Hypothetical (for now) tonewood study

[SallyGrowler]

save your money:
I like the Psychological Test vs the Audible test.
I've had way too many "pros" tell me that "of course Maple sounds Brighter than Alder" or some other such nonsense.
I embarrassed a mod on another well-known bass forum with the perception experiment.
entire thread was deleted after "ol' dog ears" realized he was preaching nonsense.
I read a few of his obnoxious posts where he literally instructed people to purchase certain instruments because of the "tone-woods". Or chided them in their preference of a maple fretboard when considering a softer rounder tone for jazz (I sheet you not!)
a few posters challenged his assertions and that it was impossible to tell. He then remarked that his hearing was exceptional like that of a dog...
:idea:
Rather than jump right in and point out he was full of beans, I waited a week and posted how I was torn between tone-wood choices and how perhaps I had an uneducated ear...

I used the same instrument. A Korean P-Bass Imitation (who cares what kind of wood it was made of. It was Brown

The thread title was "Help Me Choose My Tone"
I stated that a few friends had loaned me their basses so I could make a decision.
I posted four wav files:
1. "Fender J-Bass: Alder: Maple Neck/FretBoard"
2. "Kubicki - laminated neck - ebony fret board
3. Ibanez SGR 5 string - rosewood fret board
4. Musicaman Stingray - don't know what woods

Only two responses said they couldn't tell
several claimed that the Kubicki had the rounder tone
Moderator then tries to deconstruct by saying: "Oh the 5 string affects the resonance of the instrument when compare to the other 4 string instruments"
He then tried to explain what each tone-wood in my example was best suited ...

After about 4 pages of "sonic quality" and "the stingray would be good for ballads, but the Kubicki obviously sounds like the best of the four!" Bullsh*t and lots of other posters agreeing with him, I apologized and revealed that it was the same bass in each.

The guy's ego was smashed - deservedly so.

I was banned and thread deleted. Haha!

[jmorbita]

Originally Posted by SallyGrowler

save your money:
I like the Psychological Test vs the Audible test.
I've had way too many "pros" tell me that "of course Maple sounds Brighter than Alder" or some other such nonsense.
I embarrassed a mod on another well-known bass forum with the perception experiment.
entire thread was deleted after "ol' dog ears" realized he was preaching nonsense.
I read a few of his obnoxious posts where he literally instructed people to purchase certain instruments because of the "tone-woods". Or chided them in their preference of a maple fretboard when considering a softer rounder tone for jazz (I sheet you not!)
a few posters challenged his assertions and that it was impossible to tell. He then remarked that his hearing was exceptional like that of a dog...
:idea:
Rather than jump right in and point out he was full of beans, I waited a week and posted how I was torn between tone-wood choices and how perhaps I had an uneducated ear...

I used the same instrument. A Korean P-Bass Imitation (who cares what kind of wood it was made of. It was Brown

The thread title was "Help Me Choose My Tone"
I stated that a few friends had loaned me their basses so I could make a decision.
I posted four wav files:
1. "Fender J-Bass: Alder: Maple Neck/FretBoard"
2. "Kubicki - laminated neck - ebony fret board
3. Ibanez SGR 5 string - rosewood fret board
4. Musicaman Stingray - don't know what woods

Only two responses said they couldn't tell
several claimed that the Kubicki had the rounder tone
Moderator then tries to deconstruct by saying: "Oh the 5 string affects the resonance of the instrument when compare to the other 4 string instruments"
He then tried to explain what each tone-wood in my example was best suited ...

After about 4 pages of "sonic quality" and "the stingray would be good for ballads, but the Kubicki obviously sounds like the best of the four!" Bullsh*t and lots of other posters agreeing with him, I apologized and revealed that it was the same bass in each.

The guy's ego was smashed - deservedly so.

I was banned and thread deleted. Haha!

wow!!!

[Dean N]

Good tale. Banned!? That's kind of hilarious... no offense! Shows how polarizing this subject is. I've never found any debate as polarizing as this. Ever. (coughcoughpoliticscoughgunscough)

Originally Posted by SallyGrowler

I like the Psychological Test vs the Audible test.

Kind of apples and oranges though.

This is really just a mental exercise to come up with a valid, reproducible, and objective (read: scientific) test that will get to the root of the tonewoods in electric bass debate. A sort of "show me, don't tell me" result. We've heard it all before!

[Scott in Dallas]

Originally Posted by Dean N

Scott, I think the idea is moving neck (threaded inserts), strings (quick-release bridge) and all onto different bodies.

Heck, If you didn't have controls (pots) and went direct from pickup to jack, you could probably even use a quick-connect EMG-style system and transplant electronics too.

