Decision made, maple it is

[Lozz196]

So recently I decided to make a return to my rosewood roots, and have bought a few really nice Precisions (US2015, Mex2014, Squier Affinity) to fill this void.

 

But last night at rehearsal I just found that I was "missing" my maple fret-board. I suppose it`s because for years I`ve only played maple fret-boards and I`ve just got so used to them, but I think it will have to be the maples for me from now on. Although I like the rosewood boards I just feel more at home on maple.

 

So as usual a few basses will be moved on (all black/white/rosewood in case any eagle-eyed spotters decide this is what they`re after). 

 

It`s good fun buying new basses & trying things out but I think I`ve finally reached a point where I know exactly what the right gear is for me and maybe I should just acknowledge that and try and only buy new strings from now on (when the old ones die of course).

[Doctor J]

Get roasted maple, the colour is somewhere in between.

[Steve Browning]

I am exactly the same, in reverse. I have got a maple board bass (and have had others) but never end up keeping them. Maple just seems 'hard' to the touch. A bit like a piano with a poor action.

 

All very odd but perfectly natural. Vive la difference.

[Lozz196]

8 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

I am exactly the same, in reverse. I have got a maple board bass (and have had others) but never end up keeping them. Maple just seems 'hard' to the touch. A bit like a piano with a poor action.

 

All very odd but perfectly natural. Vive la difference.

I think reading that this exactly it Steve, the hardness of the maple board just seems to be more favourable to my playing style.  

[neepheid]

Am I abnormal that I've played rosewood, maple, ebony and pao ferro boards and found not one jot of difference between them all beyond the aesthetic?

 

Am I incompetent?

Am I fortunate?

 

Edit: forgot laurel.

Edited November 19, 2021 by neepheid

[Paul S]

I also follow Lozz's path - precision bass, black body, black scratchplate, maple neck.  I find maple necks to be brighter.  I was able to do a fairly direct comparison when I swapped the rosewood boarded neck on a bass for an all maple one - the difference seemed significant, even to my knackered old ears.

[Munurmunuh]

When I got my first maple board I found that it took my fingertips a while to get used to having a glossy material under the strings - for a couple of weeks there was a sense of being on less secure ground, without the warm matte rosewood to reassure my fingertips as they adjusted to a new, wider nut width. 

[BlueMoon]

8 hours ago, neepheid said:

Am I abnormal that I've played rosewood, maple, ebony and pao ferro boards and found not one jot of difference between them all beyond the aesthetic?

I'm much the same.

 

If I would try to analyse any preference it probably has a lot to do with "my first bass" experience and fond memories.

Much the same as hankering for the sweets and chocholate that one had as a kid........kinda sticks  in the subconcious (or on the sofa in the case of the chocholate).

[MattM]

Lozz, been on here for years mate and whenever I see you post I think “black and maple P”.  Rosewood just ain’t you dude…

[MattM]

11 hours ago, neepheid said:

Am I abnormal that I've played rosewood, maple, ebony and pao ferro boards and found not one jot of difference between them all beyond the aesthetic?

Less so if you’re a bassist.  I play guitar also and the differences are more notable, particularly with string bending.  Maple a *lot* smoother for bending owing to smoothness of surface (hence why e.g. Gilmour and Clapton are maple dudes), the thing about maple being brighter than rosewood is moot, you can always adjust any brightness using your tone controls anyway.

 

I have however, courtesy of @eadof this parish, just taken custody of my first ebony fretless and it’s fabulous.  Had rosewood and pau ferro fretlesses previously and, similar to maple for guitars, ebony is brilliant for surface smoothness and slides.

Edited November 19, 2021 by MattM

[fretmeister]

50 minutes ago, MattM said:

Less so if you’re a bassist.  I play guitar also and the differences are more notable, particularly with string bending.  Maple a *lot* smoother for bending owing to smoothness of surface (hence why e.g. Gilmour and Clapton are maple dudes), the thing about maple being brighter than rosewood is moot, you can always adjust any brightness using your tone controls anyway.

 

I have however, courtesy of @eadof this parish, just taken custody of my first ebony fretless and it’s fabulous.  Had rosewood and pau ferro fretlesses previously and, similar to maple for guitars, ebony is brilliant for surface smoothness and slides.

Strat maple fingerboards are coated so it’s not the wood being smooth. 
And on modern instruments the frets are too tall for the string to make any contact with the board at all.

 

If bending is hard work, polish the frets not the wood.

