Can we talk about Brazilian Rosewood?

Grave Bomber

Grave Bomber

Ghoulish Anomaly
Someone more knowledgeable than myself, please explain the deal with Brazilian Rosewood. From what I can surmise-it was a common rosewood in use back in the 50's and 60's, it generally seems to have a darker color overall and if used on a guitar currently, the price is outrageous.

So what is the deal? I have to guess it has to do with scarcity/rarity. Is it that no more can be harvested, that what is left around is left, or that it can only be harvested in very small quantities? Is it somehow superior to other more common rosewoods? Is it just marketing?

idn_smilie
 
Brazilian rosewood is a protected species, and it illegal to harvest. At all. Ever again. It grows only in a few remaining forest in eastern Brazil and is severely in danger of extinction due to human encroachment and logging efforts. If anything is sold in the US as Brazilian rosewood, it was cut prior to November 1992, when harvesting the wood became illegal, or, it is illegal black market wood. So, limited supply = high demand and high price.

The color is a bit different from Indian rosewood, which is the common rosewood used today, but both Brazilian and Indian rosewood have been dyed over the years, as even Brazilian rosewood can be much lighter than the typical fretboard.

These woods are oily, hard and dense, so they are natural choices for instrument fingerboards. I know Brazilian is prized by many, but I have guitars with both Indian and Brazilian wood, and they pretty much sound and feel the same to me. Some swear there are tonal differences, but I tend to think it is more of a 'well that is what is on a 59 les paul, so that is what I want' type of thing.
 
I believe that it's been illegal since 1967 or so to harvest and import. Rosewood from braZil. If you see it in a new guitar it should be coming from a stock of wood that is certified to be from before that year. I was going to et Brazilian rosewood for the fretboard on my first Suhr and john Suhr talked me out of what was a pretty good up charge on the instrument because he felt that it would make the guitar brighter than what I was asking for. I think it was used a lot in guitars before that year more because of the price point and less because of any specific tonal benefits. Now that it's hard to get people romanticize it though.
 
Tiltsta said:
Brazilian rosewood is a protected species, and it illegal to harvest. At all. Ever again. It grows only in a few remaining forest in eastern Brazil and is severely in danger of extinction due to human encroachment and logging efforts. If anything is sold in the US as Brazilian rosewood, it was cut prior to November 1992, when harvesting the wood became illegal, or, it is illegal black market wood. So, limited supply = high demand and high price.

Brazilian rosewood hasn't really been successfully farm raised, and it is a slow growing tree, so what you see used in guitars and furniture is 'old growth' wood.
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Ah. I thought the law was from earlier.
 
The date I listed is the final classification of Brazilian rosewood by CITES treaty to 'illegal to harvest/illegal to trade'. It certainly may have been illegal to IMPORT into the US prior to that. It has been an endangered species long before 1992. The current status is similar to things like ivory.
 
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Also, I forgot to mention Honduran rosewood, which is also a common substitute for Brazilian wood. Again, not sure if there is much of a difference for most people's needs.

Also, keep in mind that my favorite guitars have plastic fingerboards, so I maybe completely tone deaf on the fingerboard thing...or so people tell me all over internetland.
 
BR was prized for it's color, grain patters and it's consistent resonance. Compared to IR, IR is typically a slightly more brown color and is generally has more pores/vessels per square inch. What does that translate in to tone differences? I think that's more a function of the guitar build and design than anything glaring between the two.
 
A lot covered above.

I will say this...

In 1998 or 1999 I walked into a local acoustic guitar shop to get some strings. This shop carried some high end guitars and were pretty obsessive about them. You could NOT play one without a store employee present - to a degree I can understand that. I've seen enough nice guitars in GC with pick marks and dings on the front brand new in the store. Anyways - I looked up and noticed a guitar that looked different wood wise from the side. It looked like rosewood, but had almost a greenish tinge to parts of the lighter colored sections so I asked the guy about it. He took it down and handed it to me and said - 'It's the Lowden 25th anniversary guitar. The body is Brazilian rosewood. Play it.' So I did. All I can say is - Wow! Beyond wow. Some of the sweetest acoustic tone ever heard on planet Earth. They were asking, IIRC, about $7500.00 for the guitar. And it would have been worth every penny.
 
