Best wood for bass?

[pacojas]

if you think wood is insignificant to tone, i suggest the Tuning Fork test. simply tap any TF and apply the handle against a blank piece of lumber of reasonable size. place your ear against the board at different places while moving the TF. then,.. try several types of wood. try different pitched TF's.
you may notice that grain flow is also very important. some boards might swallow tone. some may project. one side may be more resonant.
it goes on & on, on a molecular level, moisture, density, etc. to me the differences are HUGE!!!!!

 

[AaronVonRock]

if you think wood is insignificant to tone, i suggest the Tuning Fork test. simply tap any TF and apply the handle against a blank piece of lumber of reasonable size. place your ear against the board at different places while moving the TF. then,.. try several types of wood. try different pitched TF's.
you may notice that grain flow is also very important. some boards might swallow tone. some may project. one side may be more resonant.
it goes on & on, on a molecular level, moisture, density, etc. to me the differences are HUGE!!!!!

Not sure how doing this would show how different woods make a difference in an electric instrument. Placing your ear against a piece of wood and "hearing" the difference is considered anecdotal evidence and carries no weight. It sounds good in ad copy, though.

 

[los100malditos]

A friend o mine got this squier and just for fun and the love for experimenting, replaced almost everything on it but the body & neck.

New Fender High Mass Bridge
New Seymour Duncan Pickups
New Fender Electronics
New Pickguard
New Neckplate
New Strings

Result: After hearing & recording the after & before ... the sound got louder, and little better, BUT STILL STERILE ... good wood is requiered, i also noticed that frets play an importat role!!!

 

[MegaSwing]

But in the mix after an elaborate signal chain, what does it really matter? You can wipe out subtle differences in wood tone with a quarter-turn of a knob.

 

[AaronVonRock]

But in the mix after an elaborate signal chain, what does it really matter? You can wipe out subtle differences in wood tone with a quarter-turn of a knob.

The "subtle difference in wood tone" is wiped out once the bass is plugged in. When electricity becomes a factor, it's pickup placement, pickup type, the bridge, the saddles, and overall string set-up that affect tone.

 

[Laurent]

Walnut, (English walnut in particular) maple swamp ash, rosewood.
I prefer bodies made of on single piece of wood instead of 2 or 3 parts glued together.
I know it's the norm but I like the idea of a single slab.

 

[pacojas]

The "subtle difference in wood tone" is wiped out once the bass is plugged in. When electricity becomes a factor, it's pickup placement, pickup type, the bridge, the saddles, and overall string set-up that affect tone.

seriously?????? (my ears say you are mistaken)

 

[fishdreams]

maple neck/board + alder body is a fave Fender-type bass combination for me.

 

[bassdude51]

Personal preference? "The tried and true!" Alder, swamp ash bass bodies that are in the 4lbs 8oz or under range. That will produce a bass that will weigh around 7lbs to 8lbs 6oz.

Maple neck with either rosewood or maple fretboard.

These woods have proven themselves over the course of almost 65 years of solid body basses.

Other than that...................

Mahogany is a nice wood too as well as ebony fret boards.

Just about any wood will do as long as the un-loaded body is below the 5 lbs range.

(Every hunk of wood will sound differently.)

 

[Hopkins]

Ughh. seriously. How do you know he was looking for tone. could have been weight, aesthetics, what is commonly used in conjunction with other woods, etc. Ive been a woodworker for many many years, different species have different characteristics weather or not you personally can hear them.

Considering every reply in this tread, including yours, I would say that my post was totally relevant.

 

[Hopkins]

No, a bass doesn't need to be made of wood to have great tone but that doesn't mean it can be made of anything. Pickups are just magnets and don't create tone, they are measured by what they "hear". Pedals and preamps/amps process what is heard by the pickups. Again, not creating tone. They may "colour" a signal but they don't lay the foundation of what you hear. Think of the wood as the voice of a singer and the pickups as the microphone. Different materials resonate at different frequencies and different woods have completely different properties. It's just common sense.

That is simply ridiculous

 

[davy4575]

Considering every reply in this tread, including yours, I would say that my post was totally relevant.

Of course its relevant, part of a discussion but I dont think it helped the OP.

OP: Whats the best wood for a bass
Hopkins: Carrots because basses can be made out of particle board mixed with toothpaste.

 

[Fuzzbass]

On a serious note, don't look to woods to get your tone. They play a part, but not a very significant one in shaping your sound.

Agreed. This is an obvious fact. F'r instance, a P-bass sounds like a P-bass and a Stingray sounds like a Stingray regardless of what woods they are made of. They can sometimes be differentiated even in the mix. On the other hand, the only way to tell the difference between an ash/maple P-bass and an alder/rosewood P-bass is to listen carefully when the bass is being played solo. In the mix, forget about differentiating between woods.

