Rosewood?

Icelander53

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What are the qualities of Rosewood as a tonewood? I'm looking at a Moku Ukulele that has a Rosewood laminate side and back. I've rarely seen it used on the body of a uke. Can anyone tell me why they would use it other than beauty?
 
Haven't Martin been using it in guitars forever? I think they would know a thing or two about it but here is what i found off a guitar wiki regarding tonewoods, this is about tonewoods in guitars of course so while a uke should be pretty similar there make be some variation due to the relative size difference...

Back and Sides
Besides serving to form the enclosure of the soundbox, the back and sides of the guitar also act as a sympathetic resonator whose oscillations contribute greatly to the harmonic mix. When judiciously selected (with due consideration given to design criteria and the other tonewoods used in the instrument), the back and sides can have a tremendous effect on the overall tone of the instrument.

Brazilian and Indian rosewood have an extremely high velocity of sound and a broad range of overtones. The rosewoods, as well as their various rain forest cousins-cocobolo, kingwood, morado, and the like-have strongly pronounced low overtones, usually the lowest resonating frequencies in the entire guitar. These lows help to create a complex bottom end and to impart an overall darkness of tone to the instrument. Strong mids and highs serve to reinforce overtones generated by the top, contributing to a fatness of tone on the upper registers. Guitars made of rosewood also have a pronounced "reverby" tone, caused by a strong, clear set of sympathetic harmonics with a delayed onset and slow decay.

I’ve found that Brazilian rosewood has everything that Indian rosewood has, only more. I say this with great trepidation in light of that species’ likelihood of extinction within a couple of generations. An international embargo on trade on Brazilian rosewood products guarantees that the relatively few sets remaining in this country, which may be used only on domestically sold guitars, will continue to spiral in price as the supply dwindles.

Mahogany and koa have relatively high velocities of sound when considered as materials for backs and sides and thus contribute much to overtone coloration. Lacking the low-end frequencies of the rosewoods and also their sustaining reverberation, these woods have an altogether different sound. Where rosewood guitars can be thought of as having a "metallic" sound, mahogany and koa guitars are better described as sounding "woody, although the harder, more dense examples of these woods can take on some of the characteristics of the rosewoods. Between the two, koa seems to have a little more fullness in the midrange, while mahogany tends to favor the bass (to some extent) and the treble.

Maple and walnut tend to be more acoustically transparent than other tonewoods, due to a low velocity of sound and a high degree of internal damping. That is to say that they allow tonal characteristics of the top to be heard without the addition of extraneous coloration and may even serve to attenuate some of the overtones emanating from the top.

The harder, denser examples of these woods, such as sugar maple and black walnut- particularly quartersawn examples-tend to lean slightly more toward the tonal direction of mahogany, while softer examples, such as bigleaf maple and claro walnut, tend toward greater tonal transparency. Curly, quilted, or bird’s-eye figures do not seem to have much effect on the tone of the wood, but they can be used, like bearclaw, as an indicator of other properties. Quilted figure, for example, occurs most often in softer species and is best displayed when the wood is flat sawn-two characteristics that tend to produce higher damping properties.

Incidentally, you mention that the uke you are looking at is a laminate and as such the facing wood doesn't have really much to do with the tone, with a laminate it's the build quality and thickness of the laminate that makes most of the sound.

What are the qualities of Rosewood as a tonewood? I'm looking at a Moku Ukulele that has a Rosewood laminate side and back. I've rarely seen it used on the body of a uke. Can anyone tell me why they would use it other than beauty?
 
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What are the qualities of Rosewood as a tonewood? I'm looking at a Moku Ukulele that has a Rosewood laminate side and back. I've rarely seen it used on the body of a uke. Can anyone tell me why they would use it other than beauty?

There is a fair amount written about this (here and on the web). Here is a good description of rosewood and other tone woods.
http://www.pantheonguitars.com/tonewoods.htm

"Brazilian and Indian rosewood have an extremely high velocity of sound and a broad range of overtones. The rosewoods, as well as their various rain forest cousins-cocobolo, kingwood, morado, and the like-have strongly pronounced low overtones, usually the lowest resonating frequencies in the entire guitar. These lows help to create a complex bottom end and to impart an overall darkness of tone to the instrument. Strong mids and highs serve to reinforce overtones generated by the top, contributing to a fatness of tone on the upper registers. Guitars made of rosewood also have a pronounced "reverby" tone, caused by a strong, clear set of sympathetic harmonics with a delayed onset and slow decay.

