Maple neck VS. mahogony neck?

[miken]

What, if any, difference might one expect in tone from a maple neck to a mahogany neck? I ask because I have an Epiphone Sheaton II with a maple neck and a Dot with a mahogany neck. I really like the tone that I get from my Dot more than the Sheraton. Even though the Sheraton has upgraded pick ups and wiring. Could it be the neck making that much of a difference? Or, is it all in my head?

[pingu]

i like a mahogany neck myself

[docbop]

Maple is hard so some say brighter more sustain. Mahogany is more resonate people say warmer. Then you have to factor in the fretboard density. Whole lot of factors in why a guitar sounds the way it sound neck wood is just one.


I have both type of neck and like them both.

[jzucker]

Maple brighter, mahogany warmer. I heard on the original les paul they used mahogany neck because maple gave too much sustain! But i like a maple neck 175 for modern playing , benson uses maple neck guitars, metheny uses mahogany just to give an example

[miken]

Well I'm thinking that I'm a mahogany neck guy. I still like that Sheraton though.

[Archie]

I dont know about all this cause i refuse to buy into the tone wood debate etc.

You know people like to argue the difference between Ebony and Rosewood (I prefer Ebony every time btw). Yet they fail to realise that half of the notes they play are actually on plastic or some sort of mother of pearl.

Drops the mic and leaves the stage

(Comes back briefly)

I prefer maple btw :-)

[Franz 1997]

I dont know about all this cause i refuse to buy into the tone wood debate etc.

You know people like to argue the difference between Ebony and Rosewood (I prefer Ebony every time btw). Yet they fail to realise that half of the notes they play are actually on plastic or some sort of mother of pearl.

Drops the mic and leaves the stage

(Comes back briefly)

I prefer maple btw :-)

Plastic? MOP?? Go back to bed

[miken]

I dont know about all this cause i refuse to buy into the tone wood debate etc.

You know people like to argue the difference between Ebony and Rosewood (I prefer Ebony every time btw). Yet they fail to realise that half of the notes they play are actually on plastic or some sort of mother of pearl.

Drops the mic and leaves the stage

(Comes back briefly)

I prefer maple btw :-)

So, there is a difference??? If there is a difference, then at some point there will be a debate about which one is better, brighter, richer or whatever. I'm only wondering what the general consensus is on what that difference is. I have found that I have a preference for the mahogany neck, but, I'm wondering if it's because of the neck or ...?

[Archie]

Plastic? MOP?? Go back to bed

What? lol

Sorry Abalone.

[maggles55]

[QUOTE=ArchtopHeaven;518692] Yet they fail to realise that half of the notes they play are actually on plastic or some sort of mother of pearl.

If this is true, then you are squeezing the strings much too hard.

Seriously, playing the neck is called "fretting" for a reason. You are applying pressure on the string into the fret, not the space between the frets. The fret is hard-coupled to the fretboard, which is hard-coupled to the neck. This is why the composition of these woods matter and the presence or absence of fret markers does not.

Andy

[Archie]

So, there is a difference??? If there is a difference, then at some point there will be a debate about which one is better, brighter, richer or whatever. I'm only wondering what the general consensus is on what that difference is. I have found that I have a preference for the mahogany neck, but, I'm wondering if it's because of the neck or ...?

What i'm saying is, yes there is a difference, not there isn't. Its a pointless argument. over 90% of the tone comes from the body, and the many many factors that go into that.

In a blind test you would never ever be able to hear the difference, so why try and make one?

[339 in june]

And what about fingers ?
If you consider the fretting hand, except for open strings, half of the contact is made on fingers,
and I have the feeling that we'll find much more differences between two (regular) players than between tone woods
But this is just my own feeling.

[Archie]

[QUOTE=maggles55;518703]

Yet they fail to realise that half of the notes they play are actually on plastic or some sort of mother of pearl.

If this is true, then you are squeezing the strings much too hard.

Seriously, playing the neck is called "fretting" for a reason. You are applying pressure on the string into the fret, not the space between the frets. The fret is hard-coupled to the fretboard, which is hard-coupled to the neck. This is why the composition of these woods matter and the presence or absence of fret markers does not.

Andy

But fret makers reduce the amount of said wood. If there is less of it, does that make a difference? Well it should all things being equal.

Thankfully they are not ;-)

[jzucker]

[QUOTE=maggles55;518703]

Yet they fail to realise that half of the notes they play are actually on plastic or some sort of mother of pearl.

If this is true, then you are squeezing the strings much too hard.

Seriously, playing the neck is called "fretting" for a reason. You are applying pressure on the string into the fret, not the space between the frets. The fret is hard-coupled to the fretboard, which is hard-coupled to the neck. This is why the composition of these woods matter and the presence or absence of fret markers does not.