OK, fine: if YOU are the one playing the instruments, then you can possibly claim "I can hear the difference in the mix even when no one else can". However it's always easy to hear the difference when you can see the difference (or otherwise know what that difference is). Blind testing tends to show that it's difficult at best to discern the difference between an ash or alder body, maple or rosewood neck, even when all else is equal (as equal as possible, anyway).

 

[Fuzzbass]

To answer the OP's question, I prefer alder bodies, and tend to prefer maple fingerboards. But as noted above, I only care about wood selection after I've determined make, model, electronics, etc etc. The tonal effect of wood is well behind other tone factors such as pickups, electronics, construction (neck-thru/bolt-on, solidbody/hollowbody), and even strings.

 

[GBassNorth]

Again, I haven't seen any empirical evidence that shows the type of wood makes a difference in tone. It's all anecdotal evidence and marketing by guitar companies that say different woods give different tones in electric instruments. Here's a good article backed with scientific research that debunks the myth of wood affecting tone.
Invalid Link Removed

From the article:
"it seems that most of the electric guitar research is done by manufacturers."

"the idea behind the research is that the "common" knowledge being spread by companies that market guitars go against the physics of how the electric guitar works."

"This research validates the opinion that the string setup, pickup type and pickup placement is what causes the various tonal differences that we hear between electric guitar models and brands."

You do realize the article you referenced included no scientific evidence, no technical description of how the test was done, no mention of double blind testing, admission by the author that the test hasn't been completed although a conclusion has been reached and admission by the author that he eliminates and blocks all dissenting viewpoints about his research from his YouTube comments. Furthermore, you do also realize that on that same link there is a YouTube video posted by a music company in the UK that claims to clearly demonstrate (and does so fairly convincingly) the tonal difference between mahogany and Swampash solid body electric guitars

In light of all that, you may want to think about citing a different source in the future, I'm calling the "scientific proof" in your link debunked, incomplete and junk science. So until I have something more concrete to tell me what I think my ears are hearing I'll continue to believe that wood types along with a myriad of other things can make a difference in the sound of a solid body electric bass.

 

[Ken J]

Fretted 5 = swamp ash, maple neck and board
Fretless 5 = mahogany, maple neck, diamondwood board

I got to try that Diamondwood board some day.

 

[35hundy]

That is simply ridiculous

How so? Where's the counter argument?

 

[M.R. Ogle]

Your fingers and the wood are the singer's voice and the pickups are only the microphone, I say.

y

No, a bass doesn't need to be made of wood to have great tone but that doesn't mean it can be made of anything. Pickups are just magnets and don't create tone, they are measured by what they "hear". Pedals and preamps/amps process what is heard by the pickups. Again, not creating tone. They may "colour" a signal but they don't lay the foundation of what you hear. Think of the wood as the voice of a singer and the pickups as the microphone. Different materials resonate at different frequencies and different woods have completely different properties. It's just common sense.

I agree.

 

[nostatic]

In light of all that, you may want to think about citing a different source in the future, I'm calling the "scientific proof" in your link debunked, incomplete and junk science. So until I have something more concrete to tell me what I think my ears are hearing I'll continue to believe that wood types along with a myriad of other things can make a difference in the sound of a solid body electric bass.

Most people have no idea what constitutes "scientific proof," or if that phrase even has any meaning (hint: it doesn't).

More importantly, any "scientific" studies around this have a fundamental flaw. All the double-blind listening tests are immaterial to me as the finished product (a sound) is only the last piece of a process that involves a series of transactions between human and instrument. And those transactions are not blind, and hence bias cannot be eliminated. So it really doesn't matter what the "studies" say - making music is a human endeavor with quirky human issues that cannot be removed. If one's goal is to argue theoretical constructs on the interwebs then by all means quote some likely flawed set of experiments done by at undergrad at a small college as "proof." Or, you can do your own experiments and see what works in your hands and in your situations.

Having owned and gigged two basses that were identical other than wood (same construction, same electronics, same hardware - only difference were body woods and fretboard), I can say that they played and sounded different. Some might not be able to tell the difference of the sound in a mix, but I could tell when I was playing it in the moment, and that's more important to me, because how the instrument responds to me (and vice versa) has a lot of influence on the performance, and hence the final product. And that is something you can't calculate...

 

[M.R. Ogle]

35hundy....

The argument can be made that past the 100% of frequencies provided by the strings, EVERYTHING downstream in the signal chain is subtractive.

(I know, I know, active pickups and preamps... but they can only boost/cut what signal is provided to them. )