Have You Ever Tried A Roasted Maple Neck? This Is Why You Really Should!
Here at LSL Instruments we have come to be known as a company to go to when you want a vintage style build with a roasted maple neck. People love them! They feel great, sound incredible and are very stable neck material for touring artists to use. Why? We’ll give you a quick snapshot of the “WHY?”
Have you ever picked up a vintage guitar that someone actually played for hours a day for decades? Did you notice how “alive” that guitar was? One thing that many players and collectors don’t realize is that there is going to be a sonic difference between a closet classic that has not been touched in decades and a guitar that has been played consistently. Reason being that something you can’t see but you can feel is going on.
Tonewoods have moisture. Not much but it’s there. And over time with the vibration from playing slowly but surely breaks up the moisture pockets in the woods. This breakup makes for a more free vibration within the woods themselves. It also allows for better transfer of that vibration between neck and body, which is why the whole guitar “feels alive!” Some call it mojo, but there is and element of science here. That should inspire you to buy Nitro Cellulose finished guitars and not Poly. Poly is basically a plastic tomb for the tone of your guitar. Lance calls Poly the “Enemy of Tone” and everyone at LSL and most of our dealers and artists agree wholeheartedly!
Now that we have established that Nitro is supreme and always will be. Let’s give you a short synopsis of why roasted maple plays how it plays and feels how it feels. Just like playing for decades causes moisture to be disrupted and evaporate, the roasting process for roasted maple dries up nearly all of these moisture pockets in the neck or body wood altogether. Hence you have a very vintage sound straight from the factory as opposed to waiting 30 years and playing your fingers to the bone to get that very same feel from your guitar. That’s the most basic way it can be put folks!
An added benefit to roasted maple is stability. You may have toured with a mahogany neck before? Many guitars get a bad reputation because the necks always need to be adjusted on the road. The guitar isn’t the problem! The weather is! humidity in different climates can interact intensely with the moisture in such woods as mahogany, cocobolo, rosewood and others. Roasted maple has the benefit of having little to no moisture that can be affected by changes in humidity and temperature. This is the #1 reason that touring artists or guitarists in very humid areas choose roasted maple as their #1 go to neck material.
Do you like sustain and resonance? Do you like to feel the notes and chords you play ring out like an acoustic in your lap when unplugged? Do you need stability on the road? Roasted woods are a great start. There’s a bit more “magic” to the process, but starting off with a nice roasted maple neck is a wise choice!
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