I’ve found that Brazilian rosewood has everything that Indian rosewood has, only more. I say this with great trepidation in light of that species’ likelihood of extinction within a couple of generations. An international embargo on trade on Brazilian rosewood products guarantees that the relatively few sets remaining in this country, which may be used only on domestically sold guitars, will continue to spiral in price as the supply dwindles."
 
We've made a number of ukes with different rosewoods for back and sides, and they are wonderful. Our current fave...as long as it's available...is Amazon rosewood (Dalbergia spruceana) which can look for all intents exactly like Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra), and has the same stiffness and tap tone resonance. Indian rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia) tends to be somewhat coarser and a lot is plantation grown...for better or worse, but in its higher quality levels is a great wood for workability and tone.


http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/amazon-rosewood/

http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/east-indian-rosewood/

http://www.wood-database.com/?s=brazilian+rosewood

I just resawed a lot of locally grown black acacia (Acacia melanoxylon) which is related to koa (Acacia Koa) but has density, stiffness, and tap tone a lot more like good Indian rosewood.

http://www.wood-database.com/?s=koa

http://www.wood-database.com/?s=Australian+blackwood

http://www.wood-database.com/?s=Acacia+melanoxylon
 
Since it's using laminated wood the type of veneer wood isn't going to have much impact on the sound. Most laminates use an inexpensive wood with thin veneers of the "tone wood" on either side for appearance. My OS Willie K "Koa" 5-string tenor uses some very light-colored wood for the substrate and veneers about 1/64" on either side (visible around the sound hole). Does it "sound like Koa"? - not in the least, but it sounds okay.

John
 
What are the qualities of Rosewood as a tonewood? I'm looking at a Moku Ukulele that has a Rosewood laminate side and back. I've rarely seen it used on the body of a uke. Can anyone tell me why they would use it other than beauty?

As others have indicated, on a laminate, there is no reason to use any veneer other than the way it looks. Solid rosewood, however, has been very popular for guitars, and some have seen the use of solid rosewood in ukuleles as the result of an infusion of guitar players and guitar builders into the ukulele world. I have two Compass Rose baritones with spruce tops and amazon rosewood back and sides, and they're both exquisite. They also probably sound more like guitars than they would if they had been built with solid koa.
 
One interesting note regarding laminates though, I have played the two kiwaya laminates, the KS6 a mahogany laminate and the KS5 a koa laminate and while they are both laminates by the same company, boy do they sound different. The KS6 is deeper and has a lower tone, the KS5 a brighter more crisp tone. Both really nice, but very different.
Bill
 
This is good information for me too. I'm considering a custom made uke with solid Indian rosewood body and curly maple top, I hear that's a good combination.
 


Since it's using laminated wood the type of veneer wood isn't going to have much impact on the sound. Most laminates use an inexpensive wood with thin veneers of the "tone wood" on either side for appearance. My OS Willie K "Koa" 5-string tenor uses some very light-colored wood for the substrate and veneers about 1/64" on either side (visible around the sound hole). Does it "sound like Koa"? - not in the least, but it sounds okay.




I think you are right. Anywho I've changed directions and gotten a totally different Moku uke based on some hopefully sound advice and my research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb1gQ6K39QA:cheers:
 
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Love the sound of my concert Ohana with rosewood back and sides. A video by MIM helped direct me to the instrument.

 
Thank you Icelander53 for this thread, I have just bought a preloved Oscar Schmidt OU-4 Tenor with laminated spruce top and laminated rosewood back and sides. I put the micrometer on the soundboard and it read .089" which I converted to fractions. It is between 5/64 and 3/32 which would be around 11/128th.inches give or take a wee hair. HaHa. The sound of my used tenor is fantastic to my old ears. Of course I have never played a real expensive ukulele so I do not have the experience of top quality.
 
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What are the qualities of Rosewood as a tonewood?
Rosewood is a dense, durable wood commonly used for fretboards and bridges. When used for back and sides, it is for its reflective qualities: the sound is bounced back towards the front of the instrument.

It is not as acoustically active as ebony, but less expensive. Some quotes:

Brazilian and Indian rosewood have an extremely high velocity of sound and a broad range of overtones. The rosewoods, as well as their various rain forest cousins-cocobolo, kingwood, morado, and the like-have strongly pronounced low overtones, usually the lowest resonating frequencies in the entire guitar. These lows help to create a complex bottom end and to impart an overall darkness of tone to the instrument. Strong mids and highs serve to reinforce overtones generated by the top, contributing to a fatness of tone on the upper registers. Guitars made of rosewood also have a pronounced "reverby" tone, caused by a strong, clear set of sympathetic harmonics with a delayed onset and slow decay.
http://www.pantheonguitars.com/tonewoods.htm

