Brighter sounding wood on bass or treble side of neck?

[Moonbot]

I am making a 3 piece maple/wenge/maple neck thru 4 string and have a quick question that I thought might be answered here. This will be the first neck I've built.

I have just bought the wood, and one of the maple pieces has a slightly brighter tone then the other when rapped with my knuckle.

So should I:
Use the brighter piece of wood on the treble side to bring out the treble in the bass.
Or would it be better to use the brighter sounding piece on the bass side to get a more balanced sound.
Or is there a third option.

Any advise will be much appreciated.

[Beej]

My advice is to get yourself fitted for fireproof coveralls asap.

I'm of the camp that tone on an electric solid body instrument is largely derived from the strings and electronics, and that building materials are selected for their physical structural and esthetic characteristics. In other words, it won't make enough of a difference to matter, just do what looks best and provides the best structural stability...

[KayXero]

buy a pickup with a bright sounding reputation?

[Rickett Customs]

Save the bright one, for the second build ..............

Do not get trapped in the snare of getting into tone "woods", that much....

[dmusic148]

If you were going to use one OR the other, I would have said that it might make a difference. But once it's all glued up, I reckon placement won't matter in the slightest.

[Cy_Miles]

I am a firm believer in tone-woods (esp neck woods), so I think it is an intruiging idea. I have a friend making mandolins that is experimenting with different types of top wood on the bass and treble sides.

BUT... Since this is your first neck I suggest you get some build experience before you start experimenting with this.

The reason I think this could be tricky, is because of the different strengths of the different woods.

If you build an 'asymetrical' neck, you run the risk of the neck twisting under pressure. If not a bad twist, still enough so one side of your neck would bend more, giving you more relief on one side of the neck then the other, which could make leveling frets and setting it up difficult.

This could all work towrds your benefit, if it were properly engineered, but it would be good to have some build experience under your belt before trying something tricky like that.

I recently started to carve a neck with an asymmetrical profile, and realized I was going to run into troubles if one side was too much stiffer then the other side. I think using different woods on one side then the other could lead to similar problems.

my 2 cents says to keep that idea on the drawing board while you get some build experience, and then play around with it in the future.

[pie_man_25]

I say it really won't make a difference, I'm not a "tonewood" guy because:

1) the wood is usually 1.5" thick, that provides more damping than resonation, why do you think hollowbodies have such a characteristic sound?

2) the pickups are picking up the vibrations of the string, not the wood like with a piezo soundboard, and most pickups are potted so as to eliminate microphonics.

3) as you have noted each piece of wood, even within it's own species, is quite different from all other pieces of wood, you could probably give a guy a bass, each made from one of those pieces of walnut and they'll probably think that they both have the "bassy, warmth" of walnut

4) as you go from instrument to instrument, you generally hear that the same woods have the same qualities, ie. on bass, mahogany is "warm", on ukulele, mahogany is described as "bright, and with some punch and with a balanced plucky quality to it."

although, what CY_miles said about asymetrical necks sounds really interesting.

[Moonbot]

Thanks for all the replys, its good to have all this input.

I've just realised I should have made a poll, with 2 options and no "other", haha.

Ok so pretty much everyone agrees that its fairly irrelevant what way I glue it up, but seeing as I have only two possible options, I might as well make the right choice. One way might produce a slightly better tone from the bass then the other, in the end.
I spend a lot of time playing my basses unplugged, and would like this bass to sound as well as it can unplugged.
I already have pickups/electronics/hardware picked so none of that is applicable. Its just this one small decision that needs to be made.

The two pieces of maple are cut from the same blank side by side, they're almost identical so there is no worry of structural problems or any thing like that.

So there are only 2 ways to go about this, what way would you go for and why.
Cheers

[Beej]

Okay, I said what I said because I don't believe that this tiny difference will have any measureable effect, let alone an effect that demonstrates statistical significance (I'm a social scientist). Perception is entirely at play here, and the power of suggestion is a major causal effect in perception.

Here is a little experiment to help you determine if you are even hearing a difference between the two pieces:

1. Take the piece you think is brighter sounding and mark it near the end. Cover that mark with a piece of tape. Tape the end of the other board in the exact same spot to obscure which one has the mark.

