Favourite Fretboards?

[Sollipsist]

1. Ziricote. I bought this one for looks alone and have zero regrets, plays fast and slick with stainless frets.

2. Wenge. I love that it looks all gnarly and rough but plays like polished glass. Smells good when you drill it, too.
3. I'll take ebony before maple or rosewood
4. Always wanted to try pau ferro

 

[AC.Lin]

Maple !
I do enjoy enjoy other exotic types of woods, but you can do so much things with maple : flame, quilted, birdseye, or even paint it, etc...
Just look at that !

(reference: Regius Cardamom - MBC 2013)

For some "maple porn", check Wirebird Guitar, but also Ruokangas Guitar who does a really crazy job.

Basically everything is fine, except rosewood. It really looks like a cheap wood to me, and even the color is ugly
According to my tastes of course.

 

[Wolfhorsky]

1. maple - birdseye or vintage tinted.
2. black ebony, but my eco-aware alter ego won’t permit me of ordering the next one
I am now ordering my 4th Skerv with black Richlite. In theory it should be black, tight, smooth and eco-friendly. In a year or so i will know how it turned out.

 

[groverj3]

I like the idea of a maintenance-free synthetic board but I've never actually played one.

Those Richlite boards might be cool.

Of what I have I'd say ebony, but I also like a good maple board. Rosewood can be ok, but there are so many bad rosewood boards out there.

 

[jonsick]

I know everyone is going to say Ebony (well most anyway). But I really like my rosewood guitars. In fact one of my Jackson USAs I spec'd with a rosewood board. I like that it's a little snappier sounding than ebony. I'm not really too fussed with the aesthetics compared to ebony and OK while it may not be as smooth feeling, I still like that woody sort of feel.

That said I won't throw a tantrum at ebony. I still like it just fine.

I have one guitar with a richlite board. I have absolutely no complaints and still like the guitar just fine (Gibson LPC)

 

[Blytheryn]

Ebony, because it’s black.

 

[luislais]

Ebony is the better for me, but I need to try a pale moon ebony fretboard, they looks awesome!

 

[JohnIce]

There's something about a plain maple fretboard+headstock and white pickguard that just makes the inner kid in me want to rock out. It just looks uncomplicated, affordable and badass.

Beyond that though, I'm in the "don't wear a brown belt with black shoes" camp. Brown fretboards can look nice if the colour of the guitar complements the colour brown, but everything goes well with ebony. I also like the fact that a really dark fretboard with white or pearl inlays is helpful for my shoddy eyesight.

 

[Flappydoodle]

I know everyone is going to say Ebony (well most anyway). But I really like my rosewood guitars. In fact one of my Jackson USAs I spec'd with a rosewood board. I like that it's a little snappier sounding than ebony. I'm not really too fussed with the aesthetics compared to ebony and OK while it may not be as smooth feeling, I still like that woody sort of feel.

That said I won't throw a tantrum at ebony. I still like it just fine.

I have one guitar with a richlite board. I have absolutely no complaints and still like the guitar just fine (Gibson LPC)

That's interesting, because I always hear that ebony is much brighter/brittle and rosewood is much warmer/softer sounding

 

[Wolfhorsky]

That's interesting, because I always hear that ebony is much brighter/brittle and rosewood is much warmer/softer sounding

The fretboard material has a very minor influence on the sound. There is a youtube vid with the guy comparing two tele necks: one with maple and one with rosewood fretboard. That guy just swapped the necks. The result was somewhat strange because the all- maple neck sounded darker.

 

[bostjan]

The fretboard material has a very minor influence on the sound. There is a youtube vid with the guy comparing two tele necks: one with maple and one with rosewood fretboard. That guy just swapped the necks. The result was somewhat strange because the all- maple neck sounded darker.

This?

 

[AdenM]

Rosewood, if it's dark and even-grained (probably hard to find nowadays). Owned a KM-7 before but I developed a mild ebony allergy, so I sold it. Maybe we'll try again someday!

 

[Flappydoodle]

The fretboard material has a very minor influence on the sound. There is a youtube vid with the guy comparing two tele necks: one with maple and one with rosewood fretboard. That guy just swapped the necks. The result was somewhat strange because the all- maple neck sounded darker.

