Hi, just found a bass player interview with Arthur Barrows, former Zappa bassist:

"Bass guitars need to be made out of really heavy wood. If they don't hurt your shoulder after 15 minutes, they're too light. It's physics. You wouldn't have a speaker cabinet made out of balsa-it's the same with a bass. You want a solid mass so the body stays in one place while the string vibrates. That's what gives you sustain."

What are your views? Can you generally say that? I have to say, I played a 70ies Precision and it weighs a ton, my shoulder DID hurt after 30mins, I have to say it sounds great. Anybody made experiments with same electronics, hardware, strings and different body woods/weights?

Xaver

Yeah weight definitely helps with sustain but I wouldn't say "Bass guitars need to be made out of really heavy wood". Other components play a big part in sustain also, whether it is bolt-on/neck-through, bridge, etc.

Also IMO sustain is often over-rated. You could have great tone but poor sustain and still have an awesome bass IMO.

I've often wondered how much sustain one needs. I know how much players love NT's, but I have never really noticed much of a difference in NT's and BO's, except for the neck/body joint. I can't justify the price difference.

Sustain has an effect on tone. Greater sustain seems to increase the harmonic content. But, there are other ways to get the same result without making the bass very heavy. I think that the biggest thing with heavy basses is the way they feel to the player. To me, a heavy bass just feels "right" but I don't think that there is a solid scientific reason why heavier is better. Some light basswood bodied basses have a very nice tone.

How important is body weight for sound?

YMMV, but this year I lost 20 lbs and my sustain definitely improved! :hiding:

Sounds like armchair physics to me.

I played a 70ies Precision and it weighs a ton, my shoulder DID hurt after 30mins, I have to say it sounds great. Anybody made experiments with same electronics, hardware, strings and different body woods/weights?
Xaver

+1

My main bass from 1981 to 2002 was a 1978 Fender P. I fell in love with a Fender Aerodyne whose body is made out of BASSwood (how appropriate ;) ).

I liked the sound and sustain of "two ton Tessie" a lot better but I drew the line between sound and comfort :)

it's funny, because Ken Parker says the exact opposite, praising the resonant qualities of soft lightweight woods.

it's funny, because Ken Parker says the exact opposite, praising the resonant qualities of soft lightweight woods.

Quite amazing that a builder, whose research, experience, and success would have an opinion that is in direct opposition to that of a player.

Heavy basses tend to bring out the high end frequencies more - lighter woods naturally favout the lower frequencies - just a product of the density, and therefore the "snappiness" of the tonal response.

The best sounding bass I ever played was at David Coulthard's (Formula 1 driver) 21st birthday bash (long time ago now) - I got roped in to playing with the house band - the guy had a 1960's ultra-lightweight Precision, and it was simply the best sounding bass I have EVER played - loads of bottom, with tons of midrange bark

All this "you gotta have a heavy bass" is complete nonsense - all you get it a sore back and shoulder (isn't that a brand of shampoo?). It's all about getting an instrument that has that "pick me up and play me" vibe which suits your own requirements!

I think it is in the hands of the beholder, but as far as physics go it is true. High freq, travels by air and as well as light mass, low freq travels through mass, if you put your bass on the floor and make solid contact with the floor, pluck the string unplugged then lift it and pluck again you can hear the difference.

good thing we have pickups and amplifiers to compensate for an improperly weighted bass


:hiding:

all the best,

R

Hi, just found a bass player interview with Arthur Barrows, former Zappa bassist:

"Bass guitars need to be made out of really heavy wood. If they don't hurt your shoulder after 15 minutes, they're too light. Yeah, that's an opinion. Many metaphors can be drawn... ;) It's physics. You wouldn't have a speaker cabinet made out of balsa-it's the same with a bass. You should be able to have a bass cabinet as light as you want, as long as the sides are stiff (not necessarily heavy) so they don't flex (thus losing energy out the sides, and setting up messy radiation patterns and interferences), and as long as it's not so light the entire cabinet moves (pretty unlikely).You want a solid mass so the body stays in one place while the string vibrates. That's what gives you sustain."A super heavy body and a heavy, stiff neck would likely increase the sustain. Gibson apparently did a test guitar out of granite that sustained nearly forever. But, as others said, sustain can be overrated. Myself, I'd leave infinite sustain for the keyboard player.




When you put the bass in contact with the floor (or a table top) and hear it louder, you're using the floor as a soundboard, like the top of a guitar or the soundboard of a piano, which sets more air in motion. You'll find it can amplify all the frequencies pretty well, not just the low end.

I've played a lot of heavy basses that sounded great and a lot of heavy basses that sounded like crap.

I've played a lot of light basses that sounded great and a lot of light basses that sounded like crap.