[MattM]

12 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Strat maple fingerboards are coated so it’s not the wood being smooth. 
And on modern instruments the frets are too tall for the string to make any contact with the board at all.

 

If bending is hard work, polish the frets not the wood.

As I said in my post, it’s the surface that’s smooth.  This is down to the glossy lacquer (which rosewood doesn’t have).   Rosewood does feel slightly rougher under the fingers than maple, I notice this frequently when bending.  I’ll qualify this with I tend to play more vintage guitars with small frets and more rounded fingerboard radii, so high frets are kinda outwith my purview.  By all means, go down the jumbo fret and even scalloped route, your mileage may Yngwie…

 

[PaulThePlug]

Quite often maple necks are 1 piece with a skunk stripe to cover the rear fitted truss rod. Might make a bit of difference to a glued on rosewood fretboard. Laquered board makes a big difference from my guitar experiance.

Edited November 19, 2021 by PaulThePlug

[RhysP]

29 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Strat maple fingerboards are coated so it’s not the wood being smooth. 
And on modern instruments the frets are too tall for the string to make any contact with the board at all.

 

If bending is hard work, polish the frets not the wood.

This.

Also, Clapton & Gilmour have done plenty of bending on rosewood fingerboards.

Gilmour's "Another Brick in the Wall pt.2" solo was recorded on a Les Paul with P90s, and I've seen him bending notes on a Gretsch DuoJet just as easily as he does on a Strat.

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by RhysP

[Munurmunuh]

13 minutes ago, RhysP said:

Also, Clapton & Gilmour have done plenty of bending on rosewood fingerboards.

 

I once heard Clapton talking (on a promo video for a Fender Custom Shop replica of one of his old guitars) about having a very strong preference for the feel of maple over rosewood on Strats. His comments were something like, the grain of the rosewood seemed to be fighting against him, whereas maple felt smooth like marble, freeing him up.

 

So in the 60s, when new Strats had rosewood fretboards, whenever he was touring America he would be searching out late 50s instruments, preferring knackered-looking ones, on the grounds it was the good guitars that got played a lot.

[theyellowcar]

3 hours ago, MattM said:

Lozz, been on here for years mate and whenever I see you post I think “black and maple P”.  Rosewood just ain’t you dude…

Black/Black/Maple to be precise 😂

 

Kudos to you Lozz for knowing what works for you and sticking to it.

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, theyellowcar said:

Kudos to you Lozz for knowing what works for you and sticking to it.

Well more like not sticking to it and then realising! 
he even had a jazz bass phase a few months back!

[Munurmunuh]

10 hours ago, Ricky Rioli said:

I once heard Clapton talking (on a promo video for a Fender Custom Shop replica of one of his old guitars)

 

"What I would always look for on a Strat was a maple neck that had been worn out, I just thought if it had all those kind of worn out patches it meant that it had been well favoured. I think I had played a rosewood on a Jaguar or Jazzmaster in the Yardbirds; I didn't like the feel of it, it felt resistant to bending, it felt like the grain was quite prominent on a rosewood, there was a definite feel to it, it felt like you were going across the grain if you tried to bend a string. [Looks down at the maple-fretboard Strat on his lap] And I never that with this – this was just like almost marble or something, it was so smooth."

 

From 4'08" to 4'57" here:

 

 

[RhysP]

On 19/11/2021 at 09:23, neepheid said:

Am I abnormal that I've played rosewood, maple, ebony and pao ferro boards and found not one jot of difference between them all beyond the aesthetic?

 

Am I incompetent?

Am I fortunate?

 

Edit: forgot laurel.

I'm exactly the same.

For many years I preferred the look of maple boards, now I tend to prefer rosewood & ebony.

Based on my 40+ years of experience playing bass & guitar I'd say that the type of frets used has a far bigger impact on the feel/playability of an instrument than the fingerboard material. 

[neepheid]

I've had a little think about it and I have to come to the conclusion that the reason I don't notice differences in fretboard material is (relative) incompetence.

 

Don't get me wrong, I play to a reasonable standard, but I'm lazy and I only play when I've got a reason to - a gig, a rehearsal, learning new songs. When I'm playing, I have to concentrate in the foreground of my brain that bit more than someone who plays more often than me, so I don't have spare capacity to take in the tactile scenery as I move around the fretboard.

