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AUDIO TEST: Maple+Maple vs. Alder+Rosewood!

CAST YOUR VOTE HERE!

  • BASS 1 is brighter than BASS 2. The MIX clip is BASS 1.

    Votes: 13 6.6%

  • BASS 1 is brighter than BASS 2. The MIX clip is BASS 2.

    Votes: 37 18.7%

  • BASS 2 is brighter than BASS 1. The MIX clip is BASS 1.

    Votes: 74 37.4%

  • BASS 2 is brighter than BASS 1. The MIX clip is BASS 2.

    Votes: 43 21.7%

  • I can't hear any difference whatsoever!

    Votes: 12 6.1%

  • I can hear a difference, but I have no clue which bass is being used in the mix.

    Votes: 19 9.6%
  • Total voters
    198
  • Poll closed .
-=DanAtkinson=-

-=DanAtkinson=-

Feb 26, 2008
2,457
125
50
Atlanta, GA
#1
EDIT: The poll is closed and the answer is revealed in Post #93

As most of you know, I've been doing some audio tests of body and neck woods. This time, I decided to take things up a notch and test 2 basses made from entirely different woods.

For this experiment, I opted to test woods that are touted as being very different on the tone spectrum. I used one J bass with a Maple body and Maple/Maple neck, and another with an Alder body and Rosewood/Rosewood neck (yes, all rosewood).

001-3.jpg

002-5.gif



Let's take a look at the Warmoth "Tone-O-Meter" ratings for these woods:

WoodTone.jpg



Now, these are the questions I'm seeking insight on:


1. What percentage of us can hear a difference in tone between woods?
2. Do woods exhibit the expected tone "flavor" they are said to have? In other words, is wood tone predictable?
3. Can we identify wood tone characteristics in a mix or band setting?


This experiment can't answer those questions definitively, but it can provide some useful insight.

Now for this audio test, I'm doing things a bit differently, having learned a few things from my past threads. BASS 1 and BASS 2 are the two basses described and pictured above. I won't say which is which. On each bass, I recorded a clip with both pickups on full, a clip with the neck pickup only, and a clip with the bridge pickup only. I used the exact same strings, pickups, and control plate on each bass. And each bass was setup the same way.

(Also, you'll notice that the clips are raw WAV files, not compressed MP3 files.)

Listen closely to the clips of BASS 1 and BASS 2. Can you hear a difference? If so, decide which one sounds "brighter" to you.

Then listen to the MIX clip. This clip was recorded using one of the 2 test basses. It's the same bassline from before, but in a mix with other instruments. Your job is to figure out if this clip was recorded with BASS 1 or BASS 2.




Let the voting begin! :bassist: (I'll probably let this poll ride for at least 24 hours before revealing the answer.)

EDIT: Don't forget the last 2 options in the poll in case you're having a hard time deciding!
 
#11
I'm gonna have to say that Bass #1 is the alder/rosewood and Bass #2 is the maple/maple.
The mix bass is a bit harder, as the upper mids get hard to hear with within the guitar, but I'm going to say alder/rosewood as I can't quite pick out the clack of the maple board. Could even be the maple/maple with the tone rolled off a hair.

By the way Dan, both basses sound great!
 
#12
I listened to every track once and this is my initial impression. To my ear the first bass has a little less definition, not a bad thing but more of a big round note with less in the middle.

The second bass sounds punchier, a little more meat in the middle of the note with a tighter attack.

I called #2 brighter due to the punchier attack.

The bass in the mix is a lot harder to tell but it still has that hollow quality I heard in bass #1.

I personally feel that neck materials have a bigger impact on tone than body woods. I also feel that denser woods have a compressed sound more consistent with sample #2 so that would make #2 the rosewood neck and #1 the maple neck. I am interested to see the results. From my personal experience as a bassist, woodworker and semi-pro luthier (if I am lucky :D) I tend to associate tone with wood density more than by particular species.

I find both sounds to be very pleasant and very similar but they are different enough that it would slightly influence how I phrase my lines. Thanks for taking the time to do these tests Dan, I find them very interesting.
 
#14
Love these tests...

I think bass 1 is the rosewood neck and bass 2 is the maple. The mix sounds like bass 2. I'm actually hoping I'm wrong, as it would shed some insight on me. (I'm honestly trying to talk myself out of years of "tonewood matters" type of thinking...)

But yeah... these all sound VERY similar. Which goes to show that strings, pickups/electronics, and THE PLAYER make far bigger impacts on "tone" than what species of wood is used. ESPECIALLY when the rest of the band fires up...
 
#15
Still stranded in Houston so I don't have my phones with me; I'll listen when I'm back in St. Louis/Cape on Wednesday. And kudos for finally adding the "I can hear a difference but don't know which is which" option.

Regardless, the all-maple bass looks gorgeous!
 
#20
I voted for "BASS 2 is brighter than BASS 1. The MIX clip is BASS 1". It's pretty close though, not a dramatic difference in tone to my ear. For reference I'm listening through a pair of JBL LSR 4328P monitors, sitting on Primacoustic isolation pads, with the cones at ear level in an acoustically treated room (24"x48"x4" RealTraps panels straddling the corners and mounted at the first reflection points and 24"x24"x4" panels mounted 4" off the wall directly directly behind the monitors).

I'm interested to see the results. I have no bias one way or the other about tonewoods from my own real world experience.
 

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