Maple vs Ebony vs Rosewood Fretboards

[Bengal65]

i really dont see how the fretboard wood effects playing. its all in your head. personally i like ebony for looks, tonally they each have there place.

+1 Well said!

[Bengal65]

It's actually more in the fret size than the board material. While a loose-grained wood like rosewood will absorb more of the acoustic tone and harder woods like maple and ebony will reflect it back more, in the end it doesn't really transfer to the amp, especially with distortion.

+1 Another well said!

If you are playing with Dunlop 6100 frets, or scalloping for that matter you never will be touching the board anyway.

[Holy Diver]

I think maple has more of a snap than the other woods when the strings bounce off of it, fret size or not. There is a difference you can hear and feel. I bet in a Pepsi challenge I could pick out Maple over the other woods just by the sound.

[Cygnus X1]

Rosewood, for me. It's just the way I grew up, I guess. Maple is too "brittle", or sharp for my taste, and ebony is like an EMG pickup, kind of nuetral. I have trouble defining it, but I like the tightest grained rosewoods I can find. The darker, the better. I like the warmth of the tone, on a mahogany body, and maple neck.

[kmanick]

another Maple fan here . 3 of my 4 guitars have maple boards.

the other is ebony (SL2H) and surprisingly enough that is my favorite
6 string guitar (my 7's both have maple boards) but it's not the ebony
board that makes it my favorite it's just the total package.

[Mr Metal]

Ebony for me, with Pao Ferro following closely and Maple after.....Rosewood last........This is a good subject for a poll.......

[Axewielder]

I'm kind of a Jackson ebony snob, but it seems like every time I play an inexpensive maple or rosewood board, I'm like "oh shit that's fuggin good!". I think Jackson makes waaaaaay too many ebony boards IMHO.

[Holy Diver]

Rosewood, for me. It's just the way I grew up, I guess. Maple is too "brittle", or sharp for my taste, and ebony is like an EMG pickup, kind of nuetral. I have trouble defining it, but I like the tightest grained rosewoods I can find. The darker, the better. I like the warmth of the tone, on a mahogany body, and maple neck.

I never really thought about describing ebony as being like emgs. I guess now that I think about it is kind of in the middle. It's not really bright and it's not really warm. I always though I prefered ebony, but I'm beginning to like the sharp sound of maple. It is a hard choice.

[P.O. Box 245]

I prefer rosewood, best combo of tone and feel. Maple sounds brighter than the other two, while ebony is the "fastest" feeling wood.

[minh80]

Biggest reason why I like Ebony over the others is the feel of it. It's much smoother than the others. To me, it's kinda hard to distinquish the tonal differences as I've owned different bodies of different woods of different guitars.

[straycat]

It depends on which day of the week it is for me I have all of the above and love them all.

[thetroy]

My Warmoth custom which ought to arrive sometime in the next couple of weeks has a ziricote fretboard =P

[akoch]

Maple and ebony for me. I would not entirely dismiss a rosewood one, but... will most likely pass on it.

[Holy Diver]

Biggest reason why I like Ebony over the others is the feel of it. It's much smoother than the others. To me, it's kinda hard to distinquish the tonal differences as I've owned different bodies of different woods of different guitars.

Ebony is smooth and looks cool too.