Andy

exactly. If fingerboard and neck didn't matter we'd all be playing carbon composite necks because they are extremely consistent and cheaper to manufacture and maintain.

[Archie]

[QUOTE=jzucker;518713]

exactly. If fingerboard and neck didn't matter we'd all be playing carbon composite necks because they are extremely consistent and cheaper to manufacture and maintain.

Well we should be and those who aren't afraid of the future, will.

I bet no one could tell the difference in a blind test.

[jzucker]

[QUOTE=ArchtopHeaven;518717]

Well we should be and those who aren't afraid of the future, will.

I bet no one could tell the difference in a blind test.

It doesn't matter what you can tell in a blindfold test. What matters is how it feels and sounds when you're playing it.

[Archie]

[QUOTE=jzucker;518723]

It doesn't matter what you can tell in a blindfold test. What matters is how it feels and sounds when you're playing it.

You see that I agree with but thats not to confuse it with a hardcore debate on tone wood, or wood choice. In the end you and i both know the same guitar made from the same woods by the same person will sound different.

If you cant even make something sound the same in that experiment, then what the hell is the point in us doing so?

Absolutely pointless.

I prefer maple for its looks. Simple as that. I prefer ebony for its looks.

If we want to get into how much tone is transferred from the neck to the body well then i'm out. Again, no one will be able to tell the difference.

[jzucker]

If *I* can hear and feel the difference while I'm playing, that's the only thing I'm interested in. Whether some random group of folks can hear the difference on a youtube clip does not interest me in the least.

[John A.]

If *I* can hear and feel the difference while I'm playing, that's the only thing I'm interested in. Whether some random group of folks can hear the difference on a youtube clip does not interest me in the least.

But a) you actually don't know for sure that you do hear the difference; knowing that you're playing two different instruments causes your mind to superimpose differences in sound whether or not they're really there. That's the point of well-controlled double-blind experiments. They test the question "if someone doesn't know instruments with different attributes are being played, does he or does he not hear differences in the instruments' sounds?" Handing a person two different guitars and telling him "Ok play these, and tell us what differences you perceive" does not test the hypothesis that changing an attribute changes the tone. You simply can't remove the psycho-acoustic and cognitive biases from the test, no matter how golden your ears are. This is something that has been validated countless times in peer-reviewed research.

b) even if there ARE differences, you can generally compensate for those difference (at least with an electric guitar) via the signal chain. So, while there may be differences between, say, a maple and a mahogany neck, ceteris parabus, you can make some of those cetera non-parabus to make either sound the way you want it to sound. That seems to work for an awful lot of people.

John

[Longways to Go]

My unscientific opinion is that a set mahogany neck seems to vibrate more, or resonate more with the guitar, or whatever. I don't know if the sound is affected, but I like that feeling. To me the choice is a bit of a trade off -- mahogany is softer but more resonant, maple is rock hard & stable. No science here, merely opinion.

[docbop]

If *I* can hear and feel the difference while I'm playing, that's the only thing I'm interested in. Whether some random group of folks can hear the difference on a youtube clip does not interest me in the least.

+1

Youtubes are the worst thing to evaluate sound of something. Who knows how the video was recorded then Youtube processes the submissions more to compress and make into multiple formats. At best they are a rough idea of the sound of something. If a site hosts there own videos then they are closer to original, but how they were recorded and are they using the same setup for all samples comes into play.

[mr. beaumont]

Continuing on unscientific opinions...

Anybody else think a mahogany neck "warms up" faster and retains body heat longer than maple?

[Archie]

+1

Youtubes are the worst thing to evaluate sound of something. Who knows how the video was recorded then Youtube processes the submissions more to compress and make into multiple formats. At best they are a rough idea of the sound of something. If a site hosts there own videos then they are closer to original, but how they were recorded and are they using the same setup for all samples comes into play.

Youtube experiments are bad but not when a guy is playing the same guitars through the same amp on the same settings.

Regardless of how bad the audio quality is you can still here the different characteristics of each.
How representative they are doesnt matter. It matters more that the experiment was controlled.

There are many good examples of bad sounding yet controlled experiments on youtube that shouldn't be over looked.

I posted one the other day about Es-175s. Sound was bad but the experiment was controlled.

[Woody Sound]

My unscientific opinion is that a set mahogany neck seems to vibrate more, or resonate more with the guitar, or whatever. I don't know if the sound is affected, but I like that feeling. To me the choice is a bit of a trade off -- mahogany is softer but more resonant, maple is rock hard & stable. No science here, merely opinion.

There are many who feel just the opposite. That a bolted on neck transfers resonance more, and that the glue joint in a set neck inhibits resonance transfer. But that is another argument altogether...

[medblues]

Continuing on unscientific opinions...

Anybody else think a mahogany neck "warms up" faster and retains body heat longer than maple?

Depends on the finish.

This has ash and maple but not mahogany.