2. Take both pieces and mark a small pencil x at the mid point of each. Lean them up against a wall.

3. Stand in another room where you cannot see the boards and don't know which one is being struck.

4. Have another person come in and mark one board with a 1. and the other with a 2. Have that same person mix up the boards.

5. Have yet another person come in and strike each board on the x with their finger, a pencil and another block of wood. Have them call out the number of the board and you record each one with a note as to whether you think its brighter or not.

6. Have yet another person come in and repeat step 5.

When you are done all of this, go out and remove the bits of tape that inform you as to which one was brighter. If you are 100% correct in your guesses while listening from the other room, you will have a successful experiment and can trust your own senses enough to know whether or not a piece sounds brighter, while controlling for the power of suggestion. If you are anything less than 100%, don't trust your perception as to what's "brighter" anymore...


These types of experiments are how the tonewood debate can be evaluated and argued rather than our reliance on our own opinions and wants as evidence as to whether or not a theoretical concept is reflected in reality...

[pilotjones]

Originally Posted by Beej

Okay, I said what I said because I don't believe that this tiny difference will have any measureable effect, let alone an effect that demonstrates statistical significance (I'm a social scientist). Perception is entirely at play here, and the power of suggestion is a major causal effect in perception.

Here is a little experiment to help you determine if you are even hearing a difference between the two pieces:

1. Take the piece you think is brighter sounding and mark it near the end. Cover that mark with a piece of tape. Tape the end of the other board in the exact same spot to obscure which one has the mark.

2. Take both pieces and mark a small pencil x at the mid point of each. Lean them up against a wall.

3. Stand in another room where you cannot see the boards and don't know which one is being struck.

4. Have another person come in and mark one board with a 1. and the other with a 2. Have that same person mix up the boards.

5. Have yet another person come in and strike each board on the x with their finger, a pencil and another block of wood. Have them call out the number of the board and you record each one with a note as to whether you think its brighter or not.

6. Have yet another person come in and repeat step 5.

When you are done all of this, go out and remove the bits of tape that inform you as to which one was brighter. If you are 100% correct in your guesses while listening from the other room, you will have a successful experiment and can trust your own senses enough to know whether or not a piece sounds brighter, while controlling for the power of suggestion. If you are anything less than 100%, don't trust your perception as to what's "brighter" anymore...


These types of experiments are how the tonewood debate can be evaluated and argued rather than our reliance on our own opinions and wants as evidence as to whether or not a theoretical concept is reflected in reality...

Awesome. And even then, can't there be some bias still there, depending on whether the person unconsciously prefers the number "one" or "two"?


The task is also complicated a bit in the mechanical sense, because to get a nice tone, you need to hold the board 1/4 of the way from one or both ends, rather than at the ends. So a xylophone-style suspension apparatus is in order.


A question to the OP: Is the one board actually brighter, as in having more high-frequency harmonic content, or is it merely sounding a higher pitch, which would likely be caused by the two boards not being completely identical in all dimensions?

[MarkusBass]

Great video comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61GdTGgPHM4

I can't tell the difference with my grados.

[none]

what about the construction side of story?
for example, if brighter sounding piece is harder piece of wood, darker sounding peace is softer, you glue them, do you get the neck more temperature and moisture sensitive?

[miziomix]

Originally Posted by Beej

Okay, I said what I said because I don't believe that this tiny difference will have any measureable effect, let alone an effect that demonstrates statistical significance (I'm a social scientist). Perception is entirely at play here, and the power of suggestion is a major causal effect in perception.

Here is a little experiment to help you determine if you are even hearing a difference between the two pieces:

1. Take the piece you think is brighter sounding and mark it near the end. Cover that mark with a piece of tape. Tape the end of the other board in the exact same spot to obscure which one has the mark.

2. Take both pieces and mark a small pencil x at the mid point of each. Lean them up against a wall.

3. Stand in another room where you cannot see the boards and don't know which one is being struck.
...etc et

When it's all said and done tell all those people you've lost your note and they'll have to do it all over again. Run.

[Dirk Diggler]

Right on Beej!

I was also going to ask what they meant by brighter?

Bright should be a scientifically measurable quantity, ever heard of spectrum analysis?

Now pitch/note would be something different, when talking a tap tone(pitch/note), that won't matter until the sum of the parts is glued up.

I normally don't get involved in these tone conversations anymore, but it seemed more like a real request and not just a troll convention. LOL

Dirk