ebony vs brazilian rosewood

[almondx]

I'm curious to know how either wood will sound on a brazilian rosewood neck. Listening to the clips from the 2 doublecuts (can't rmb which) in the Guitar in Progress page it seems that the one with ebony is more punchy with faster attack while the one with rosewood is more mellow and blooms slower? This may be due to different amps and pickups used though.. I love the punchiness of the ebony under gain and the mellow tone of rosewood while playing clean. Is this possible or do I have to sacrifice one for the other.

Haha I am spec-ing out my dream schroeder dc in my head already :p

[edgarallanpoe]

You will probably get a ton of different responses to this but here is my 2 cents.

Choose for feel. Sorry, but I can't believe that a fretboard has that much influence over the tone of a guitar. It is such a small part of the guitar, that it just doen't make sense to me that it would have a dramatic impact on tone.

I know most feel differently, but that is how I feel about it.

[Schroeder]

I think that tone and attack are different things. In my opinion, ebony boards make a big difference in the attack. It adds a definite snap to notes which I personally love, especially in a live situation. In my experience, you can reduce the ebony snap by rolling off a bit of tone.

[almondx]

Alright guys thanks! So in that sense ebony would cover more bases than rosewood? I play jazz and classic to modern rock and I don't like a lot of snap doing jazz chording.

So the tone of ebony and rosewood would be quite similar would it?

I actually do prefer the look of ebony on rosewood. It's almost like a schroeder is made in different shades of chocolate =D Black limba looks like a mixture of white and milk choco, rosewood looks like milk choco and ebony the dark choco!

It's tough to make a decision primarily because brazilian rosewood is running out. Hmm..

[edgarallanpoe]

I think that tone and attack are different things. In my opinion, ebony boards make a big difference in the attack. It adds a definite snap to notes which I personally love, especially in a live situation. In my experience, you can reduce the ebony snap by rolling off a bit of tone.

Agreed. Well said.

[DrPCR]

I have ebony on my BRW neck.

WHen I was a LP collector, I had many many LPs with ebony necks, they were rare, but I liked it over the rosewoods. I first discovered them on the LP studios but then I found they did put ebony boards on standards.

I think I liked the feel of the ebony and it is more brighter than rosewood, but not that much.

I'm in the opinion, that the fretboard contributes more to feel than to tone.

[almondx]

Interesting! Thanks for all the information guys!