That's my observation too. I also don't think you can even narrow it down to just one species of wood. I'd say that each piece is different - it's why some guitars are just amazing and others seem to be duds, or at least they have wildly different characteristics. I remember when I bought my first Gibson. I played a whole bunch of the same model (same pickups, same woods, same nut etc), and some were boomy and dark, others bright and thin. So I couldn't conclude what mahogany with a maple top and rosewood fingerboard sounds like based on that - and a comparison between different woods would be even less valid.

 

[Rocks256]

Maple !
I do enjoy enjoy other exotic types of woods, but you can do so much things with maple : flame, quilted, birdseye, or even paint it, etc...
Just look at that !

(reference: Regius Cardamom - MBC 2013)

For some "maple porn", check Wirebird Guitar, but also Ruokangas Guitar who does a really crazy job.

Basically everything is fine, except rosewood. It really looks like a cheap wood to me, and even the color is ugly
According to my tastes of course.

This board is perfection, gotta love it. Wow lots of people love maple here, hope guitar companes can see this and start to making more non black, rosewood 7 strings. Maple looks cool especially with white, blue guitars

 

[bostjan]

That's my observation too. I also don't think you can even narrow it down to just one species of wood. I'd say that each piece is different - it's why some guitars are just amazing and others seem to be duds, or at least they have wildly different characteristics. I remember when I bought my first Gibson. I played a whole bunch of the same model (same pickups, same woods, same nut etc), and some were boomy and dark, others bright and thin. So I couldn't conclude what mahogany with a maple top and rosewood fingerboard sounds like based on that - and a comparison between different woods would be even less valid.

Not to mention that the species of wood also has little-to-nothing to do with the common name of the timber. The best case of this is "mahogany." What is "mahogany," exactly? Well, it could be an East Asian softwood similar to cedar, or it could be any one of 5 or so African Hardwood species, or it could be a swampy mineral-heavy tree from the West Indies, or it could be actual Honduran Mahogany. These are all vastly different woods with very different properties! Even maple could be rock maple, sugar maple, sycamore, hornbeam, box elder, etc. They all have different hardnesses and densities. Now compound that with the fact that figuring, such as flame, quilt, or birdseye or especially spalting are not even anything to do with the species of maple but rather the individual tree whence the timber came, and you have a very complicated set of specific expectations of how a "tonewood" will sound based off of it's common description, versus what it actually is.

That's why you might as well say "fuck it" and go with composite glass/carbon fiber or phenolic (z.B. richlite) or whatever floats your boat.

 

[Gravy Train]

Ebony for me (sometimes maple). Just feels good under the fingers while also requiring less maintenance than rosewood (imo of course).

 

[Wolfhorsky]

This?

Yep. Thx

 

[Edika]

I voted ebony for the aesthetic aspect of it as it doesn't clash with any type of finish. In general any type of dark wood/composite material is fine with me as long as it doesn't fall apart.

The guitars I've played so far had the three main woods, ebony, rosewood and maple. I didn't feel much difference on my fingers and none of them impacted my playing. However my only gripe with maple fretboards is that ybe two guitarsI owned happened to have some frequencies in the mids pronounced that I didn't care for or could dialout easily. I'm sure it wasn't the fretboard specifically to blame but it just made a weird connection to my mind so I'm always skeptical about maple fretboards.

 

[AxeHappy]

Poorly cared for snakewood makes well cared for ebony feel like horribly cared for clear coated maple.

That being said, it's mostly about aesthetics for me so it will vary from guitar to guitar and I have a taste for the ostentatiously eye searing so maple, which you can do *anything* with is hard to argue with.

 

[narad]

African Blackwood is great, too bad that Ron Thorn just went to Fender as he was a big proponent of this.

Parker glass/cf/epoxy whatever board is pretty great too. Also like the richlite on Aristides boards. Don't dig it on Gibsons...not sure if it's a different material or more of an uncanny valley, LPs being something I know very well, and feeling something off -- vs. the Aristides being sort of a new experience.