Why rosewood over ebony fretboard

[Bradock PI]

Why do most people seem to want rosewood over ebony or even maple as I understood ebony was possibly the best wood for frets or am I misguided?

I like to ask these questions they seem to get so heated!!!

[indysmith]

Ebony is bright sounding and quite tight-grained (generally), Rosewood is warmer sounding and more open grained (generally)... It's just a preference I suppose.

[Philly Q]

I'm not sure it is a case of "want", necessarily - I think one of the main reasons rosewood and maple are so widely used is that they're relatively cheap and plentiful.  Ebony's expensive and (I'm guessing here) it's probably difficult to get consistent stocks of aesthetically-pleasing black/very dark ebony.

Plus there's the tradition element - all those Strats, Teles and Les Paul Standards used maple and rosewood.  Yes, the LP Custom uses ebony, but they were never so popular.

[WezV]

good ebony always feels best.  good rosewood is possibly the most tonally balanced.

although ebony is very hard and smooth it is also quite brittle and not overly stable, it also tends to shrink more over time than other wood choices... all of these can lead to warranty issues for manufacturers

i dont think you can say its the best wood for frets... most woods hold a tang pretty well!

[Lew]

afaik ebony can be quite hard to work with because of being hard and stiff and some people complain about it cracking. There are so many types of rosewood too, like pau ferro that is closed grain and can feel similar to ebony and ofcourse there's brazillian rosewood that many would regard as the holy grail for fingerboards.

[Bradock PI]

Yup wez sorry didn't mean frets as in fret wire inparticular just meant in terms of the fretboard for the neck.

My new classical has an ebony fretboard  with a ebony reinforced honduras cedar neck, spruce top and sycamore (european maple back and sides). The epiphone LP has a RW fretboard (I think!)

NB Nice to see your website up Wez very cool !!!

[Oli]

Personally, I used to be an ebony fan, but i've converted to rosewood- the way it ages is more appealing. Maple is always there on the side though :)

[viking]

It all depends on the guitar's type.Who would want to have a rosewood fingerboard on a Concert Classical guitar (spanish)?Nobody because Ebony is much better for that type of guitar.It's almost the same for the "folk"guitar.For the electric guitar,i've never liked the Ebony fretboard.Too cold and dry for me.But,for some models,it could work..Nothing like a good Brazilian rosewood,though  8)

[nfe]

Yeah it's all personal preference/different woods for different vibes.

I reall don't get along with rosewood on modern guitars, though I've loved some old guitars with rosewood boards. In fact my favourite guitar I've ever played (I'd have bought it, but all the money I could collect wasn't enough to make the owner give me it  :lol:) was a 57 Junior. Whether that's down to the half century worth of aging or whether it's the quality of the wood I dont know. But in modern guitars I always lean to maple and ebony, for that glassy touch and the extra attack.

[WezV]

NB Nice to see your website up Wez very cool !!!

 i am still not sure.   i reckon its a bit too slow and clunky. 

a class i have been helping out in for my day job were doing a website development module so i had a play inbetween helping the kids get theirs right.

[gwEm]

i strongly prefer the feel of ebony myself, but rosewood works out ok in the end. on a fender, i do like maple

[blue]

oddly enough, i'm not that keen on ebony.  it seems to me to give a strangeley synthetic sound.  my own favourite is maple, i like the attack and snap.  i know ebony is supposed to sound similar, maybe it's just me?  most of my guitars have rosewood boards though, and i do like it as well.

[Ratrod]

Depends on the axe and pickups.

Gretsch uses ebony on filtertron models to brighten them up a bit and rosewood on the dynasonic models to warm them up a bit.

[Crazy_Joe]

Ebony and Maple always look better than Rosewood imo. Though i don't think i've ever played an ebony board.

[dave_mc]

different tone and feel- preference, really. that's my take on it, anyway. I like ebony, a lot, but i wouldn't want it on every guitar i had. It looks and sounds great on certain guitars for certain tones, but on some things it'd just look and sound wrong.