Body wood for growling tone

[rockosocko]

I once had a Tobias with a quilted maple body and a pau ferro neck. The bass had a warm tone with tons of growl. Other than quilted maple, what other body woods could give me a similar tone?

[Musiclogic]

The same pickups and pre from the Tobias the body wood doesn't have much of an effect. Besides, the purveyors of the "solidbody tonewood" pretense will tell you that Maple is bright and snappy, so this would cause extreme disbelief in the "solidbody tonewood" cults. Electronics and build quality along with neck materials will dictate the sound.

[DwaynieAD]

glued plywood.. its angry

[Slowgypsy]

Originally Posted by Musiclogic

Electronics and build quality along with neck materials will dictate the sound.

Sorry to side-bar this a bit, but this thought has perked my interest. If one had an instrument that was somewhat "dark" in tone, would changing the neck to a very different wood make a noticeable difference?

[mikeyswood]

Noticeable - probably. Predictable - absolutely not.

[chadds]

I'd try OSB or "wishwood". Very angry for obvious reasons. Could be described as abusive tone.
Similar to "mother-in-law tone".
No resonance though. More screech.

[tjclem]

Bring out the little dude eating pop corn.

[Ruckus_Instrmts]

Originally Posted by DwaynieAD

glued plywood.. its angry

Redundancy will make anything angry..........

[SurferJoe46]

Dogwood.

[steamthief]

Originally Posted by SurferJoe46

Dogwood.

Well played.

[AndroWal]

I find that my mahogany bodied, maple top basses all have good growl with good brightness. The neck materials applicable are maple with strips of mahogany, composite and other light hardwoods with mahogany strips.

This said...pickups are very important...I especially like the Barts on my Zon TJ5 for the growl and of course the Wal multi-coils which you can only get if you buy a Wal.

[darylchan]

Tropical Birdwood. Comes in red, blue, yellow and black varieties.

[steve_rolfeca]

My Ibanez ATK growls like a mother with fresh nickel roundwounds. The pickup is in the EBMM position, although the tone is warmer and more mid-heavy than an EBMM. It has a heavy ash body and maple bolt-on neck. It weighs 11lb and change.

I threw a second ATK pickup in the neck position just for fun, and when I dial the blend all the way to the neck pickup, it goes very deep and smooth-sounding, with no growl.

I have a single-cut 35" neck-through bass (the one in my sig), with EMG 40P5's. The neck pickup is in almost-P position, and the bridge pickup is further back from the bridge than a 70's Jazz. It's rock maple and Bubinga for the center log, and soft curly maple for the body wings, with a thick Ebony slab fingerboard. It weighs just over 10lb.

It's had various EMG's in it over the years, and always sounded as smooth as butter, with no growl. ...Until I put the second P5 in the bridge. Now the bridge p/u position grrrowls like nobody's business.

So I'm voting for electronics and pickup position as the dominant factors, with a bias toward combinations that give you lots of harmonics and less fundamental. Wood, weight, and neck joint don't seem to have a lot of impact, based on my very small statistical sample.

[gbarcus]

I had a mid 90's Tobias 6 string with a pau ferro fretboard that had nice growl, but only up to the first 6 frets or so, beyond that, it got muddy. I've never had a bass that changed it's tone so much across the neck.
None of my single cut 35" scale basses have that.

[LightGroove]

How bout ya buy a Roscoe and call it a day...

[mikeyswood]

Originally Posted by SurferJoe46

Dogwood.

Goodly played, sir!

[pasco jacorius]

To me growl means wenge or ovangkol neck with wenge fingerboard, for more warmth (and low mid,a kind of nasal sound) check a rosewood fingerboard. Pau ferro as a neck do give a nice, punchy growl. I think a good mahogany body will meet your needs,with a soft maple top(for beauty ), or even bubinga(but it's so heavy..).
Now you also have to choose a pair of pickups that will focus on the "growl" part of your tone('cause if your pickups focus on the high end, you will hear the "high end" of that growl" , while I'm sure you want the mid-end of it to cut better). MEC pickups tend to to that very well, and some Barts "split-coil" in a jb pu'shell can do that also. Concerning the preamp I always say "go passive". So no preamp is the best to me .

[Ben Mitchell]

Deleted

[Ben Mitchell]

Originally Posted by SurferJoe46

Dogwood.

[markanini]

A boost between 1.5kHz to 2kHz helps convey growl big time.