I've read that Roger Sadowsky has that opinion. If he says that I'd believe it.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Ash or Alder does it matter to tone?
- Thread starter bassplayerwanab
- Start date
I've read that Roger Sadowsky has that opinion. If he says that I'd believe it.
A swamp ash bass body can weigh anywhere from low 3 lbs to more than 6 lbs. Same for alder. The weight and density of a species of wood is going to be more of a critical factor than whatever kind of wood the body is.
When I first joined TB over 12 years ago, one TBer, I think it was Dan Atkinson, had a blind fold sound test with a legitimate Fender Bass vs a junk wood pine body bass (same pickups and stuff). Guess which one won the sound test? HA!
I used to have a G&L L-1000 mahogany body and I also had a G&L L-1000 swamp ash body. Guess which one was brighter and which one was warmer. The mahogany was the brighter bass. Go figure.
Woods are like finger prints. They can not be stereo typed. A bass will sound however it wants to sound.
Strings are the #1 factor that determine how a bass will sound and then everything else in the electronics next. How you pluck, where you pluck probably next. There's a long list of stuff that causes how a bass will sound with wood type down toward the bottom of the list.
I was talking to a guitarist and he told me that he'd go into a store and pull 15 Telecasters off of the wall and play each one and then narrow it down to the one best sounding Tele and buy that one. Same goes for bass. They are all different.
Ash, alder. Doesn't matter all that much.
I think this concern with bass sound all got started when we started using round wounds and having cabs with a tweeter and active eq on our amps. Before that, bass was this muddy, bassy sound in the band and all basses sounded like that.
Dead horse subject...........beat it!
When I first joined TB over 12 years ago, one TBer, I think it was Dan Atkinson, had a blind fold sound test with a legitimate Fender Bass vs a junk wood pine body bass (same pickups and stuff). Guess which one won the sound test? HA!
I used to have a G&L L-1000 mahogany body and I also had a G&L L-1000 swamp ash body. Guess which one was brighter and which one was warmer. The mahogany was the brighter bass. Go figure.
Woods are like finger prints. They can not be stereo typed. A bass will sound however it wants to sound.
Strings are the #1 factor that determine how a bass will sound and then everything else in the electronics next. How you pluck, where you pluck probably next. There's a long list of stuff that causes how a bass will sound with wood type down toward the bottom of the list.
I was talking to a guitarist and he told me that he'd go into a store and pull 15 Telecasters off of the wall and play each one and then narrow it down to the one best sounding Tele and buy that one. Same goes for bass. They are all different.
Ash, alder. Doesn't matter all that much.
I think this concern with bass sound all got started when we started using round wounds and having cabs with a tweeter and active eq on our amps. Before that, bass was this muddy, bassy sound in the band and all basses sounded like that.
Dead horse subject...........beat it!
You will hear a lot of people tell you a lot of anecdotes about how much of a difference it makes. But if you challenge those same people to blindly test 6 P basses all with necks made of the same wood, 3 with alder bodies and 3 with ash, and ask them to put their money where their mouths are....betting real $$$$ on whether they can tell the difference at least 2/3 of the time if blindfolded....well......I suspect you won't have many participants....and they'll start telling you how it isn't "real" because the neck joints aren't exactly the same, the strings not the identical age, etc......and they'd be correct, because all those other factors add up to having a far greater impact on tone, and the variation in density/weight/etc between 2 pieces of ash (or alder) can exceed that between a piece of ash and a piece of alder, so there's no reliable "knowing in advance" how wood type may affect tone. In theory, it all matters....just like in theory, the shape and size of the side view mirrors on a car affect its' top speed. Listen to each bass, regardless of wood type. Listen only with your ears. Happy Friday 
Totally agree that when you consider the huge variation in wood density from the exact same species of wood and from bass to bass, no accurate blanket statement can be made.
- I remember the Dan Atkinson 2x6 vs. P bass as really stirring up the pot!
I have 2 1973 Fender P basses. One is alder and the other is ash and both have maple necks. One is about 8.5 lbs and the other is early 10.
They sound really close. I've never changed strings on both at the exact same time and believe that a 1 week older set of strings changes the tone more than any other sonic difference between these two.
I would say it's nearly impossible to tell. Comparing two identical instruments made of different body wood isn't feasible as the electronic component values will be different (measure the resistance of two 250k pots and one can be 200,000 ohms and the other 275,000 ohms). Multiply that by however many electrical components you have and those two instruments with different overall resistances along their circuits will sound audibly different even mounted to THE SAME BODY.
For me, the only concerns with body wood are grain and durability - and maybe weight, but idgaf about that.
Ash usually has a nice grain (as everything else, the qualifier "usually" is important), so I feel as though that has more to do with its proliferation as a body wood than its "tone"
Also, wood is a natural material, and as such, two pieces of ash - even cut from the same tree - can have more in common wth other species than they do with each other. This really nullifies statements like "ash has more pronounced mids" as one piece of ash might have the density of Adler, while another is more akin to say a piece of cherry.
I used to purchase lumber for a mill,which really helped to de-mystify the real properties of wood for me.
For me, the only concerns with body wood are grain and durability - and maybe weight, but idgaf about that.
Ash usually has a nice grain (as everything else, the qualifier "usually" is important), so I feel as though that has more to do with its proliferation as a body wood than its "tone"
Also, wood is a natural material, and as such, two pieces of ash - even cut from the same tree - can have more in common wth other species than they do with each other. This really nullifies statements like "ash has more pronounced mids" as one piece of ash might have the density of Adler, while another is more akin to say a piece of cherry.
