Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Does anyone know what type of Rosewood are on the RIC acoustics and how it compares to a Taylor or Martin in sound?

Indian. Someone else will have to offer the tonal comparison. But I will offer my personal opinion that our Maple sided Jumbo sounds great to my ears.

In 1969 Brazil decided not to export it's Rosewood
to the Martin factory anymore because they wanted to mill the lumber and this caused a problem, so Martin started using Indian Rosewood which they still use today. By comparrison the Brazilian has a better tonal range than the Indian but you better have a good ear to tell the difference. Indian Rosewood has all the features of Brazilian except the vibrant grain patterns. Since most every production acoustic guitar is made with Indian Rosewood: I.E. Martin,Guild,Taylor,Gibson and Rickenbacker, you will find they all have a warm rich bottom with distinguishing highs that are very similar. Scalloped top bracing will alter the tone more than any other thing. Whether it has Sitka or Appilacian Spruce for the top doesn't change much except for the color, Sitka being whiter and Appilacian having an orange tint to it, the scalloped braces allow the top to vibrate more and give a louder vibrating tone. They also are weaker and can lead to the top of the guitar to pull up around the bridge.

Awesome post, Dale!
Thanks for the lesson.

PTL and thank you Mr. Yan

I A/B'd the maple and rosewood Ric Jumbos at Dave's Guitars (LaCrosse, WI). The Maple Comstock put to shame every Gibson, Martin, Taylor, and Larrivee in the place. By comparison, the rosewood sounded dull as lead. could have been dead strings...
I will say this: the rosewood let single note have a nice 'hollow' tone, but chords sounded compressed. The Comstock however was belle of the ball.

I believe rosewood is best-suited for dreadnaught/000 size guitars.

Noel

When I was remodelling my studio in Brasil in 2002, I went to a lumberyard in town. These are nothing like American yards. They just have acres of hardwood in roughsawn form, and they are some of the biggest planks I've ever laid eyes on.

In my area of Brasil, termites devour everything made of softwood, so the only use of wood is for doors, windows, trim, and shutters. The woods are all so dense that they do not float, except one kind, called "madeira de barco" (boat wood) which will float, but tastes bad to termites and is pretty ugly for any other use, being gray in color when planed down.

I bought a hundred board feet or so of 2" thick roughsawn wood, for about R140.00 (Brasilian), which was at that time about $50.00 US. It was ridiculously heavy, so I had the lumberyard deliver it. It arrived at my studio two hours later on a donkey cart. The delivery charge was R10.00 ($3.50 US approx.).

Imagine my shock when I planed it and found out that it was Brasilian Rosewood. So I have a divider screen on wheels which weight about 70 pounds and is made of Brasilian Rosewood.

And I won't even torture you guys by mentioning that, after I finished it and before I oiled it, one of my helpers and I had a communication breakdown and he painted it black while I was out one morning!

In response to Noel's post above, I've got two acoustics--an Ibanez Guild Copy in all-maple, and a handmade Brasilian nylon-stringed classical guitar. Neither of them is with me in the States, however, so measurements can't be made, and I can't remember the Brasilian luthier's name. It is Brasilian Rosewood with a Sitka Spruce top, however, and I would guess the lower bout to be about 13", with the Ibanez' being in the 15" range. Depth of both guitars is comparable.

The Rosewood Brasilian guitar is the most wonderfully deep, warm, mellow instrument I've ever played. The steel-stringed Ibanez cuts like a knife and has zero warmth and little low and mid bass.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the CITES treaty which bans the cutting of living Brazilan Rosewood and international trade of the wood. Older instruments require a permit to cross borders which is fairly difficult and frustrating to get.

Another guitar wood on the list is Alcerce and Ebony is likely to be added the near future.

My 4x5 camera is made from Maccasar Ebony and titanium. I hope I could cross borders with that!

See www.ebonycamera.com

I have the 45SU.

Paul In Brazil, do they spell it: Brasil, just wondering if that was a type error?

One thing about the Maple bodied acoustics. Gibson
1st used Maple mainly because the Kalamazoo Michigan factory was so close to the Northern Maple Forest areas of Iron Mountain,it was readily available and a dense strong wood for their Mandolins and Acoustic Guitars. The Maple back and sides instruments offer more of a high/mid range tone that worked well in the 20's/30/s before amplification was introduced by Rickenbacher/Electro Instruments of L.A. Calif.
This high range allowed the instruments to cut thru acousticaly when played in an orchestral live performance. Mahogany bodied guitars lay somewhere inbetween the Rosewood and Maple tone.
I have a 1969 Martin D-28 RW and a 50's Gibson J-30 Mahogany Guitar, 2 totaly different sounding instrument with their own unique voices.

Yes, Dale. The usually easy-going Brasilians are fairly rigid about this. It's the proper Portuguese spelling, they say.

Now, you can call me a dope for always spelling it with an "S", but in addition to being born in Chicago, I have Brasilian residency papers and spend time every year at my house there, fighting off dengue and bribing the local cops with 6-packs.

Brasilians I know here in California say, "Brazil? There is no such place. But Brasil--that I know."

Dale, the amazing thing about the two acoustics I mentioned is that the nylon-stringed classic, with its smaller rosewood body, actually will beat the pants off the steel-stringed Jumbo in volume when both are pushed. The steel-string does cut better, though. And its narrow, radiused neck feels more contemporary. That flat classic fretboard is tough to get used to.

I have an Ibanez AE-30 Acoustic. The Body top and sides is all Maple. It's not a bad guitar but I was looking for a guitar with a brighter tone. Possibly a Comstock? Are there any artists out there using them so I could hear what they sound like?? I am a Michigander and I'am convinced there isn't a RIC acoustic in the entire state.