Fretboard Preference

What material do you like best for your fretboards?

  • Rosewood

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Pao Ferro

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Maple

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Ebony

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Acrylic

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Something else

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
1) ebony

2) pao ferro

3) maple

4) rosewood

Why is rosewood so common? Is it cheaper than the others? More consistent? Easier to work with? More popular and thus helps sell more guitars?

 
I love ebony and composite/phenolic is amazing for slickery ease of movement...

And I've never played on a cocobolo board, but i think if it felt like sandpaper, I'd still choose it for the look!! Actually, it's dense, hard and oily, innit? One of these days...

 
Maple, but it's got to be unfinished.

Then rosewood but the ebony board on my Les Paul has to be the fastest board I've ever played

 
3 rosewood

3 maple

3 ebony

Prefer Ebony, then maple.

I like the look of rosewood, but I don't like the feel of it and it seems to add a warmer if not duller sound.

 
I suspect that pao ferro doesn't rank higher because many people haven't played it, or there's too much variety in how it feels.

For me it depends on the guitar or bass. I have a fretless ebony bass and wouldn't trade it for anything. However, I've played a Music Man fretless pao ferro and the grain was so dense and tight it felt like a polymer, yet still organic unlike ebonol. Liked it a lot, maybe more than ebony.

And then I had a maple board ash-bodied G&L Legacy Special that I wish I had back. I do still have an alder/maple board regular Legacy though. Those play really nice.

If only considering feel, I'd have to go with ebony or pao ferro.

 
Looks like your rosewood and maple fretboard guitars are defective. Please ship them over to my place for them to be allow through usage by more knowledgable personnel... /emoticons/default_biggrin.png

 
Rodan said:
I love ebony and composite/phenolic is amazing for slickery ease of movement...

And I've never played on a cocobolo board, but i think if it felt like sandpaper, I'd still choose it for the look!! Actually, it's dense, hard and oily, innit? One of these days...
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What I called "acrylic" may be composite/phenolic, dunno. It does have slickery ease of movement...if anything it is just like ebony, just more so (harder, clearer chime-like tones, faster, etc).

I've never heard of cocobolo. I'll have to look into that.

 
Just have rosewood on my guitars, so checked the counter.

Somehow, I never spent much thought in this.

 
Ebony number 1. For Fender types (Strat, Tele), I prefer Maple over Rosewood. Just don't like Rosewood for fretboards. No sir, not one bit.

 
Ebony does it for me. I like Rosewood/Alder with Teles and Strats though.

No wolf-tones with the ebony but everyone is gonna have their preference I believe. Hey I can deal with Ash/Maple others wouldn't have it any other way?

 
Indian Rosewood or Vulcanized maple. I have 3 IRW guitars that just bloom like crazy. I love ebony only for the looks & feel but many times I think my guitars would have been better served with a different 'board. The ebony boarded guitars are the worst offenders when it comes to tuning stability. They really like to drift sharp right on the stand.

 
I rethought my position, and I'm now completely convinced that I like whichever one looks best on a given guitar.

I could type some reasonable-sounding rationalizations if I chose to, but in all honesty (for me) it's just about the look.

 
I like them all, though not so fond of Indian rosewood - too bland and coarse most of the time. I either go for ebony or Brazilian/Madagascar rosewood.

 
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depends on the sound I want and the mood I am in-

Maple for fast, brighter rock-

Rosewood or ebony for deeper tone-

Stockings and a garter belt for that sexy tone

 
Feynman said:
I rethought my position, and I'm now completely convinced that I like whichever one looks best on a given guitar.

I could type some reasonable-sounding rationalizations if I chose to, but in all honesty (for me) it's just about the look.
Click to expand...
I honestly can't tell if the neck material makes that much of a difference. My Daytonas are both ash and one has a maple fretboard and the other has rosewood. When they were stock, they pretty much sounded very similar. But then you run them through some distortion and who the hell knows what's going on. Well...maybe someone with good ears. So that's not me.

I like my strat-types to have that maple fretboard. It just looks right to me that way. Same with a tele. Simple slabs of wood. Primal. But with a carved top, I prefer darker fretboards - reminds me of fine furniture.

 
Doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me. Every guitar is different and I set the controls to what sounds right for the night and play. For that matter the same guitar can sound different with identical amp and guitar settings, but in a different room. So, I don't get real uptight about fretboard material, neck size and profile - I just play 'em. Maybe that's because I'm just mediocre!

 
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