Maple or Rosewood?

[HMstratocaster]

I've been looking at some of the guitars everyone's been building and I've been seeing a lot of Rose wood necks and it's made me curious, What sounds better? Maple, maplerosewood combo, or complete rosewood?

 

[smavridis]

ebony on maple. nuff said


(my opinion)

 

[Mor Paul]

I would say get brighter pickups or amp, and get a full-rosewood neck for the feel.

 

[Wyliee]

'Better' is a subjective term.  Better than what?  In what context?  

 

[m4rk0]

Maple has been quite successful over the last 60 years, so it can't be bad
personally, since I tried exotic woods, I am addicted to that.. still, nothing wrong with good old maple

 

[tfarny]

I've never met a 'bad' neck wood. Depends on what sound (little bit), looks, and feel you want. 'Better' isn't the right way to think about it. I also say, though, there's nothing wrong with maple.

 

[JaySwear]

i'm a big fan of an all maple neck, but thats only if it HAS to be maple something.

i'd rather have an exotic i think

 

[DocNrock]

Depends upon what you are looking for.  I have guitars with maple necks and guitars with exotic wood necks, and I love both camps.  I haven't found that the neck woods change the expected tone all that much...nothing more than a tweak of the amp EQ can take care of.  Go with what you are wanting with the look.  JMHO.

 

[blue313]

'Better' is a subjective term.  Better than what?  In what context?  

True there.  This is a question that we'll need more information on.

What's the overall plan for the guitar you're cooking up?

 

[bbl4ck]

I loooove the looks of a high quality birdseye maple neck!!!  Nothing looks finer on the right guitar  :glasses9:  Just MHO

I have four necks:
Maple w/ Rosewood
Mahogany w/ Rosewood
Wenge w/ Jet Black Ebony [in process]
Canary w/ Malagasy Rosewood [in process]

While I love the looks of the fine birdseye maple, since I have got the two exotics, I think nothing beats the comfort of raw wood  :headbang1:
The feel is just like butta'  :icon_thumright:
My two exotics are still in the building process and I can not wait to start jamin' them.  :toothy12:

 

[HMstratocaster]

I guess I should have said what tone I'm trying to get   :laughing7: (Duh!) Anyway I find that I have a VERY Particular sound I'm trying to get really, the only amp I have gotten to sound the way I want it to (for my lead playing) is the Peavey 6505 Plus on the lead channle with the treble at 10 mids at about 3-4 and the bass at about 6-7. I find that even with the treble on the amp and on my TBX tone pot all the way up on the treble half it still is not enough. I guess I'm looking for a lot of high end mids scooped middle mids and a nice and tight low end. Now the 6505 is basically a knock off of Eddie Van Halen's 5150 amp. and I know Eddie has ALWAYS used all maple necks but I'm not trying to replicate his sound here.

 

[Mor Paul]

Perhaps a different pickup, with more highs will help.

 

[HMstratocaster]

Yeah I bought it used I has a duncan trembucker in the bridge. Personally I think trembuckers suck so I will put a seymour duncan distortion in it soon. I put one of those in my other guitars and I swear nothing sounds better than that guitar.

 

[Tonar8352]

The only thing I am absolutely certain of is that the more wood on the neck the better the chance of getting a killer sounding guitar.  I use a 59 Roundback at the minimum and usually Boats for my own personal builds.  Those neck profiles have produced consistently great sound guitars no matter what the wood combination.

 

[Rick]

Depends
I have and or played:
Mahogany/Rosewood
Mahogany/Ebony
Maple/Maple
Maple/Pau Fero
Bubinga/Pau Fero
Canary/Rosewood
Korina/Ebony

The three I keep using, in order of how much I use them, are:
mahogany/ebony
maple/maple
and
mahogany / rosewood

 

[neuftone]

I like the look and feel of rosewood myself.  That said, pickup selection sounds like a more important area of concern based on your desired tone.  Neck material selection has a lot more to do with looks, feel, and cost in my experience, than tone.  Not that it can't effect tone, but its sort of like fiddling with the fine focus knob on a microscope without yet turning the coarse focus knobs.  Pickups, strings, and the amp are "coarse focus", neck wood is a "fine focus" with a much more limited range of tonal adjustment.

 

[Superlizard]

For tone, the classics like:

- Ebony fretboard + Mahogany neck (warm lows/slightly scooped mids/snappy top end)

- Maple fretboard + Maple neck (mids-prominent/brighter top end)

can't be beat.

A good substitute for Maple+Maple tone, if you don't like the slick lacquer feel:

- Pau Ferro fretboard + Maple neck (slightly mid-scooped compared to maple+maple)

Myself, I do not like rosewood -  only because the oil in the wood clashes with my sweat.

Disclaimer:  These tonal findings are from playing through hi-quality rigs (stomp boxes, amps, speakers) with a minimal amount of signal processing (simple vintage tube amp circuits) and a "classic" amount of overdrive/dist; whereupon the natural tone of the guitar comes through.  If you're playing through a crap rig and/or tons of buzzy distortion, you're not going to hear much of a difference in anything.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I guess you're meaning fretboard woods and not the neck wood itself?  Anywho, if I liked maple, I'd say I like the feel of playing on a finish.  That being said, most of my guitars, including two Warmoths, have maple necks.  But that's only because the word Birdseye is in front of maple.  My next will all exotic.

 

[HMstratocaster]

Thanks SuperLizzard. :]

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

As much as I agree with AFLABLAHBLAH, I like rosewood. It's good for bragging!  :laughing7: