3 Different Necks On The Same Guitar (I’m Shocked)

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Fender American Vintage II Strat in Fiesta Red

Road Worn '50s Maple Strat Neck

Roasted Maple Strat Neck

So. We all know that I support the tone wood theory, but in today's video, we're putting that to the test by asking if different guitar necks really sound different. Usually, I'd chock up any difference in tone from a maple to a rosewood neck to the different guitars, pickups, pots, guitar weight, ect. But today, we used the same guitar and swapped the different necks out. And honestly, I'm kind of shocked with the results.

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0:00 Intro

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:04 The Guitar & Necks
03:13 The Amp
03:51 Rosewood Neck
04:29 Swapping For Maple
06:18 Tone Comparison
08:21 Initial Thoughts
09:37 Swapping To Roasted Maple
10:39 This Doesn't Really Matter?
11:40 Final Tone Comparison
13:26 Rhett is Shocked
15:46 Final Thoughts
17:06 Outro

[Kiviat]

Funny how Fender went with rosewood because the maple showed age and usage….now they charge extra to make maple necks look that way!

[PaulDavids]

When I compared a Squier to a Fender standard/custom shop/original '63 loads of people didn't hear a difference either, which is totally understandable. They all sound very much like a guitar. This is basically the same, but even more extreme I guess. There are differences, but they are marginal. But if you've been playing guitar for so many years and for so many hours a day, these subtleties are easier to spot. I don't even know if it's the wood, or just the fact that it's different necks/nuts/tuning pegs.
For what it's worth: camp Rosewood.

[jonestheguitar]

I think we can all agree that what made Jimi Hendrix so great was his incredible choices of fretboard wood.

[FStoppers]

Anything thought of this? The rosewood neck is the only one that is two pieces right? The maples are both single piece right? Could that be the reason they sound different? There is glue between the fretboard and the maple back side of the neck. -P

[Sammywhat]

Now, the only problem is convincing my wife why I need three Strats.

[NadaSurfinAB]

I heard more of a difference than I expected. Thanks for taking the time to run this experiment.

[jackmaddox]

I know I'm pretty late to this party, but I just saw this for the first time, and figured I'd throw in my two cents worth (bulletin from the future, I just finished writing this comment, and it's like the War and Peace of comments, so grab a beverage and put your feet up if you plan to read the whole thing), I've been a luthier and guitarist in (mostly) rock bands for over 20 years, plus I was a cabinet maker for about 10 years, and I've gleaned a few things in regagrds to wood/tone, etc. First, I noticed almost as soon as I started playing guitar that maple neck guitars sound a touch brighter; when you fret a note, one end of the vibrating length of the string is resting on a fret, which is stuck into the fretboard (yeah yeah, I know, duh), so it's logical to me that it would make a difference. Rosewood is (generally) a slightly softer wood than 'rock maple', the primary neck maple, plus rosewood is a slightly oily wood, which maple is not; and that oiliness plus being slightly softer seems to attenuate some of the higher frequencies in the string's vibration. Hence, rosewood TENDS to sound a bit warmer. Furthermore, maple has a hard finish on it like 95% of the time, which accentuates that bright, snappiness; ebony, which almost never has a finish, but is a VERY hard, dense wood, sounds more more like maple than rosewood. Roasted maple, which is literally heated in an oven, in a vacuum, for a prolonged period, has the resins (sap) desiccated (dried up) which makes it harden and stiffen (kind of like a finish drying, in a way), and removes most of the moisture from the wood. This makes it stiffer, slightly lighter, and a bit more brittle, which, to my ear at least, produces the brightness, but slightly decreased 'fullness' of the sound. For me, just sorta picturing these things, oily rosewood, brittle roasted, and hard, dense ebony, just logically produces the VERY slight differences in tone. Also, Mahogany, being softer than maple (in general) also very slightly loses some hi freqs, making for a slightly warmer tone. One of the reasons Les Pauls sound so good is that thick mahogany body, producing a full, warm tone, and then a 1/2" maple cap on top which adds some brightness and 'snap', combine for a really great, balanced tone. Those guys knew what they were doing back then. Lastly, stainless frets, being harder than nickel silver frets, are similarly a tad brighter, or snappier, but again, these variances are TINY. Now, one last post script, and I apologize for my epic tome of a comment (it's 10am and I've been up all night, and I'm so caffeinated I'm actually slightly vibrating, I think), there's a video somewhere on youtube, where a guy starts changing things, keeping only the bridge and pickup (Tele) and tuners unchanged, and goes from a normal guitar, to the parts screwed on a 2x4, to the bridge on one bench, and the tuners mounted in another bench a couple feet away, with the strings spanning the void between them! And honestly, other than minimal, insignificant differences such as shown here in Rhett's video, there is VIRTUALLY NO DIFFERENCE in tone from one end of the experiment to the other!! Some of that can be put down to youtubes compression of the audio, etc., but still, it's amazing to see, and I highly recommend looking for it. Ok, my eyes are going out of focus, the clock seems to be talking to me, and the cat is smoking all my cigarettes, I think it's time I write 'the end', and get some sleep! To those disturbed few who've made it this far, I hope you found this interesting, and with that, great upload as always, Rhett, and cheers all! THE END.

[simonwilliams]

I've always felt that Rosewood necks sounded warmer than Maple, so it's nice to have it finally confirmed that I wasn't imagining it.

[halfindy]

11:14 In my humble opinion that is true for so much more than just fretboards. Even switching from a Peavey Wolfgang to a 1971 Les Paul Custom during a live concert doesn't change that much of what's being experienced by the audience in the room, but obviously it makes an immense difference for me. For me, whatever inspires you in any given moment is the right thing to use!

[TommyGrunge]

The thing I gather from all these types of videos is that if there's a difference in tone at all it's minimal enough that when buying a guitar you really only have to worry about the feel and if you like the way it looks. The wood choice really isn't something that effects the recorded tone in a large enough way to matter.

[uhhjake]

Had my eyes closed during the A/B comparisons of the rosewood vs maple and other than the first playing where i had yet to shut my eyes, i could only tell when the neck had changed maybe 2 times out of 10

[FoundryStreetJason]

Great video. With my eyes closed through headphones. The maple sounded brighter and snappier than the rosewood. Ultimately, I loved the sound of the roasted maple neck. Thank you.

[nvs]

Oh boy.... The PTSD this gave me. The great Tonewood Wars of the early to mid 2010s.... What a time to be alive

[fossilmatic]

I’ve often wondered if the visual lightness of maple makes us think it sounds “brighter”, and the darkness of rosewood makes us characterise the sound as “darker”. The mind plays funny games…

[paulw.]

Arthur Pate and others at the Sorbonne in Paris did some experiments and found that the resonance properties of individual pieces of wood vary more than the difference between the average piece of maple and the average piece of rosewood. They measured a bunch of nominally "identical" guitars made in the same factory, differing only in the wood type used for the fretboards. They also did tests where they had guitarists play guitars in a dimly lit room with funny-colored light, so that they couldn't tell whether the fretboards were rosewood or maple, and then asked the guitarists to describe the sounds of the different guitars. There was no pattern of them describing either type as brighter or snappier or any of the things we're told about fretboard effects on sound.

[robertchildress]

Brett, you are absolutely spot on that the average listener in the audience will not tell the difference but as players we sometimes get into the slight nuances and this comparison, is definitely cork sniffing territory.

[soylentkris]

@11:32 The sound and feel of a guitar ABSOLUTELY affects the way I play. This is th reason why I choose certain guitars for certain gigs. I hear in my head when I think I may want a Les Paul, or my blackguard Tele, or one of my Strats, or my 335. They all sound and feel differently, and it's reflected in my playing.

[dreamboat]

The picking position, cut of the nut, height from the strings, and the fit of the pocket will affect your tone more than the fretboard material, -playability and stability of the frets is actually quite different with different woods though!

[mattflickinger]

It’s the front end of the note. It’s softer on the rosewood. I think the maple “snap” is a real thing. They sounded brighter. I think it’s from the feel, i have always preferred the “harder” feeling maple. Really well done Rhett!

[KG-wpgh]

This is a really cool test. The rosewood did deliver the expected tone, but the brightness of that maple sounded so good. The roasted maple sounded brighter than the rosewood, but thinner than the maple, likely due to the saddle height. I wonder how these tracks would sit in a mix and whether the differences would be noticeable.