I used to purchase lumber for a mill,which really helped to de-mystify the real properties of wood for me.
From what I have read, each species of wood has a range of physical properties and so they can vary quite a lot from one piece of wood to another. If it does have an impact on tone, it is possible to get as much variation between two pieces of the same species as between two pieces from different species. All this anecdotal stuff might give you a feel for the general statistical variation in personal experience, but you might not find that same result with any particular instrument.
My rule of thumb: If you have to ask, the answer is no.
Each piece of woods sounds different, even from same species (or even from the same tree), so there's no way of saying how a particular ash-bodied or alder-bodied bass will sound. You just have to try it. Luckily, it usually matters very little on a P bass, and you have many other ways to change the sound (strings are at the top of my list).
im staying out of this rabbit hole so Ill just answer the OP with what Ive noticed over the years:
fretboard wood impacts tone greater than body wood. Body wood's affect on tone has always been negligible for myself but others may have a different experience.
However, body wood type seems to impact resonance more than the actual tone, determining if the bass is lively for myself .....but wood types are imperfect and not distributed equally as trees grow: there are Ash bodies that are denser than other ash bodies, there are Alder bodies denser than other alder bodies, etc......so wood type is just a rule of thumb for myself as opposed to law imo , of course
fretboard wood impacts tone greater than body wood. Body wood's affect on tone has always been negligible for myself but others may have a different experience.
However, body wood type seems to impact resonance more than the actual tone, determining if the bass is lively for myself .....but wood types are imperfect and not distributed equally as trees grow: there are Ash bodies that are denser than other ash bodies, there are Alder bodies denser than other alder bodies, etc......so wood type is just a rule of thumb for myself as opposed to law imo , of course
Last edited:
Sure it matters, but body wood probably accounts of a sum of 3-5% of your overall sound plugged in (and that may be generous). For me, subjectively, I feel that a harder body wood kind of bounces the sound wave back toward my hand in a snappier, livelier way which I believe I feel and prefer (I also think the finish has an effect on this feel). The effect is, of course, marginal, but nowadays relatively cheap instruments are 90% as good as top-flight gear - so everything we argue about is on the margins.
Not to mention signal chain. But I can really hear the warm mids coming through on my Ash P bass when I crank up the fuzz and distortion.
This has been my experience also. I love the look of ash and have tried a few, but was never happy with the tone.
Only you will be able to tell if it matters or not.
It probably makes a difference. I’m guessing if a bass was painted the majority of us wouldn’t know the difference unless the bass was built using HEAVY ash. Wood in general varies quite a bit inside of general species categories like “ash” and “maple” which makes this discussion a bit more complicated and vague, imo.
I’ll just add this: when it comes to a bolt-on neck bass I feel like the relationship between the mass of the neck and body is probably more important than the specifics of the body itself....just opinion and my personal experience over 38 years of playing basses.
I’ll just add this: when it comes to a bolt-on neck bass I feel like the relationship between the mass of the neck and body is probably more important than the specifics of the body itself....just opinion and my personal experience over 38 years of playing basses.
After we finish typing what really happens is the player will find one bass more to their liking than another.
Highly debatable, so expect a lot of colorful answers from the 'experts' at TB ;-)
IMHO/IME
Very little difference, I find the neck contributes more to the overall tone than the body. I believe it's more of an aesthetic and weight difference.
From all the P-basses I've had in my earlier full-time playing life, my experience has been, Ash is thicker and heavier (in weight and tone). Alder has more mids and warmer/mellower sound, also lighter weight. Swamp ash is a nice lighter comprimise between the 2. That being said, out of the 4 P-basses I have left, 3 are Alder (62, 70, 72) and 1 is Basswood (87 MIJ). Out of all those my favorite is the MIJ ( light, more sustain, more even across the fretboard).
How the 2 ends of the string (one is the bridge on the body, the other is a fret on the neck) move affects the string's vibration, so yes, the neck and body do (at some level) affect the tone of the instrument.
Is it significant? That we can argue about all day.
Which affects the tone more? That's actually fairly easy to answer - you can (using several different techniques) measure which moves more, and...yes, the neck moves more (actually that makes perfect sence as it's lighter and less stiff). Since it moves more, it affects the string's vibration more, so.... on that basis, the neck matters more.
You can also argue that, strictly speaking, it's not the string's vibration alone that pickups sense. What they pick up is the motion of the string relative to the body - if either one moves, they will pick that up. And of course, both do move. So, yes, they are picking up body vibrations, but again, the string moves more than the body, so it's primarily string motions that they sense.
I'm in the neck camp of which wood determines tone the most. That being so it would stand to reason that neck-thru basses are the most resonant. But that isn't the case. So perhaps it is fretboard material as it is in the most proximity to the vibrating strings. Bodyless guitars can sound pretty good too.
Hello, and welcome to TalkBass. A question for the ages:
=1&c[node]=8"]Search Results for Query: ash vs alder | TalkBass.com
=1&c[node]=8"]Search Results for Query: body wood matter | TalkBass.com
=1&c[node]=8"]Search Results for Query: body tonewood | TalkBass.com
=1&c[node]=8"]Search Results for Query: body wood tone | TalkBass.com
