Baked Maple...

[a.hun]

I really like the snappy-ness the maple gives the guitar, and I think it actually works better with pups that aren't so hot.
...great bark/bite, very nice sustain, despite the pups not being very hot. nice physical balance, good neck action (already feels faster after only 3 months!), and the 60's neck profile works very well.
...and with the black body on mine it really looks sharp too IMO...

Yeah, nice. I dare say the board will also darken really nicely when you oil it.

As a bassist I can officially afford to not give a crap about most things Gibson. The funny thing is I would love it if Fender or a Fender replacement neck company started making baked maple fingerboards because I love the way a maple board sounds on a bass but hate the color. It sounds weird probably but a fingerboard is the most looked at piece of any guitar or bass from a player perspective and the light color just distracts me or something. Maybe if I actually bought a maple boarded instrument I would get over it quickly, but a baked maple board would sweeten the deal for sure.

Loved this comment!

Yeah, I've still never really been taken by Gibson basses. Sure I'd enjoy a nice T.bird, but Fender just got it so right with their basses from the start and still do.

I don't mind maple boards at all, though I think 'J' basses look much better with rosewood, especially the big block inlay models. Both my Precisions are maple, both my 'J' types rosewood. If I wanted the brighter edge of a maple board but just couldn't get on with the looks I'd happily go for baked maple. Some of the ones I've seen pictured looked really nice, both dark or fairly light. Like that one Dark Helmet has.

...tonally, the maple would give a brighter tone than the rosewood. some folks may argue that on a gibson, thats not necessarily a bad thing!

+1. Loved this too!

Yeah, most humbuckered Gibbos are a bit too dark sounding for my own personal tastes. Though I'm sure that has a lot to do with the way I tend to dial my amps in. A few tweaks can work wonders there I know, and of course the LP is every bit as much a classic as Fender's best - I'm not saying differently. But I'm pretty much sorted for 'bucker guitars with my LP based Gordon Smith Graduate. Apart from anything else they have very decent sounding own make humbucking p/ups and clever passive tone controls with well thought out capacitor values) which make them a little brighter than most all Gibbos on 10. (GS guitars with their tones set at around 8 sound 'typically full open Gibson'.) Also they were about the first maker to use coil splits with push-pull switches on the volume controls. The cap values are also changed when switching - neat! And the split / 'bucking pickup mixes (useful both ways!) give a whole range of extra sounds. This is a very versatile guitar, much more so than any standard LP.

FWIW on fingerboards, when my GS was made they were doing their guitars with a fairly thin rosewood veneer for the board as opposed to a full thickness slab. Certainly didn't hurt the tone and this is the most stable neck I own. GS guitars always come with a very clean playing but ultra low setup from new. I raised mine a shade (found it just too low), and it has never shifted even a fraction since. (I've had it going on 15 years.) Most of my other guitars have shifted enough to need occasional neck tweaks especially after my move to Holland about 10 years back, but that one has been rock solid.


Andy.

[bassdrop]

EDIT: Sorry for the thread hijack . . .
I too would love a Thunderbird but would probably never get a Gibson since Mike Lull seems to have so thoroughly tweaked out his version:

http://www.mikelull.com/site/instrument ... T4_T5.html
Apparently this is Jeff Ament's favorite bass.


EDIT: OK, carry on then.

[leopoldbloom]

Taylor Guitars - The Future of Ebony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anCGvfsB ... r_embedded" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bassdrop]

That is awesome- thanks for posting that!

[starling1]

If you can tell what style of wood fretboard is being played on a track by ear, I'll quit playing guitar.

What a load of crap.

[DiabloS]

If you can tell what style of wood fretboard is being played on a track by ear, I'll quit playing guitar.

What a load of crap.

LoL... I only half agree with this... but you do have a point. I'll be the first to admit I can't tell the difference when listening to a recording what type of wood was on the fretboard. But I've owned 7 different versions of Gibson SG's, only 2 of them had ebony fretboards and there is definitely a difference between those 2 and all of the other rosewood fretboard SG's I've had... both in feel and sound.

But I agree that the type of fretboard wood shouldn't be on the top of the list for what you're looking for in a guitar if everything else feels right and you're not considering looks. That being said, I have a thing where if I'm going to have a rosewood fretboard, I prefer it to be dark. But if I'm going to have a maple fretboard, I prefer it to be light in color. It actually bugs me if the brightness of the color isn't right..

[starling1]

If you can tell what style of wood fretboard is being played on a track by ear, I'll quit playing guitar.

What a load of crap.

LoL... I only half agree with this... but you do have a point. I'll be the first to admit I can't tell the difference when listening to a recording what type of wood was on the fretboard. But I've owned 7 different versions of Gibson SG's, only 2 of them had ebony fretboards and there is definitely a difference between those 2 and all of the other rosewood fretboard SG's I've had... both in feel and sound.

But I agree that the type of fretboard wood shouldn't be on the top of the list for what you're looking for in a guitar if everything else feels right and you're not considering looks. That being said, I have a thing where if I'm going to have a rosewood fretboard, I prefer it to be dark. But if I'm going to have a maple fretboard, I prefer it to be light in color. It actually bugs me if the brightness of the color isn't right..

yeah. I should have amended that original comment by saying that I prefer ebony fretboards mostly for aesthetic reasons, but I'll say also that I find them nicer for bends, and they just tend to feel nicer. I've heard people say that ebony gets bright to the point of being tinny, but personally I think that's bunk (again, whatever tonal difference there is that exists between fret woods is so inconsequential after everything else which affects tone that this is rendered irrelevant. Whenever I hear guitarists talking about it I'm reminded of those wine tasters who say they can taste with calendar accuracy the season in which the grapes were crushed).

I'm actually shopping around for a new board right now, and I came across these: http://www.sharkinlay.com/main.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pretty cool, out of my budget.

cheers

[Randy Bass]

The phrase "Baked Maple" makes me hungry every time I see this thread. What the hell?!

[bassdrop]

My P bass with an ebony board used to have a rosewood board and it did change the sound to a bit brighter but I compensated by using a darker set of strings and eventually a darker amp