Ever played a guitar with an ebony fretboard?

[atomicmassunit]

I've got a private stock prs with an ebony board. Really like it. Like others said, its brighter, slicker, harder, very nice.

[Austinrocks]

Have it on a couple guitars, my Larrivee acoustic and my LP Custom, love it on my acoustic, bright punchy really makes the acoustic great, on my LP custom its bright and punchy as well, feels great but really prefer rose wood on an electric, more mellow, the punchiness tends to be like a horn with the customs pups,

I noticed the robot gibson SG and LP have ebony necks, and I am gassing for one of those, love to be able to do alternate tunings with out having to tune the guitar my self, especially painful on a floating bridge strat, not so bad on the gibsons.

[shane88]

yes ... too hard, too slick, too bright, too dark...........

[thetourist]

I've got used to ebony board, now rosewood feels like something from lower class a little bit. I now it's actually not, but the feel and look of ebony is so nice!

[dunara]

My Antoria/Ibanez 2675 Custom Agent has an ebony board. There's a great feeling of solidness and quality. It seems to take wide/flat frets better than rosewood due to its finer grain structure and slick feel. I don't have any stills of the instrument online, but here's a vid of me playing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGu4rAK5WFM

[pennylink]

I have ebony boards on a Larrivee acoustic and a Yamaha SA2200. I find it makes for a very smooth, fast playing surface. Playing dynamics get translated very well. Personally, I prefer it to rosewood.

[Dave L]

Sure, I have four guitars with ebony boards. I really like the look and feel of it.

[Zelja]

After getting an Ibanez AS200 with an ebony board, I was jonesing to get another guitar with ebony & got an Ibanez AR300. For me , great feel & look.

I had another guitar custom built (a Grubisa Merlin - great guitar) before I had the experience with the above 2 guitars & my only regret is not getting an ebony board on it.

[JimmyR]

I like ebony on a 6120. Compared with more or less identical Gretsches with RW boards I find the ebony sounds rounder and has a bit more thump to it. A bit like maple necks on Fenders. But I don't like ebony on Les Pauls. I prefer the drier bitiness of rosewood there.

I find that there is a pretty noticable difference between ebony and rosewood. Ebony is similar to maple but maybe a touch darker while rosewood sounds crisper and drier.

[jpervin]

Originally Posted by gtraddict

I have a G&l Bluesboy with an ebony board. I did find it to be a bit brighter and more responsive than maple. I also thought the feel was better. Wish I could find more G&L's with this option.

Originally Posted by rob2001

I'd agree with that. Ebony feels great, very smooth. Part of it may be perception. It just looks like it will be smooth and feel great, and it does!

Just my opinion, I don't think fretboard woods affect tone much. Maybe a little, but I think body and neck woods matter more.

Just my opinion.....

I'm thinking of building a Tele with a maple neck/ebony fretboard, but was wondering if using an ash body vs. an alder body would make a significant difference in tone?

Thanks for everyone's input on this thread so far!

[soldano16]

As someone who has owned close to 40 Les Pauls including some customs with ebony fretboards, my observation is that ebony has a sharper tone with less sustain. Can't be 100% positive because I only owned one LP standard from the Norlin years.

Was it the Norlin LP's or the ebony fretboard?

But I think it was the ebony that gave the sharper tone.

[HoboMan]

I love Ebony boards, my favorite. I have Ebony on my Gibson SG & Carvin TL60.

[FlyingVBlues]

I have ebony fretboards on several Les Paul Custom's, two L-5's and a 1959 ES-355. I prefer the feel and tone I get with ebony boards when compared to rosewood or maple. In contrast with several other posters I think I get better sustain with a Les Paul Cusom with an ebony board than one of my LP Historics with rosewood. I've never had issues with the ebony cracking with any of these guitars. The one thing you have to be careful about is refretting an ebony board. Ebony is a very dense, hard wood and a guitar tech who is not familiar with working with it can really mangle a ebony board.

FVB

[sixstring531]

My '89 Les Paul Studio has an ebony fretboard -- it's my favorite fretboard, as far as fretboards go.

[leigh]

my carvin has two... very comfortable. and they stay really clean as well. i find ebony requires less maintenance than my rosewood boards. as for tone, they don't seem to affect tone too much in my opinion (at least not as much as everything else does).