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All maple basses?

#21
One of my Carvins is all maple, except for 2 strips of walnut in the neck. Maple body, flamed top, maple neck, birdseye board.
 

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#23
Jaye said:
One of my Carvins is all maple, except for 2 strips of walnut in the neck. Maple body, flamed top, maple neck, birdseye board.
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Wow! Nice bass-I've never seen a single-pickup Carvin like that.

Maple's one of my favorite woods. It gets the detailed mids I associate with alder and the clear lows and highs of ash in one package. To me ash sounds kind of boring at lower dynamic levels, but gets really interesting when you start whacking away. IMO maple brings that bite even with a light touch. I think a lot of people assume maple is only super bright but I haven't found that to be the case with the basses I've owned:

--Fretless Alembic Spoiler 4--maple neck through maple body, ebony board--deep lows, singing mids, cutting highs
--Peavey Cirrus 6--Maple top over alder and maple neck w/purpleheart stringers--great full-range tone
--Godin SD-4--with TI flats strung through the body, one of the best passive P tones I've ever heard--big bottom, growly, dynamic mids
--Pedulla Rapture J-2000-5--total maple: AA maple body, maple neck w/birdseye board--especially strung with D'Addario nickel XLs, has a wonderful tone from top to bottom. The Bart J's and NTBT pre mellow out the all-maple recipe. Somehow gets the best of 60's and 70's tones in one bass
--Pedulla Rapture 4--maple body & neck, rosewood FB, single Bart humbucker. Rosewood 'board and series-wired PU give this a different voice with more pronounced mids. Sounds phenomenal whether strung with nickel or steel rounds or TI flats
--Pedulla ThunderBolt 6--Maple body, flamed maple top, maple neck, rosewood board. Don't know whether it was the maple top or the active Bart soapbars, but the highs on this one were kind of hard to tame, especially with steel rounds. Much preferred it with TI Jazz Rounds or Flats- it had an authoritative "super P-Bass" kind of tone.
 
#27
My Warwick Corvette Proline has an all flamed maple body. Great tone. Bright, snappy highs. A really nice tight low end. Great mids without being to honky or nasal. Cuts through the mix perfectly. Great slap tone.

What's really interesting, though, is the Ken Smith I bought and then sent back last week (all maple except the pau ferro board) wasn't like this at all. Mids were weak and the lows were very boomy. Must of been the electronics difference.
 
#31
I had an all maple warmoth fretless J for a while. Tonally, it wasn't bad, really cut well, but maybe a bit lacking in the low end. Also, I thought the tone wasn't real complex. Lots of fundamental, not much in the way of the overtones that make a bass sound rich.

My big gripe though, was the weight. It was just stoopid heavy. If you want all maple, get something with a smaller body size than a J.
 
#35
winston said:
Maple's one of my favorite woods. It gets the detailed mids I associate with alder and the clear lows and highs of ash in one package. To me ash sounds kind of boring at lower dynamic levels, but gets really interesting when you start whacking away. IMO maple brings that bite even with a light touch.
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I agree completely, which is one of the reasons I love maple basses. I play very lightly indeed and it responds beautifully without the need to dig in. I don't find it "too bright" so much as very clear throughout the whole spectrum. Obviously different people expect different things from an instrument (and as techniques all differ they won't necessarily get the same results anyway) but I find it to be clear, open and extremely musical. Almost all of my favourite basses are maple (Alembic being the only exception).

I don't necessarily agree about it being really heavy either; depends on the piece used. If you use flame or quilt maple it makes a big difference. My old Pedulla MVP was only about 8lbs at most. My old Warwick Streamer Stage 1 was about the same. My favourite Rick (my old '72) is also about the same. None of my maple basses weighs more than 10 lbs, even the heaviest of my Ricks ('91 CS, and part of the reason for the weight of that is the horseshoe). I would also agree that a Rick is a medium weight bass on average; most (though not all) Fenders tend to be heavier in my experience, although Rics do vary quite a bit in weight (usually from around 8 to 10 pounds).

I also have a Sei bass with a maple and purpleheart neck, maple fingerboard, alder body but maple facings with an ebony "melt" top and it's extremely light and sounds fantastic.
 
#40
melt said:
I don't necessarily agree about it being really heavy either; depends on the piece used. .
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Agreed, and also on the body dimensions. I used to think mahogany was heavy because les pauls are heavy. Now I own a 60s all mahogany epi that is a feather. The big difference? The epi is about half as thick as the LP, maybe a tad less. The pedulla's I've played all seemed pretty reasonable, weight wise, but again, the dimensions seem a tad smaller. It isn't a deal breaker, just something to keep an eye on in a maple axe.
 

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