I would love to plant a Brazilian rosewood tree in my yard. I already have two Honduran mahogany trees growing. My grandkids can cut them down and retire.
 
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Tiltsta said:
I would love to plant a Brazilian rosewood tree in my yard. I already have two Honduran mahogany trees growing. My grandkids can but them down and retire.
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You know Mr. Hand, I've been thinking...

If you plant a Brazilian Rosewood tree in Florida, doesn't that make it a Brazilian-American Rosewood tree?

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 4
 
Tiltsta said:
I would love to plant a Brazilian rosewood tree in my yard. I already have two Honduran mahogany trees growing. My grandkids can but them down and retire.
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I always get a kick out of how much hurricane fall Honduran Mahogany goes for by the FBM. I like the concept of the deep water great lakes salvage wood more though.
 
I thought rosewood was just a bucket term for any number of species of tree that have similar colored wood :shrug:
 
Punchy said:
I thought rosewood was just a bucket term for any number of species of tree that have similar colored wood :shrug:
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I think this is correct. I think when a guitar says 'rosewood' fretboard, it could be any number of different species of wood, including some that are commonly called rosewood but are not true rosewoods from the genus Dalbergia. When the manufacturer specifies Brazilian or Indian rosewood, then you are referring to a specific species of Dalbergia.
 
Rosewoods are of the "dalbergia" family and vary widely in tone, hardness and oil content. It's reported that Honduran rosewood, from a "structure" standpoint, is Brazilian rosewood's closest cousin but the light color turns many away. I like the look.

473B3F32-571D-47B1-A07B-E138032797D6-3895-0000060684081D19_zps520f1d5f.jpg

I will say that if you tap on similarly sized pieces of Honduran and Indian rosewood that the Honduran makes a higher pitched sound. It's much harder than Indian and is the preferred wood for making wood block percussion instruments.

This article is pretty cool. Not sure if I agree with everything but it's nice to see someone taking an alternative look at tonewoods.


http://www.guitarnation.com/articles/calkin.htm

The most trying wood that I have used to any extent is Brazilian rosewood. The stuff loves to warp while it is sitting on the shelf, and, once installed in a bender, is capable of almost anything. Brazilian can be so squirrelly that an occasional side may have to be discarded, since trying to sand out the ripples would leave the wood paper thin. We might expect this from the dregs of Brazilian that are left today, but I bought wood thirty years ago that was just as bad. Once made into a guitar, Brazilian rosewood frequently checks and cracks for no apparent reason. If it wasn't for the incredible premium that the wood demands, I don't believe anyone wood use it today. The stuff is grossly overestimated.
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I've never worked with the stuff so I can't really say one way or the other. I have played guitars with BR fretboards and can't recall anything that remarkable about it. Seemed like rosewood to me. ???
 
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From my shopping for a classical for son adventure:

I thought I knew the answer, now I'm not so sure. Tak's website says c136 is rosewood back, and sides. Guitar's serial number is 75121861, means it was made in December 1975. According to "the Internet" back then the used jacaranda, and switched to rosewood in 79. WTF is jacaranda? Some people say it's Brazian rosewood. Some don't.

Any thought on what jacaranda is? Not too worried about it, he loves the guitar, and it was stupid cheap.:grin:
 
Jacaranda is a tree unrelated to true rosewood. Not even in the same Genus, or Order for that matter. It is has wood a similar color to rosewood, and grows in the tropics, including Brazil, so perhaps that is where some of the confusion comes into play. It falls into that woods that look like rosewood and are called 'rosewood' in common terms, but are actually not a true rosewood. Jacaranda is a fine tone wood and it is a well established wood in acoustic guitar making.

I know about jacaranda as it was one of the woods my wife wanted for our floors (laminate stuff). Being the science nerd I am, I looked up a bunch of tropical hardwoods that were dark in color from the laminate samples. Once I read something like this, I tend to remember it. We ended up going with Jatoba, a Brazilian wood that looks like cherry wood, but with more graining.
 
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I remember Jon Anderson using the word "jacaranda" as a song lyric on a solo album maybe.
Now I gotta go look and see if I can find that.
 
Here it is. Yes "I'm Running."



I saw this tour in Norman, Oklahoma. They played Warner Brothers cartoons before the show.
 
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