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

[Bill Posters]

I haven't done the test yet.. but i will say that i have a bass with a one piece maple neck.. and i have swapped out at times a maple neck with RW fingerboard.. And ill be damned if the one piece maple with skunk stripe doesn't sounds warmer than the one with the RW fingerboard ...

I have a maple neck through bass with maple wings that is just about the darkest/warmest sounding bass I have ever played or heard.
It does have a rosewood fretboard though; maybe all the tone is in the fretboard.

I notice that the majority of the people who voted seem to thing the brighter bass is the one that is not in the mix. I wonder if this has anything to do with the high frequencies being less audible in a full mix?

 

[JB696]

These guessing polls are always fun. But why not make it really exciting. At the end, put the names of the people who got it 100% right into a hat and draw one. The lucky winner gets the test bass of his choice.

 

[cassius987]

Chose the third option, but really I have nothing riding on this. I like the Bass 1 sounds a lot better (isolated), that's for darn sure. EDIT: Nah, they both sound great. And I really can't tell which one is in the mix, but my hunch is that it's the first one.

Thanks for taking the time and effort, Dan!

 

[pocketgroove]

I meant to pick #3 but accidentally chose #4.
It sounds like the alder/rosewood bass in the mix because I can't hear the sound of the frets that I can hear in bass #2.

 

[cassius987]

But seriously, flats are perfectly fine. Are they less bright? Yes. But so are 250K pots. Should I have installed 500K pots?

Rounds would simply have made each bass brighter by the same degree. We'd still be hearing the same amount of difference between the basses.

Besides, it certainly appears most people are having no problem hearing a difference in tone. I know I'm not. My ears can easily identify which is brighter. (Identifying which bass was used for the mix is another story...)

+1

Traditional flats are already so bright anyways (I feel compelled to turn the tone control down even when using flats) that I don't think they hamper the signal, if anything the excessive overtones the rounds generate might obscure the signal a bit. Who knows.

 

[CliffD]

Dan, you are awesome. Thanks for doing these tests, they help make this forum worth something and break up the monotonous gear questions.

 

[Hopkins]

Bass 1 sounds brighter, no clue about which is in the mix

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

Traditional flats are already so bright anyways (I feel compelled to turn the tone control down even when using flats) that I don't think they hamper the signal, if anything the excessive overtones the rounds generate might obscure the signal a bit. Who knows.

Agreed. You know, it could be argued that flats are the original bass string. Rounds came later, and they added highs that weren't previously there. So why would I want to add extra highs to this test and skew the results?

 

[SUBass]

I dunno Dan...I've played a bass with flats ONCE and only once in my life. It didn't even occur to me that one would put flatwounds on a bass with this test. But I did think the strings sounded "wrong." I want a "piano" like tone from my bass. Solid fundamental, chiming top, lots of harmonic overtones. That's me though.

 

[Darknut]

I agree the 2nd bass is a little brighter ( very little ) ... in the mix they would sound the same IMHO.

I don't think the mix bass is 1 or 2

 

[Kwesi]

Ah, the flats would explain a lot. I was wondering where the string noise was, lol. I play SS rounds so I'm much used to a different sound coming from Jazz basses.

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

I dunno Dan...I've played a bass with flats ONCE and only once in my life. It didn't even occur to me that one would put flatwounds on a bass with this test. But I did think the strings sounded "wrong." I want a "piano" like tone from my bass. Solid fundamental, chiming top, lots of harmonic overtones. That's me though.

To each his own, I suppose. I can tolerate rounds for solo bass stuff, but for sitting perfectly in a mix you simply cannot beat flats. They provide what a bass should provide and don't step on the guitars and vocals.

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

Everyone ready for the big reveal? Here it goes...






BASS 2 was the Maple+Maple, and BASS 2 was used for the Mix.


So, the correct answer would be "BASS 2 is brighter than BASS 1. The MIX clip is BASS 2." Which 18% got correct.

It really surprises me that about 27% of voters said Bass 1 was brighter than Bass 2. I did not expect that. My ears definitely detected more "bite", "snap", and upper midrange on the Bass 2 clips.

However, in the mix clip it became VERY difficult to identify which was bass was used.

Thanks for playing!

 

[Flaked Beans]

Bass#1 alder/rosewood
Bass#2 full maple (brighter)
Bass#2 in the mix

or I'm completely drunk....Damn.

LOL, I was not that drunk, obviously.

 

[jplunara]

My agathis body sounds just as fresh as these basses. God I hate tone wood arguments. IMO, the Pickups are the only real distinction worth looking at (oh and strings).

 

[saintx]

Any chance you can post a clip of bass1 in the mix? Interesting that the brighter bass didn't sound as bright (to my ears at least) in the mix...curious if the warmer toned bass wouldn't be as audible. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that it doesn't matter what your bass sounds like solo'd. Even if you prefer a warmer toned bass, maybe going a bit brighter for recording would be smart.

 

[flipper_gv]

I'm so good it hurts XD.

Deciding which one was brighter was quite easy. But, it is the growl in the tone of the bass in the mix that helped me identify it as the maple/maple bass.

 

[WoodyG3]

Wow! For the first time on one of these I got the right answer. And, Dan, I love flats, too, but I haven't yet banned rounds from the house.

These tests are fun, and then it's fun to read the crazy a$$ debate after the secret has been divulged. So, I'm waiting...

 

[cassius987]

I got the isolated stuff right but as for the mix, I'm kind of glad to be wrong--it takes some sting away from elitist arguments about gear to know that a maple bass sounded so much like an alder/rosewood bass in a band setting.

 

[KingRazor]

Everyone ready for the big reveal? Here it goes...






BASS 2 was the Maple+Maple, and BASS 2 was used for the Mix.


So, the correct answer would be "BASS 2 is brighter than BASS 1. The MIX clip is BASS 2." Which 18% got correct.

It really surprises me that about 27% of voters said Bass 1 was brighter than Bass 2. I did not expect that. My ears definitely detected more "bite", "snap", and upper midrange on the Bass 2 clips.

However, in the mix clip it became VERY difficult to identify which was bass was used.

Thanks for playing!

EDIT: I forgot what I had originally put.

I thought Bass 2 sounded brighter. It appears I was right. However, the bass in the mix clip sounded MUCH darker than the "Bass 2" clip. That's why I said the mix clip was Bass 1. It was like listening to a bass with rounds and then one with flats, night and day difference.

I can't always tell the difference between tone woods, but I definitely know when a bass sounds "brighter" than another one or "warmer".