Rosewood on it's way back??

Wow that's great news. Can we trust this source?

I agree, I like conservation but also like rosewood boards

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk

 

So can they be shipped across international boundaries now? The new ones I mean...

 

Martin and Taylor got their way.

Update: On Wednesday 08/28/19, the CITES convention in Geneva, Switzerland decided to exempt finished musical instruments, parts, and accessories from CITES restrictions on all rosewood species except Brazilian rosewood (whose protections predate the other rosewood species and remain in place).

According to NAMM, the exemption for musical instruments will take effect in late November 2019. Until that time, all restrictions remain.


https://www.npr.org/2019/08/27/7545...om-restrictions-on-heavily-trafficked-rosewoo

 

Manufacturers will still need the permits to transfer the raw wood from one country to another. Whether Fender, and others, switch back on the instruments that are now using alternatives remains to be seen. I imagine it will all depend on what's best for their sales, and ultimately, their bottom line.

 

Manufacturers have tasted the cheap replacements and they will fight to continue it for dear life. Hopefully, the consumers will force them to go back to real wood like it should be.

 

Stradovari are maple.

So are my favorite Teles and Strats.

Rosewood, legal or not, carries ethical baggage that I can feel.

If you can't feel it, I won't bother trying to explain it.

 

Rosewood is going to return to the high end and vintage repro stuff only, I suspect. This is the kind of thing marketing deps love - the opportunity to differentiate high end from other product, regardless of cost or real quality. We'll all line up like iPhone addicts for a new RW tele....

 

Eh, with all the manipulation, false information, and corruption involved in the so-called shortages, I'm out. Its a fretboard - they didn't originate as Rosewood anyway. Its now more like a diamond - a manufactured importance for the sake of extracting maximum profits. I've since discovered and confirmed other woods are equal or better. In otherwords, it no longer matters.

 

I think the whole rosewood thing was just a ploy to drive the price of rosewood up.
Trees can be replanted, I don't think rosewood will ever become extinct like the dodo.
The money and finance system is what's killing the planet and depleting supplies more than anything else. Nothing will be done to come up with a solution to that though.

 

I remember reading an article after Martin switched to Indian rosewood from Brazilian that said that Indian wasn't being harvested from endangered rainforests because it's used for shade trees on the tea plantations in India, and removing some trees was part of managing the plantations. That was decades ago however, so that may no longer be the case.

 

That same rosewood is being burned for energy and for flooring in Brazil. I feel no ethical baggage in making music with it compared to them wiping their muddy boots on it. It is just a construction material...one that I happen to like on a guitar.

 

Trees can be replanted, but I believe that to grow a tree large enough for boards wide enough for the backs of dreadnaught guitars takes longer than a human lifespan.
I'm a self professed tone snob, and I can hear the difference between Ash and Alder bodies, and between Maple necks and Rosewood/Pau Ferro/Indian Laurel fretboards, but I cannot, for the life of me, hear much difference between Rosewood and Pau Ferro and Indian Laurel boards. And, at the Gibson dealer I worked at for 14 years, I had a chance to play dozens of Gibsons, and I couldn't hear any difference between those with Rosewood boards, and those with Richlite. And the same holds true foe Martin acoustics with Richlite or Micarta, 'cause we were a Martin dealer too.

 

So is Pau Ferro cheap wood? When's the last time you bought any?
Real wood? so like Indian Rosewood ain't real but Brazilian Rosewood is?
So let me guess.... guitars need to be made out of South American Mahogany and Rosewood to be "Real Guitars" to. Right?
Fender has been using "Cheap" wood since day one. Alder , Swamp Ash, Maple.

 

I don't like tortoise shell picks either. I agree they have a unique, feel, snap, and tone.

I grew up on celluloid picks, so that's what I got used to, and that's what I prefer today.

But Dunlop Ultex is extremely close to actual tortoise shell.

I'm not so holy that I never tried tortoise... A wealthy friend of mine lent me a few back in the day.

He paid something stupid like $75 a piece for them... In 1980s dollars.

I can understand why you might get addicted to it... Same with Rosewood.

One of the sweetest and most exotic fingerboards I've ever played was on a Brazilian classical from the 1950s.

Stunning blonde and dark chocolate tiger striping... Joao Gilberto just fell out of that thing.

Knowing what I know today, I wouldn't build a guitar like that.

It doesn't matter what other people choose to wipe their feet on.

I actually prefer maple.

WALDT.

 

If he paid that much for real tortoise picks, then he got fleeced. Before tortoise became endangered and banned, tortoise picks were maybe 50 cents or a dollar each, when celluloid picks were maybe a dime. I had about a dozen in the 70s, and I was poor, so I know I couldn't have afforded more than a couple bucks apiece, at most. And Tortex and other facsimiles sound nothing like the real thing, if memory serves me. I would never use them today for ethical reasons, but if you like really bright sounding picks, you'd like them. And I have no idea what happened to the ones I had. They probably got lost sometime when moving.

 

If people continue to worry about their own pet preferences rather than the greater good of our struggling planet, there is simply no hope.

If it helps the environment I'll play guitars made of packing crates and like it.

 

I buy almost everything used - cars, guitars, amps the lot. Always have done. Even used clothes, for some items. Yes.

A) great value and I hate paying “sales tax” and B) helps the environment by recycling. Or switch those round in terms of importance But I don’t feel bad about those exotic woods on used guitars.

 

Not Tortex. Ultex. Try it.

If you like the tone, feel, and snap of tortoise, you'll like the Ultex. I think the 0.73mm or 0.88mm comes closest.

It does for guitar picks what TUSQ does for nuts and bridge saddles. It works, and nothing has to die.

Yeah, my friend probably got fleeced. His father was filthy rich.

And I do mean, "filthy".

 

Rejoice, guitarists. you're now once again able to contribute to species extinction for purely cosmetic reasons.