The way I read it was that it use a new set of strings, but not the same set of strings. Your way would be much better. People will hear what they want to hear. The speaker cable debates rage on in the audiophile forums.

[LMartin]

Another area you should consider is the finish i.e. paint. I would suggest that each body be painted using the same (not similar) paint. Excluding any automotive formulas.
To be exacting you may even want to control the gun used to apply the paint, not the gun itself but the orfice. Three coats using a #3 as opposed to a #1 orfice etc; gives a different thickness. Also different manufactruers may have different mixing formulas so maybe use only one manufactruer for all the chemicals.I would choose materials that need no mixing there fore eliminating mixing errors. I use only waterbase material and I do not mix anything. I use it as premixed by the supplier.
If you take into cosideration everything that can alter tonal output you could be in for a tedious experiment. Good luck!!

LMartin Classic Music Company

[Toolmybass]

Originally Posted by ps10black

I just did a similar thing although knowhere near as scientific using MDF Sapelle and Kalantas using a removable neck and bridge pickup assembly, there is very little tonal difference between them leading me to believe two possible scenarios, One the neck is the major contributor to the sound or the timbers have very little impact on the tone of a guitar, I am possibly going to construct an MDF neck and se what happens??

I posted the clips and let the forum decide which was which, but long story short the MDF polled in as a fave??????? with most saying that there was such a little diference tht it didnt really matter

The results of the tests are over on MLP, Like I said not exactly as scientific as what you are proposing, but still very interesting how close they all sounded

Lee

+10000 (I put lots of zeros on there because there isn't an infinity icon on my phone)

There will be minor subtle differences here...most which couldn't be heard by the human ear (maybe an analyzer) ...if it is noticeable ....nothing that a small eq adjustment wont fix...even by an intermediate musician

So you would def be wasting your time doing any of this building/swapping/testing

Proof?...I gave a producer 2 Wal basses to "noodle" with for a week or so. Each PURPOSELY had different set ups on them so that there was a distinctive sound to them.

I spent about 30min on resetting them up and some eq'ing and buddy could NOT tell the difference. If he couldn't then I wouldn't have no problem "betting the farm" that 99.9% of everyone else out there wouldn't either...this would also be a good example that your experiment in reality would be a big waste of time

Oh I forgot to mention about these basses
-21 years! between build dates
-Australian Lacewood vs American Walnut
-Slightly different neck woods involved
-Slightly different body shape (MKI vs MKIi)
- Definite different grain on Rosewood F boards
-Same electronics
-Same string manufacturer but slightly diff gauge

That's all I have to say

[ibateur]

I think, realism needs to creep back into the experiment.

If you really want to test the impact of the wood on the tone, get a block of wood, cut a P or J or both route into it, stretch a string over it (no neck) and record the note. You can use different strings and different pitches and record. On playback use a spectral analyser and see if there are differences. Get 100 meters of string straight from the factory and use multiple lengths per block to get a good average.

[Toolmybass]

Originally Posted by SallyGrowler

save your money:
I like the Psychological Test vs the Audible test.
I've had way too many "pros" tell me that "of course Maple sounds Brighter than Alder" or some other such nonsense.
I embarrassed a mod on another well-known bass forum with the perception experiment.
entire thread was deleted after "ol' dog ears" realized he was preaching nonsense.
I read a few of his obnoxious posts where he literally instructed people to purchase certain instruments because of the "tone-woods". Or chided them in their preference of a maple fretboard when considering a softer rounder tone for jazz (I sheet you not!)
a few posters challenged his assertions and that it was impossible to tell. He then remarked that his hearing was exceptional like that of a dog...
:idea:
Rather than jump right in and point out he was full of beans, I waited a week and posted how I was torn between tone-wood choices and how perhaps I had an uneducated ear...

I used the same instrument. A Korean P-Bass Imitation (who cares what kind of wood it was made of. It was Brown

The thread title was "Help Me Choose My Tone"
I stated that a few friends had loaned me their basses so I could make a decision.
I posted four wav files:
1. "Fender J-Bass: Alder: Maple Neck/FretBoard"
2. "Kubicki - laminated neck - ebony fret board
3. Ibanez SGR 5 string - rosewood fret board
4. Musicaman Stingray - don't know what woods

Only two responses said they couldn't tell
several claimed that the Kubicki had the rounder tone
Moderator then tries to deconstruct by saying: "Oh the 5 string affects the resonance of the instrument when compare to the other 4 string instruments"
He then tried to explain what each tone-wood in my example was best suited ...