Rosewood. This highly prized tonewood is seen frequently in fretboards, and in the backs and sides of many quality flat-top acoustics, but rarely in solidbody electrics. One notable exception was the Rosewood Telecaster that Fender produced sporadically between 1969 and 1972 and was played by George Harrison. Rosewood makes for a very heavy and overly bright-sounding guitar—and an expensive one, too—that is typically more of interest for looks and novelty factor than for tone.
http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/1139/all-about-tonewoods/14591

BRAZILIAN ROSEWOOD: DALBERGIA NIGRA
Highly resonant, with full, deep basses and brilliant trebles. Rare, expensive, though occasionally available on limited edition and custom models.
East Indian Rosewood
EAST INDIAN ROSEWOOD: DALBERGIA LATIFOLIA
Very resonant, with a deep warm bass. Sources of supply have been well managed, reliable and of consistently high quality.
http://www.martinguitar.com/featuresmaterials/featuresmaterials/tonewood.html

ROSEWOOD
Rosewoods are more consistent from sample to sample than spruces and cedars and one piece is much more like another in behavior, if not appearance. Of the rosewoods used in guitarmaking, Brazilian rosewood has traditionally been the best wood of choice. This is partly due to tradition and partly due to its phenomenal "Q", which makes it a very acoustically active material. When struck, a properly cut sample rings like a plate of glass. This quality contributes to sustain and projection in a guitar, because those are the chief functions of the back. Sustain, because it rings a long time; and projection, because the back’s movement can be coupled in vibrating activity to the movements of the face, boosting the directional power of the activity of the guitar. Because of its high "Q", Brazilian rosewood is both vitreous and brittle, and therefore prone to cracking and checking. East Indian rosewood, the alternate wood of choice, is comparable to Brazilian rosewood but simply not as beautiful nor as "live", by a factor of some 10% to 20%. This is not a huge difference, and there are plenty of excellent sounding East Indian rosewood guitars around. Also, East Indian rosewood is an attractive choice because it is much less prone to cracking and therefore generally less problematic to work with. Other rosewood-like woods which have a high "Q" are wenge and padauk (both of which crack very easily) and certain Asian and Central American rosewoods, which do not have the beauty of Brazilian or East Indian. While I haven’t worked with all these woods I’d expect them all to be brittle in direct proportion to their liveness and be prone to the same mechanical failures. Removing their brittleness would in fact remove the factor that is responsible for their characteristic tone.
http://www.esomogyi.com/tonewoods.html

More here:
http://www.mangore.com/wood

Laminates don't express the same acoustic properties of a solid wood, but in general laminates are fairly good reflectors for backs and sides. In many cases, though, the rosewood is the outer veneer (e.g. on the back; used mostly for appearance), when it would do more acoustically if it were the top layer on the inside of the body. Plus most veneers are too thin to have a substantial effect alone.
 
Ian wrote......"Laminates don't express the same acoustic properties of a solid wood, but in general laminates are fairly good reflectors for backs and sides. In many cases, though, the rosewood is the outer veneer (e.g. on the back; used mostly for appearance), when it would do more acoustically if it were the top layer on the inside of the body. Plus most veneers are too thin to have a substantial effect alone."
That is why the Oscar Schmidt OU-4 Tenor has the sound that appeals to me I guess. They have the rosewood veneer on both sides of the laminate on the back and sides to take advantage of the reflective qualities if any, as well as the cosmetic or visual appeal. Good thinking Washburn. The fretboard and bridge are also Rosewood.
Jim.
 
Thank you Icelander53 for this thread, I have just bought a preloved Oscar Schmidt OU-4 Tenor with laminated spruce top and laminated rosewood back and sides. I put the micrometer on the soundboard and it read .089" which I converted to fractions. It is between 5/64 and 3/32 which would be around 11/128th.inches give or take a wee hair. HaHa. The sound of my used tenor is fantastic to my old ears. Of course I have never played a real expensive ukulele so I do not have the experience of top quality.


You're welcome. If it sounds good to your ear then it might as well be an "expensive" uke and you're better off most likely never hearing one of them. That is IF the sound of these multi thousand dollar ukes are really better sounding than a well made three to five hundred buck uke. And it's a big if IMO. I haven't heard them all but I've heard solid Koa Kamakas and Martins and frankly was not convinced in the least that they were really much better if any better sounding than others at a fraction of the cost. This all in spite of the accolades the salesman was throwing around. :bowdown:

Of course many with a more refined ear will take umbrage with the above statements and they might be right. I can't tell what they hear or with part bias plays in their perspective.
 
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