Diego]

Re: What is it with maple necks?

Well if yours is maple neck + basswood body like the RG1570, basswood is warm but maple is bright, yet since the body wood is 80% of the sound of an electric woods, your guitar is sitting at 52%, which is right smack dab in the center of "balanced".

My math isn't perfect, but warm body wood + bright fretboard wood usually means you have a balanced guitar.

The RG1550 is the RG1570 with a maple fretboard and a pickguard. I don't know about the math side of this topic, but yeah, it's a fairly balanced instrument. I was a bit scared to put the JB since some people here warned me it could end up being very very trebly. Thankfully, it wasn't the case.

I swear I truly love this guitar.