 

Unlike bass (an activity I partake in at most a few times a week for about the last 13 years) I've been driving for at least 28 years and have done it almost daily in that time so as a consequence I think I've become quite good at it in that natural way that good/enviable players make it seem when they're playing - things like what gear to be in, keeping the car in the direction it should be going have become background tasks so I can have spare capacity to appreciate how the car is driving, how different vehicles feel etc.

 

Sorry for derailing the thread with this waffle. Back to the boards!

[RhysP]

4 minutes ago, neepheid said:

I've had a little think about it and I have to come to the conclusion that the reason I don't notice differences in fretboard material is (relative) incompetence.

 

Don't get me wrong, I play to a reasonable standard, but I'm lazy and I only play when I've got a reason to - a gig, a rehearsal, learning new songs. When I'm playing, I have to concentrate in the foreground of my brain that bit more than someone who plays more often than me, so I don't have spare capacity to take in the tactile scenery as I move around the fretboard.

 

Unlike bass (an activity I partake in at most a few times a week for about the last 13 years) I've been driving for at least 28 years and have done it almost daily in that time so as a consequence I think I've become quite good at it in that natural way that good/enviable players make it seem when they're playing - things like what gear to be in, keeping the car in the direction it should be going have become background tasks so I can have spare capacity to appreciate how the car is driving, how different vehicles feel etc.

 

Sorry for derailing the thread with this waffle. Back to the boards!

I also think a lot of it has to do with people wanting to find technical reasons for liking something, and if they make a change with their gear they have to justify it someway that sounds a bit deeper than "I like the way that looks".

Saying that you bought something because you thought it looked nice is OK if you're shopping for curtains, but not basses & guitars. 🙂

I played Zon basses for years (long term members on here may remember my lovely pair of Zon Legacy fretted & fretless basses) & if I'm honest when I was playing them I wasn't even really aware of the difference in feel between the carbon fibre necks on them & the wooden necks on my other basses.

[Munurmunuh]

22 minutes ago, RhysP said:

a lot of it has to do with people wanting to find technical reasons for liking something, and if they make a change with their gear they have to justify it someway that sounds a bit deeper than "I like the way that looks".

 

Alternatively: when some people discover that there are subtleties that they are unaware of, they prefer to ascribe the reported distinctions to some kind of delusion on the part of those able to perceive them than entertain the possibility that they are relatively insensitive.

 

Both sides think they're right, and it's really not important, so why bother insulting those who disagree with you? 

[Woodinblack]

On 19/11/2021 at 09:23, neepheid said:

Am I abnormal that I've played rosewood, maple, ebony and pao ferro boards and found not one jot of difference between them all beyond the aesthetic?

 

Is there any reason why the aesthetic isn't important?

 

Or maybe there is something. I love the look of maple, but looking around me, I haven't got one maple fingerboarded instrument. I have had several but haven't kept them for reasons that probably aren't anything to do with the fingerboard (or maybe they are but I don't notice?)

[Velarian]

1 hour ago, neepheid said:

I've had a little think about it and I have to come to the conclusion that the reason I don't notice differences in fretboard material is (relative) incompetence.

 

Don't get me wrong, I play to a reasonable standard, but I'm lazy and I only play when I've got a reason to - a gig, a rehearsal, learning new songs. When I'm playing, I have to concentrate in the foreground of my brain that bit more than someone who plays more often than me, so I don't have spare capacity to take in the tactile scenery as I move around the fretboard.

 

Unlike bass (an activity I partake in at most a few times a week for about the last 13 years) I've been driving for at least 28 years and have done it almost daily in that time so as a consequence I think I've become quite good at it in that natural way that good/enviable players make it seem when they're playing - things like what gear to be in, keeping the car in the direction it should be going have become background tasks so I can have spare capacity to appreciate how the car is driving, how different vehicles feel etc.

 

Sorry for derailing the thread with this waffle. Back to the boards!

Unconscious competence?

 

I’m currently at the conscious incompetent stage i.e. I’m crap and I know I am 😂

[RhysP]

36 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

 

Alternatively: when some people discover that there are subtleties that they are unaware of, they prefer to ascribe the reported distinctions to some kind of delusion on the part of those able to perceive them than entertain the possibility that they are relatively insensitive.

 

Both sides think they're right, and it's really not important, so why bother insulting those who disagree with you? 

I'm not insulting anyone, Just thinking out loud. I've certainly done the obsessing over rosewood/maple/whatever things I mentioned in my post when I was younger. 

I was pretty certain I could tell the difference too. What changed was I realised that it was completely unimportant to me, and nobody else gave a damn either. 😂

Edited November 20, 2021 by RhysP