Go figure. :confused:

Wood...bah. It's all in the neck joint and the pickup placement. And I know it sound absolutely ridiculous to say this, but I think the player has a tiny little something to do with it, too.

Wood...bah. It's all in the neck joint and the pickup placement. And I know it sound absolutely ridiculous to say this, but I think the player has a tiny little something to do with it, too.
+1

http://www.photographicimage.com/prodimg/JBC-63-1223.jpg

I've played a lot of heavy basses that sounded great and a lot of heavy basses that sounded like crap.

I've played a lot of light basses that sounded great and a lot of light basses that sounded like crap.

Go figure. :confused:

I s'pose there is just too many other variables other than weight of the body to make an instrument sound good - or like crap...
Lots of interesting thoughts, though, I don't think it's necessarily armchair physics about the weight/sustain relationship, or is it?
Xaver

PS: My P was a '78 too...

Most of the NYC Sadowsky Basses are pretty light , under 9 lbs and they sound great IMO.

Sounds like armchair physics to me.

Me too. If weight were the only issue, you could get sustain and tone with a bag of wet sand.

Lots of interesting thoughts, though, I don't think it's necessarily armchair physics about the weight/sustain relationship, or is it?
XaverJust because a bass can sustain forever, doesn't mean that it sustaining a good sound. :);)

If you really want sustain, play arco ;)

Time for a physics lesson.

Sustain is the tendency of a vibrating string to continue to vibrate without losing amplitude, which is dierctly proportional to the string's energy. Since a vibrating string loses energy by transfering it elsewhere, it will progressively lose amplitude and eventually stop vibrating. Places to where energy is lost inlude:

-acoustic energy transfered to the air (sound)
-heat energy created within the string
-magnetic force from the pickup pulling on the string
-vibration transfered to the body of the bass


The first source of energy loss is negligable.

The second is the reason that some strings sustain better than others. Because of their internal composition, and also how old and worn out they are, they will differ in how much energy is lost to internal friction.

The third can be significant but is fairly adjustable by the user

The fourth is where the mass of the body is relevant. The more mass the bass has the more resistant it will be to sympathetic vibration with the string and it will steal less energy. This doesn't mean that a bass that weighs twice as much will sustain twice as long. Other factors such as flexibility of the wood and in the neck joint and the tendency of miscelllaneous bass parts (such as tuners, saddles, electronics, etc..) to vibrate play a large role.

Yeah, that's an opinion. Many metaphors can be drawn... ;) You should be able to have a bass cabinet as light as you want, as long as the sides are stiff (not necessarily heavy) so they don't flex (thus losing energy out the sides, and setting up messy radiation patterns and interferences), and as long as it's not so light the entire cabinet moves (pretty unlikely).


When you put the bass in contact with the floor (or a table top) and hear it louder, you're using the floor as a soundboard, like the top of a guitar or the soundboard of a piano, which sets more air in motion. You'll find it can amplify all the frequencies pretty well, not just the low end.

On the cabinet part I would respectfully disagree, from experience of building cabinets there is a ratio betwween power output/speaker weight, cabinet weight and of course proper disign and construction, reducing the optimum will in fact "reduce the optimum"
Floor example demonstrates the fact that low frequency wave is large omnidirectional and slow moving and can be heard and felt better with a larger surface available for it to travel trough.

Time for a physics lesson.

Places to where energy is lost inlude:

-acoustic energy transfered to the air (sound)
-heat energy created within the string
-magnetic force from the pickup pulling on the string
-vibration transfered to the body of the bass

...The fourth is where the mass of the body is relevant. The more mass the bass has the more resistant it will be to sympathetic vibration with the string and it will steal less energy. This doesn't mean that a bass that weighs twice as much will sustain twice as long. Other factors such as flexibility of the wood and in the neck joint and the tendency of miscelllaneous bass parts (such as tuners, saddles, electronics, etc..) to vibrate play a large role.

thanks, that was very informative. Given, that all the other parameters were the same (neckjoint, hardware etc) I see it as a valid statement then. But like Nino Valenti indicates: It depends on the quality of the tone, and if that is worth sustaining :) , but that'd be a different thread...

...not to mention that the quality of the tone is not some fixed thing at one point in time, that you might want to then sustain--tone is a thing that evolves as amplitude is lost at different rates from different harmonics, ans sometimes gained in some harmonics as energy is shifted from one to another. If you look at a 3D plot from an FFT of a plucked string, you can see this. So, a tone is something that evolves over time, and simply sustaining all harmonics equally, for a maximum time, probably wouldn't give you the results you want. Unless you want something synthy or organy.

