Ziricote Fretboard -Tone Scouting mission

Ironwolf

I'm a Dog! I do Dog Things!
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ziricote seems to be creeping into fretboards more and more.
I've had my eye on several PRS guitars with ziricote fretboard. I probably would probably own one now if they had Brazilian rosewood.
I've tried to do my 30 minutes of Ziricote homework. She is a beautiful looking wood,very attractive.
visiting all the luthier tonewood websites. the PRS forum archives only touches on it lightly
I've had about 50-50 Brazilian and Indian rosewood. as well as several Maple.
all of those tonewoods work beautifully for me, each offers something slightly different but still similar string attack harmonic bloom note decay.
slight preference for the Brazilian, it is definitely a fantastic tonewood.
I guess that's the reason were in trouble now, I covet it highly.

Ebony fret boards definitely do not work for me, they feel fantastic to play and feel great to the fingertips.
however I could not bond with the tone, simply to percussive, too bright of an attack, I play the classic 60s and 70s rock low, moderate, some high gain, very little metal. I do think ebony seems to work on the electric guitar for metal tones.
For me it's just funny how those guitars ended up buried in a closet never to be seen again.
if I was forced to play it only, I could adapt and probably learn to love it.

ziricote appears have very similar properties to Rosewood,
~2000 foot-pounds on the Janka scale
~50 pounds per cubic foot on the density

the basic comments on tone appear to be; very similar to Rosewood yet some possible elements of bright string attack properties.
but probably very hard to notice except to a highly trained monkey.

so the question is
who has a ziricote fretboard on a mahogany neck, any observations /comments on how it fits on the spectrum between rosewood and ebony.
assuming the playability and feel are very similar as well.

my assumption right now is, I would probably find it hard to tell a difference, and it is possible I might like the tiny extra percussive brightness. that's kind of how I use my coil taps right now, just to get a little more string attack by splitting the coils.

any comments appreciated
cheers
 
Fourth world problem... too much head banging for me. Personally I buy a guitar based on the whole instrument and ONLY if it speaks to me on a deeper level than "oh I've gotta have one of those".

I wonder how many people can actually "name that tonewood" in a blind listening test. I'm betting one out of a billion just because anything is possible, but in actual tests so far it's been ZERO :)
 
Recently stumbled onto two different guitars. One has a hog body, maple top....Traditional so far. But cocobolo neck and ziricote neck. For some reason the sound (NOT chambered) reminds me a lot of a great semi-hollow. Sounds very "large". Go figure. Sum of the parts (and a great builder) and all that.

The other has a KORINA body, koa top, cocobolo neck and EBONY board. Very different sounding, but still great. Not quite sure (yet) how to put it into words. But somehow both are great guitars, taken as a whole, never mind being made with somewhat less traditional parts.

YMMV.....Keep in mind I like rosewood (and similar) necks and ebony boards, so that may taint my opinion. Whether I could hear the difference in a blind test on a mahogany neck is an open question. But it would be tough to NOT tell the difference (sound and feel) when playing with a neck such as rosewood. I personally
prefer the ebony to rosewood for a board, and am not using it for metal or (a lot) of harder edged rock.
 
I have a Private Stock with a solid, unfinished ziricote neck. For looks and feel you can't beat it, as it has a much tighter pore structure than rosewood and feels like smooth matte-finished steel to the touch. Being another 'sum-of-the-parts' guys, all I can say about the tone is that along with the mahogany/maple capped body, it makes for a lively, responsive, and dynamic sound. More immediate and punchy than necessarily bright, the guitar is very responsive to pick attack and can go from sultry to bold very readily.

I don't know how much of all that is attributable to the neck, but if I were looking at another guitar, ziricote would be a big draw to me based on my very positive experience.
 
Fourth world problem... too much head banging for me. Personally I buy a guitar based on the whole instrument and ONLY if it speaks to me on a deeper level than "oh I've gotta have one of those".

I wonder how many people can actually "name that tonewood" in a blind listening test. I'm betting one out of a billion just because anything is possible, but in actual tests so far it's been ZERO :)
I totally agree with that, however real world, you can never play a PRS before you buy, nobody carries them live, online purchasing is the new world order. I hate losing 20% just to try out a guitar for 6 months, so I try to do as much scouting as possible. but it's amazing how different guitars and woods make you play differently, some of the acoustic qualities as well as what's coming out of the amplifier, I think that's why I don't get along with ebony is the acoustic unamplified tones I try to play differently to adjust. good
 
I totally agree with that, however real world, you can never play a PRS before you buy, nobody carries them live, online purchasing is the new world order. I hate losing 20% just to try out a guitar for 6 months, so I try to do as much scouting as possible. but it's amazing how different guitars and woods make you play differently, some of the acoustic qualities as well as what's coming out of the amplifier, I think that's why I don't get along with ebony is the acoustic unamplified tones I try to play differently to adjust. good

If you're saying perception matters and affects our reality I totally agree. I like to make sure that's working for me tho, and not some corporate marketing scheme. I don't know if the guitars I have make me play any differently, but they do make me want to play. I say whatever accomplishes that goal is good :)

What in particular do you like about ziricote?
 
I've never seen it live, in person. However the Google images high resolution photographs it looks amazing. a very pretty wood.
Paul just seems to be using it on higher-end guitars, so I'm browsing some wood library runs and I keep seeing ziricote.
So if I'm interested in some of these guitars I will have to experiment to see if I like it. buy it at risk.
So that's basically the question, I have no idea what I like about ziricote. if you've never seen or touched something hard to develop an opinion, very few people have played it apparently.
 
the basic general summary is the risk is low, if you like rosewood you're almost assured to like ziricote, but it is slightly different.
very nice looking though.
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