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Can you really tell the difference between a maple and rosewood neck?

I understand that on an acoustic where the vibrations are transfered into the wood and the density and contruction affects the tone and volume...even the way you hold it while playing can alter the sound...But on an electric does any of that stuff really matter?

I see the strings, nut, bridge, pickups and wiring harness (caps, pots...etc) will affect tone dramatically. Even the placement of the pickups and how the are mounted (floating or direct) can affect the tone coming out of the speaker. Hollow bodies and solid bodies also sound different....but can you really hear the difference between korina and maple, even when the pickups are mounted on a similar plastic pickguard?

lapsteel wrote:Can you really tell the difference between a maple and rosewood neck?

Did you actually mean the difference between fretboard woods?

(Because I think very few guitars are made with rosewood necks. George Harrison's rosewood Tele comes to mind.)

Either way, I think for me it's not so much the difference in sound, but the difference in feel.

I think it makes less of a difference on an electric than on an acoustic.

Chankgeez wrote:Either way, I think for me it's not so much the difference in sound, but the difference in feel.

I think it makes less of a difference on an electric than on an acoustic.

This...
I'm sure the wood choice does make a difference, but not to a noticeable degree for me.
Besides, when it's being run through anything but the squeakiest of cleans, does the wood choice really matter? I bet you could run a 2x4 with pickups through a Muff and it would sound more or less the same as a PRS or whatever.
I think I'm gonna do that. At least it might annoy someone.
Tonewoods are a real thing but I think for the most part they're as irrelevant as pickguard material, pickup ring size or whatever else people argue about affecting the sound.

LaBaye!!!

Googled "rectangular guitar" and found this:



http://tbeamguitar.blogspot.com/2010/11 ... uitar.html

METAL RESONANCE

lapsteel wrote:Can you really tell the difference between a maple and rosewood neck?

I understand that on an acoustic where the vibrations are transfered into the wood and the density and contruction affects the tone and volume...even the way you hold it while playing can alter the sound...But on an electric does any of that stuff really matter?

I see the strings, nut, bridge, pickups and wiring harness (caps, pots...etc) will affect tone dramatically. Even the placement of the pickups and how the are mounted (floating or direct) can affect the tone coming out of the speaker. Hollow bodies and solid bodies also sound different....but can you really hear the difference between korina and maple, even when the pickups are mounted on a similar plastic pickguard?

Ok, Yes it all makes a difference to the sound to some degree.

The biggest noticeable difference is actually the neck it's self not just the fingerboard. Don't believe me? go get a guitar and a bunch of necks start swapping out necks. Maple, mahogany, mixed laminated, padauk, carbon fiber aluminum ect it will all make a very addible difference... even going from one maple/rosewood neck to another can be very noticeable, depending on the wood's density and or if it has extra stiffening in it other than a standard truss rod, it is very easy to tell.

Now... is one thing "better" than another? no. Just different. and I really wish more builders would go outside of the box and REALLY mess around.

Now about the body thing: Yes hollow bodies sound different than a solid body... yes you can hear the difference between a korina and maple... since those are VERY different... you can spend hours reading about that stuff.. and again does it matter... not really except to you in the end...

About the pickguard thing... yes and no... yes if you have a lot of routing under it... again don't believe me... get a swimming-pool routed guitar and make a wood guard and plastic one and see if you can hear or not...

The thing is you have to be able to do any of this in context. Meaning... you have to be able to be able to try the same everything in different configurations otherwise it will have no meaning... because a strat is a strat and a LP is a LP and there are a lot of things that make each what they are that have nothing to do with what they are made out of... or I just might be crazy you know...

Chankgeez wrote:Googled "rectangular guitar" and found this:



http://tbeamguitar.blogspot.com/2010/11 ... uitar.html

dats hot!

Mudfuzz, you just made me think of this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=zF24JM ... ns&f=false

Chankgeez wrote:Mudfuzz, you just made me think of this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=zF24JM ... ns&f=false

yep that is my favorite chapter in that book

Mudfuzz wrote:

lapsteel wrote:Can you really tell the difference between a maple and rosewood neck?

I understand that on an acoustic where the vibrations are transfered into the wood and the density and contruction affects the tone and volume...even the way you hold it while playing can alter the sound...But on an electric does any of that stuff really matter?

I see the strings, nut, bridge, pickups and wiring harness (caps, pots...etc) will affect tone dramatically. Even the placement of the pickups and how the are mounted (floating or direct) can affect the tone coming out of the speaker. Hollow bodies and solid bodies also sound different....but can you really hear the difference between korina and maple, even when the pickups are mounted on a similar plastic pickguard?

Ok, Yes it all makes a difference to the sound to some degree.

The biggest noticeable difference is actually the neck it's self not just the fingerboard. Don't believe me? go get a guitar and a bunch of necks start swapping out necks. Maple, mahogany, mixed laminated, padauk, carbon fiber aluminum ect it will all make a very addible difference... even going from one maple/rosewood neck to another can be very noticeable, depending on the wood's density and or if it has extra stiffening in it other than a standard truss rod, it is very easy to tell.

Now... is one thing "better" than another? no. Just different. and I really wish more builders would go outside of the box and REALLY mess around.

Now about the body thing: Yes hollow bodies sound different than a solid body... yes you can hear the difference between a korina and maple... since those are VERY different... you can spend hours reading about that stuff.. and again does it matter... not really except to you in the end...

