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what's the deal with roasted maple...? and wood and that


BaggyMan

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As a veteran of owning many basses, with Maple on maple, rosewood on maple, even ebony on mahogany necks...whats the deal with roasted maple, its right up there with the worlds new obsession with gin and IPA beer ( I challenge you to find a non Guinness stout in a supermarket...).  Saw Ernie Ball mentioning that it crystallises the resin structure or the like.   

Is it a reaction to the lockdown on rosewood? Its was nowhere a couple of years ago and its blooming all over the place.

And whilst we're at it why isn't mahogany controlled more tightly....it aint planted its just cut down, yet guitar company's are now selling models in their ranges which are mahogany bodied cheaper than the ash or whatever versions (sire v3 vs Sire v7 for example).  

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As far as I understand, roasted woods are more stable than non-roasted. I guess that's an advantage with necks.

It's not a fad or obsession, after years of inaction basses, amps and cabs are being designed to higher specs. It's a great time to be a bass player.

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Basically with roasted maple, you will get some people giving claims about roast maple being less susceptible to moisture and climate changes. This is probably true. However I think that the main reason behind the uptake in people using roasted maple is that people think that it looks cool. 
 

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I have a Shergold Marathon from 1978 and the maple neck is very stable. This is the story from a visit to Norman Holder's factory back in the day: 

"The maple for the necks comes into the country at around 18-20 per cent moisture content, and is kiln dried down to 10 per cent by the importers. When it arrives at the Shergold factory, Norman stacks it and leaves it entirely alone for a minimum of six months - he's absolutely rigid about this rule since a customer pushed him into using some too early, and ended up with a slight bit of movement in the wood."

I have to say it is a lovely neck, with an abominable (but light) piece of obeche for the body. It sounds great though!

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Roasting woods is just another in a long line of innovations which improve basses, like graphite rods, quarter sawn necks, etc. Maybe roasting will remain a custom offering but if they discover a process that can do this on industrial levels we might see all basses with roasted necks with non roasted being the boutique option.

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I have seen that Sire are already offering it on the v10 series and have seen  a Chinese make that is on the up called Shijie and they aren't boutique prices (not cheap though so I guess prices are still going to come down..)

 

 

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It’s a way to cure the wood, as stated before it’s a living entity with moisture, drying or roasting helps to eliminate this, and can look nice too.

It’ll cost more, you have to run a kiln/roaster to do it in.

Same as any finish, if it takes more man hours/materials  to do a specific finish, no harm in it costing more

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There is a bit of a self-build house thing that's come in over the last few years for charring/burning/toasting wood that's being used as cladding/sidings.  It just releases oils, which when burnt form a natural defence against weathering/rot.

Toasted maple, though?  Frankly, while it looks nice enough, we have guitars and basses out there that are 60/70 years old that probably still play as well now as they did when they left the factory, maybe better.  I don't see how a £2,000 toasted maple Stingray would have better stability or longevity from that of my 41 years old beater, a 1978 Aria Primary which is pretty trashed and has seen a lot of action.

It's all hype.

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22 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Toasted maple, though?  Frankly, while it looks nice enough, we have guitars and basses out there that are 60/70 years old that probably still play as well now as they did when they left the factory, maybe better.  I don't see how a £2,000 toasted maple Stingray would have better stability or longevity from that of my 41 years old beater, a 1978 Aria Primary which is pretty trashed and has seen a lot of action.

It's all hype.

I tend to agree.

I don’t like the look of it either.

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I think the point is that dried/de-moistured/seasoned wood is more settled than fresh green cut stuff - as nicely illustrated earlier by a manufacturer wood is stored to allow it to dry and then used, this is accelerating the process, probably because of increased demand also, so it’s not quite hype as those basses years ago should have been dried, and over the years lost that last 10% of moisture mentioned that the heating/toasting-roasting addresses which co-incidentally looks nice as well

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2 hours ago, BaggyMan said:

I have seen that Sire are already offering it on the v10 series and have seen  a Chinese make that is on the up called Shijie and they aren't boutique prices (not cheap though so I guess prices are still going to come down..)

 

 

awesome reviews here

 

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I always understood that the process was for two reasons.  first it "aged" the wood so that you could get the aged wood tone without having to wait 50 years.  

second it made the wood harder - I remember Gibson using baked maple as an alternative to rosewood quite some time ago, and it didn't have an accompanying bump in the price, in fact it had a lot of bumpf around why that was a good choice as an alternative to rosewood because it makes it just as hard (and just as dark) so don't worry (cue sceptical response from the guitar world who wanted rosewood on their Les Pauls)

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1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

Toasted maple, though?  Frankly, while it looks nice enough, we have guitars and basses out there that are 60/70 years old that probably still play as well now as they did when they left the factory, maybe better.  I don't see how a £2,000 toasted maple Stingray would have better stability or longevity from that of my 41 years old beater, a 1978 Aria Primary which is pretty trashed and has seen a lot of action.

It's all hype.

Roasting improves the stability of the neck. I've seen many older basses with twisted and bowed necks so there can be problems with instruments of a certain age. If roasting prevents neck movement in the future it will be worthwhile. As I say, the price will come down with the advent of new industrial processes. Roasting itself can twist the neck blanks so for every one that is thrown away the price of the others goes up. Roasting is just another development and certainly isn't hype.

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This process has been around for a while. I have a 2014 Limited edition Musicman Sabre with a flame maple roasted neck including the fingerboard. They do look very good in my opinion. Since 2018 all Musicman Stingray Specials have had roasted necks. 

As well as the claims made about benefits of the process one thing most people have noticed with the Musicman basses is how much slicker the necks are to play - somehow the combination with light oil and wax finish takes what were some of the best feeling necks in the business to a new level - you need to try one to appreciate it.

It is not limited to the high end Stingrays either, some of the SBMM basses have it as well (not the entry level ones). 

Fender have done at least one special edition with roasted necks but I think it's more a CS option. Effectively regular Musicman construction, quality and spec mirrors Fender's CS team built. The BFR models are a step above that  (and priced accordingly! See the Fretless Ray Special in the Bass Guitars thread. 

In terms of a replacement for rosewood, this is not the case. Certain specs of Musicman basses come with rosewood boards - there is more widespread use of ebony than before though. My ebony board basses are great!! 

I found it curious to say the least that Fender released a full rosewood neck limited model when Cites was in place (everyone else did it and ceased years ago!!). Perhaps they were using up rosewood stocks as they replaced rosewood with pau ferro much sooner than anyone else!! 

Edited by drTStingray
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