Are Woods Like Pau Ferro and Basswood Only For Cheap Guitars? 

I love pao ferro. Its not porous, it's great to work, it has a nice warm tone. Basswood is a great choice if you want a light guitar. It has nice resonance and a soft attack. Some people feel a basswood body with a maple cap is the ultimate.

Pau Ferro destroys Rosewood in color and making the grain pop after a good conditioner is applied. I've owned Gibsons, Strats, Schecters, and Epiphones with Rosewood fret boards. Pau Ferro is absolutely my favorite due to its snappiness and slightly warmer sound. My opinion is Rosewood is over rated due to it being the "Standard" Holy Grail wood for fret boards for years and I'm loving my new Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro I just purchased with the Pau Ferro fretboard with all Mahogany body and neck... Pau Ferro just looks amazing when done right....

I have a custom alder body Music Man style bass of which has had 3 maple shaft necks with either maple, rosewood and pau ferro fretboards. The neck with the pau ferro fretboard by far was easiest to hear in a mix. It sounded and looked fabulous.

PF was a wood that they chose to use once the Rosewood CITES malarkey came in. The main purpose of a fretboard is to a) hold the frets in and b) be hard wearing! It’s a bit of a shock when you see the big steaks if you’re used to Rosewood. But I’ve seen Rosewood with big contrasting streaks too. I prefer Rosewood to be dark and consistent but I’ve yet to own a PF model. It’s not bad, it just looks different. You won’t tell the difference in sound I’m afraid. Indian Laurel is closer to Rosewood in most part. The grain seems tighter. As long as a guitar sounds great who cares.

Nailed it. With all organic products there are different grades. You can get a crappy rosewood and a gorgeous Pau ferro or Indian Laurel. Taylor responsibility uses ebony from Cameroon. It can have blond streaks in the black wood. Lighter. Darker. It’s all a matter of taste. All great woods. I’ve even heard that back in history a Gibson offered an “upgrade” to Pau ferro. Lol. Nailed it.

Pau Ferro is very nice. As for the tone, yes, neck would will make a little difference. Just saw a video from Fender between maple, rosewood and ebony. All have a different tone. Also, it is the wood the body is made of and also if the pickups are mounted direct to body or floating via attached to pickguard. Even though they're electric guitars, woods and how pickups are mounted make the little differences. Mostly fretboard wood is for looks and feel. Ebony to me is far better than rosewood for example...bends are smoother on ebony.

If you play the guitar through a real amp (not an amp modeler) you can hear a sound difference in wood choices, and also if your pickups are not wax potted (wax potted pickups deaden the tone and articulation). I Know this first hand, I've swapped them out and played them in the same guitar. I have 7 American Pro II V-Mod Double Tap Tele Deluxe Shawbuckers (all not wax potted) in a bunch of my Strats. Two have an alder body and an all maple neck and these pickups have a slightly harsher mid range to them. The one with the alder body and Pau Ferro fretboard smooths that out and sounds pleasing through my 2008 Budda Superdrive 18. It sounded even more beautiful when it had an all rosewood neck on it. Now if you're playing on stage or in the studio with other stringed instruments you're going to be hard up picking out the difference in the mix, and the audience would be oblivious. But to say there's no tone difference is flatly wrong. I was ignorant for the longest time before I started building my own Strats three years ago, ✌🏻❤

Most people are waaay too easily influenced; programmed, soulless drones. 🤣Pau Ferro is a beautiful, quality wood. "Cheap" monetarily doesn't necessarily have anything to do with any wood's physical quality. It's more about the logistics and legality of it all. I just ordered an M6 from Precision Guitar kits with a Pau Ferro fretboard, because I personally think it's more beautiful than your "standard and overused" Rosewood. People's minds are of the vile kind. 😂

Let me tell you something because you charge a bunch of Money doesn't make it quality personally speaking if you want the best quality for the money buy a EASTMAN ebony fingerboard light weight mahogany that's quality

That information is completely false and you are misleading people into thinking the wrong thing. The fret-board wood makes a huge difference. Also, Pau Ferro is a fantastic wood that combines all positive aspects of ebony without dominating the tone with shrill high end. If however you have a neck that lacks in top end and has too many mids like mahogany or Limba or even Wenge, Pau Ferro will "tighten up" the tone, add top end and the whole guitar tone will be more balanced. You'll also get really nice glassy notes high up in the neck (in the neck pickup position)...more so than with just a plain maple neck and the tone will sound "cleaner" without the excessive high mids of a maple fret-board. Also, Pau Ferro is no substitute for rosewood as it sounds brighter and doesn't filter as many frequencies as rosewood does.

I don't care which guitar has pau ferro and how expensive the guitar is. Pau ferro is a more economical alternate to rosewood => it is a cheap wood.

It might be a fine tone wood, but it does feel cheap and look cheap. I had a strat with PF and the fingerboard felt so dried out. It also looked like a cheap Chinese made guitar. Maybe it doesn't effect the sound, but it felt like it did. I just didn't like it at all. 🤷‍♂️