About the pickguard thing... yes and no... yes if you have a lot of routing under it... again don't believe me... get a swimming-pool routed guitar and make a wood guard and plastic one and see if you can hear or not...

The thing is you have to be able to do any of this in context. Meaning... you have to be able to be able to try the same everything in different configurations otherwise it will have no meaning... because a strat is a strat and a LP is a LP and there are a lot of things that make each what they are that have nothing to do with what they are made out of... or I just might be crazy you know...

I have a hard time hearing any difference between neck materials. Maybe it is my embattled hearing or my skeptical attitude, but I don't hear it... even a crystal clear tone. I can hear differences between pickups varieties and even differences in similar types of pickups (over wound singles...) when I actually hear a teles with different neck woods and fret boards I simply explain it by comparing wiring harnesses and pickup tolerances....I get that a hollowbody and a solid body sound different even when amplified, but the differences can be also explained by the floating pickup mounting style that is typical of archtops, not neccesarily only because the body vibrates more because of it's construction. I mean if sound is derived from vibrations then as soon as you place your hand on a neck and rest the body against your abdomen that vibration is significantly reduced and even nullified. Electric guitars sound no different (when amplified) if you hold them up in the air behind your head or if you hold them against your side (or even on your lap).

Or maybe because when we play an instrument made with the upmost in craftsmanship and material we feel differently when we play....more inspired so we expect to hear an inspired tone....all of this is pretty subjective...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAjnxSQ3H9Q[/youtube]

lapsteel wrote:

Mudfuzz wrote:

lapsteel wrote:Can you really tell the difference between a maple and rosewood neck?

I understand that on an acoustic where the vibrations are transfered into the wood and the density and contruction affects the tone and volume...even the way you hold it while playing can alter the sound...But on an electric does any of that stuff really matter?

I see the strings, nut, bridge, pickups and wiring harness (caps, pots...etc) will affect tone dramatically. Even the placement of the pickups and how the are mounted (floating or direct) can affect the tone coming out of the speaker. Hollow bodies and solid bodies also sound different....but can you really hear the difference between korina and maple, even when the pickups are mounted on a similar plastic pickguard?

Ok, Yes it all makes a difference to the sound to some degree.

The biggest noticeable difference is actually the neck it's self not just the fingerboard. Don't believe me? go get a guitar and a bunch of necks start swapping out necks. Maple, mahogany, mixed laminated, padauk, carbon fiber aluminum ect it will all make a very addible difference... even going from one maple/rosewood neck to another can be very noticeable, depending on the wood's density and or if it has extra stiffening in it other than a standard truss rod, it is very easy to tell.

Now... is one thing "better" than another? no. Just different. and I really wish more builders would go outside of the box and REALLY mess around.

Now about the body thing: Yes hollow bodies sound different than a solid body... yes you can hear the difference between a korina and maple... since those are VERY different... you can spend hours reading about that stuff.. and again does it matter... not really except to you in the end...

About the pickguard thing... yes and no... yes if you have a lot of routing under it... again don't believe me... get a swimming-pool routed guitar and make a wood guard and plastic one and see if you can hear or not...

The thing is you have to be able to do any of this in context. Meaning... you have to be able to be able to try the same everything in different configurations otherwise it will have no meaning... because a strat is a strat and a LP is a LP and there are a lot of things that make each what they are that have nothing to do with what they are made out of... or I just might be crazy you know...

I have a hard time hearing any difference between neck materials. Maybe it is my embattled hearing or my skeptical attitude, but I don't hear it... even a crystal clear tone. I can hear differences between pickups varieties and even differences in similar types of pickups (over wound singles...) when I actually hear a teles with different neck woods and fret boards I simply explain it by comparing wiring harnesses and pickup tolerances....I get that a hollowbody and a solid body sound different even when amplified, but the differences can be also explained by the floating pickup mounting style that is typical of archtops, not neccesarily only because the body vibrates more because of it's construction. I mean if sound is derived from vibrations then as soon as you place your hand on a neck and rest the body against your abdomen that vibration is significantly reduced and even nullified. Electric guitars sound no different (when amplified) if you hold them up in the air behind your head or if you hold them against your side (or even on your lap).

Or maybe because when we play an instrument made with the upmost in craftsmanship and material we feel differently when we play....more inspired so we expect to hear an inspired tone....all of this is pretty subjective...

Nah.. I'm not even talking about upmost craftmanship at all.. but I have put together a lot of guitars and basses and modded a lot of guitars and basses... last thing I was messing around with interms of this subject was with a old Fender Bullet bass.. Went from a maple/rosewood ibanez neck to a carbon fiber mosses neck to a ESP maple/rosewood neck.. same body, pickup, bridge and strings, each one was really different: The Ibanez sounded on the bright side and open, the CF neck had a bright attack but tons of fundamental and sustain, the ESP had lots of fundamental and mids but not as much highs compared to the other two necks...

Sam frets, nuts and pole piece height? If neck material matters then pushing strings into big pearloid inlay blocks surely would matter too.
Still skeptical I guess. I could understand a cf neck or aluminum neck because that is a pretty dramatic change from wood.... but still this stuff is subjective. I wouldn't spend a fortune on a cf neck or aluminum for tone (especially since ilovefuzz), but I would if I was interested in stability and lighter weight on my shoulder....

How bout this: If you take a strat cut off the horns does it sound the same? Or reshape the headstock? Anyone try this?