You can hear this on a sample from an older sampler keyboard. Since memory was limited, they would use a short sample, sometimes only 250ms, and then loop the last cycle and put an amplitude envelope on it to make it fade away. But it didn't sound natural, because the tone stopped evolving shortly after the initial attack.

Disclaimer: Just from my own experience (armchair physics)

More than overall weight I think there are 2 other things that affect it more... atleast from a wood point of view.

I think the overall stiffness of the instrument affects the sustain the most (with of course other things affecting it... hardware especially the bridge (the closest anchor to the pickups,) pickup magnets and placement, and probably even in a minor way overall shape and weight.) Whether it's neckthrough or bolt on (and how many bolts) affects the stiffness.

Then not weight, but close, density of the material probably has something to do with the type of tones. Sound traveling through different densities behave differently at different frequencies. Now of course a 6 lb bass and a 12 lb bass made of identical wood would probably sound different... but probably not as different as two similiar 9 lb basses, one made from poplar and one from ebony. This is just a guess though.

Honestly when it comes to tone, what I really think is most important is something that hardly ever (if ever) comes up TB. How does your bass sound mixed with and in relation to the guitarist in your band? That's the key. So I'll tell you a story.

I have 2 very nice jazz basses... A warmoth koa with 2 MM pickups, and a 75 RI fender. They both play and sound great but differently. Now the guitarist in my old band had a 69 Les Paul goldtop with a maple neck (pretty dang rare... sounded like a mix between a les paul and a strat) and he had a reissue Les Paul that was supposed to be a copy of a standard 69. They sounded totally different and responded differently to how he played even though they both had the same feel to him. So my warmoth sounds incredible with the reissue guitar and the 75RI sounds incredible with the authentic 69. Switch em and they BOTH SOUND LIKE TOTAL CRAP... especially the warmoth with the 69 gold top... sounded like freaking mud. There was something wrong with the other mix too but I can't remember what it was, I just didn't like it at all nor did anyone else.

Moral of the story... I like to have a large stable of basses to experiment with. Somewhere in my dozens of basses there has got to be a magical one that fits with my fingers and playing style and those same things with the guitarist and his guitar.

Now same thing with the drummer but to a much lesser degree... you really only have to worry about the kick drum and maybe the toms. If you have a keyboardist that plays low then things can get really tricky. I like playing with guitarists who don't require a huge lowend on their guitar tone.

Quite amazing that a builder, whose research, experience, and success would have an opinion that is in direct opposition to that of a player.

Why amazing? The emphasis here should be on "a player"- that's a very far cry from "all players".

The best sounding bass I ever played was at David Coulthard's (Formula 1 driver) 21st birthday bash (long time ago now)

Nice! I've worked with him at RBR for a while- very, very funny guy!

Why amazing? The emphasis here should be on "a player"- that's a very far cry from "all players".



You are absolutely correct. A player is one who spends his time perfecting his craft, that is, playing their instrument. Certainly that player will have an opinion on musical instruments since they spend much of their day with the instrument in their hands. A few of those players will have studied and researched wood and steel and understand some of the nuances of blending materials into an instrument that is emminently playable and full of tone. Of course, tone is subjective.

Research and knowledge are not prerequisites for forming an opinion. There is no substitute.

...not to mention that the quality of the tone is not some fixed thing at one point in time, that you might want to then sustain--tone is a thing that evolves as amplitude is lost at different rates from different harmonics, and is sometimes gained in some harmonics as energy is shifted from one to another. If you look at a 3D plot from an FFT of a plucked string, you can see this. So, a tone is something that evolves over time, and simply sustaining all harmonics equally, for a maximum time, probably wouldn't give you the results you want.

+1

The FFT (Fast Fourier Transform)--an analysis of a complex wave form into a group of sine waves representing harmonic partials (in this hypothetical example all plotted in the same time frame), does show "independently" changing amplitudes of harmonic partials (envelopes) in musical instrument tones. While one cannot find the "good tone" or "bad tone" so easily (if at all) with such tools, what you are pointing out is absolutely true, IMHO.

Interesting musical tone (timbre) evolves over time as each harmonic's energy rises (with noise transcients) and then falls with a unique individual amplitude envelope. Doubtlessly, ends of notes have noise transcients, too. This all applies to the electric bass in real everyday ways. Yet, we just rely on our ears and muscial taste to evalute the quality. Ain't music cognition grand? :p

BTW, I doubt any physical system, even a grantite bass, would sustain all harmonics input into it equally, for this we have computers...:D

David Coulthard? - Nice! I've worked with him at RBR for a while- very, very funny guy!

Hey Angus - so you know DC? give my best regards to Cawthorne as well next time you bump into him as!!!! (Cawthorne was my flat-mate at University - hence the connection)