After about 4 pages of "sonic quality" and "the stingray would be good for ballads, but the Kubicki obviously sounds like the best of the four!" Bullsh*t and lots of other posters agreeing with him, I apologized and revealed that it was the same bass in each.

The guy's ego was smashed - deservedly so.g

I was banned and thread deleted. Haha!

Too bad the thread was deleted!...another great example that there's just some people out there that have absolutely have ZERO experience in a studio setting....but think they have ears of a canine ...give me a break

[pklima]

If you can really get the funding to get these made, what would be even more interesting would be to then do a longitudinal followup: give them away to randomly chosen musicians who are graduating high school, and follow up every year whether they're actually playing it, whether they're using it as their main instrument, and most importantly: how much money they made playing it. If, say, alder-bodied instruments actually make more money, I'll believe in tonewood even if I can't hear a difference.

[OHSPyro89]

This might be a little off, but I think there are a few more variables here than you really need to deal with.

If you are trying to only test the difference in sounds with different tonewoods, you really don't need to construct guitars. If anything to save a lot of time, just make something simple to test your hypothesis.

Even taking a large 8/4 board and mounting a pickup and some strings would work. It wouldn't even really need to replicate a bass scale length either since you're just trying to find audible differences between the two. I'd definitely suggest using the same exact hardware on every test subject though.

It seems like this tonewood debate will go on forever despite some decent logical reasoning. Everyone knows how the pickup works, and how wood around the pickup would affect that sound is beyond me. I'm always ready to be wrong though!

[ps10black]

heres some pics of the test bed guitars











Everything is as close to identical as possible, I used locking tuners so that its even the same set of strings

Lee

[Beej]

A comment here (hopefully not a pariah-inducing one) is to consider proving the negative hypothesis instead of the positive. The example as written above (pretty good I might add) basically seeks to examine if wood makes a difference in the tone of an instrument. It would likely be much easier to prove that other factors have a more significant difference in tone, or have such great magnitude of influence on tone that they completely mask the effect of the difference that wood introduces.

So thinking of Pete's idea to address the psychology of it, an example experiment could look at the influence of electronics over wood. You could take three basses identically built and have the tone knob full on one, half on the second and completely off on the third. This would allow recordings to be made and played with several listeners (double blind) and ask them to determine if there is a difference in the recordings. This would for example prove that the tone setting in the electronics has a greater impact than wood.

I'm just firing this off with two seconds of consideration so there are obviously holes in what I'm putting out, but when faced with huge numbers of variables, this kind of viewing the negative hypothesis instead can be a solution to deal with the mass data potential in the experiment...

[HaMMerHeD]

Originally Posted by OHSPyro89

This might be a little off, but I think there are a few more variables here than you really need to deal with.

If you are trying to only test the difference in sounds with different tonewoods, you really don't need to construct guitars. If anything to save a lot of time, just make something simple to test your hypothesis.

Even taking a large 8/4 board and mounting a pickup and some strings would work. It wouldn't even really need to replicate a bass scale length either since you're just trying to find audible differences between the two. I'd definitely suggest using the same exact hardware on every test subject though.

It seems like this tonewood debate will go on forever despite some decent logical reasoning. Everyone knows how the pickup works, and how wood around the pickup would affect that sound is beyond me. I'm always ready to be wrong though!

The intent is to test the influence of sound expressed by various types of wood on an electric bass body, not a block of wood with a pickup screwed to it and some strings spread over it.

Making full instruments out of each would allow me to test the problem from several perspectives.

Originally Posted by Beej

A comment here (hopefully not a pariah-inducing one) is to consider proving the negative hypothesis instead of the positive. The example as written above (pretty good I might add) basically seeks to examine if wood makes a difference in the tone of an instrument. It would likely be much easier to prove that other factors have a more significant difference in tone, or have such great magnitude of influence on tone that they completely mask the effect of the difference that wood introduces.

So thinking of Pete's idea to address the psychology of it, an example experiment could look at the influence of electronics over wood. You could take three basses identically built and have the tone knob full on one, half on the second and completely off on the third. This would allow recordings to be made and played with several listeners (double blind) and ask them to determine if there is a difference in the recordings. This would for example prove that the tone setting in the electronics has a greater impact than wood.

I'm just firing this off with two seconds of consideration so there are obviously holes in what I'm putting out, but when faced with huge numbers of variables, this kind of viewing the negative hypothesis instead can be a solution to deal with the mass data potential in the experiment...

The way you are describing it introduces more variables than the original proposition sought to test. While I can appreciate the idea of testing things that have greater effect, the question specifically was about so-called tonewood.