Body TONEWOOD - Myth or Fact?

[Lagado]

Don't think in terms of wood, think in terms of mass. Then try and come up with a reason why resonance could not be affected by mass. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[Nightman]

I have two Jazz basses made by the same builder using the same pups and hardware, but different body and fretboard woods and they do not sound the same.

 

[mongo2]

I have two Jazz basses made by the same builder using the same pups and hardware, but different body and fretboard woods and they do not sound the same.

Try two new basses in a shop of the same make and model made with the same woods, pickups, hardware and even the same color. My experience is they won't sound identical.

 

[Davethebassguy]

Not my opinion, obviously. Just had to make and share it. I equate it to the flat earth theory.

 

[jazzyvee]

All I know is this..At one point in time i was lucky enough to own an Alembic SI and a SII at the same time. The SI had a quilted maple top, the SII had a coco-bolo top.

Electronics are basically the same (not exactly the same but close enough for this). With the EQ set flat on the bass, the quilted maple bass was always quite a bit brighter to my ears than the coco-bolo bass. Could be wishful thinking on my part, but Im convinced it was a real thing.

I don't know if the tone wood argument is fact or fiction but here is my thought. I "would like to believe" that the wood has a big impact on the tone of an electric bass.

However I am not really prepared to spend a heck of a lot of money just for an exotic wood in the hope that I get some subtle special sound that I would have to convince myself I was hearing. I would rather spend it on something that I can absolutely hear such as better tone controls, pickups, pickup location or better quality hardware etc.
I use an alembic bass and I trust that any of their basses I pick up will sound great, and given the ones in my budget are used, I can wait till I find the one I like the look of, knowing it will sound great. So far that strategy has worked a treat. I know all my basses have a sound that works for me. So if the exotic woods are doing something for my sound well it's by product that I didn't buy the bass specifically for and if they are making zero or negligible contribution then they still sound good to me so for me it's a win win whether tone-wood is fact or fiction.

 

[jazzyvee]

I actually asked a luthier who makes some fantastic basses recently about tonewoods and his view was that if a customer wants his instruments made out of a particular selection of woods for the tonal benefits they think they will get, he will make them that bass. But he would not try to sell someone a piece of wood for a bass by telling them it has certain tonal properties. Also he said that if you make a bass with an extremely stiff neck and body, more of what the string is doing will be passed to the pickups. If you make the bass out of a soft piece of wood, then more of the string vibrations will pass into the body and less will be retained into the strings and hence picked up by the pickups.

 

[bitwo]

I did not plan to get back to this thread, but just got a message "Unread Watched Threads" that made me curious. Just jumped in again and I found repeated the usual misunderstanding and mix up of terms.

1. Sustain is one of that notions without any meaning for a plucked instruments. There is simply an attack and a decay. A gentle decay is eventually called "sustain". https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ADSR.svg
Decay is a measurable Quantity, so one might compare. I did measurements and found not such a tremendous difference between heavy (tonewood?) and light bodies. So my choice is for my neck health and I play a 5 string with 2.6 kg/5.73pounds (lbs).
You find a sustain in electronic music and natural wind instruments (ie organ). If you play a quarter note that lasts about 1/2 second - do you really need a long "sustain for this?

2. "Sound" is another notion without any precise meaning, say something vague personal taste/psycholocical condition/esotheric/voodo. I never ever claimed that all basses sound equal! There is a difference in spectrum and spectrum is measureable but nobody ever has a measure for a good or a bad spectrum. It's just a question of personal taste and eventually the preferred stile of music. What does "sounds good" mean?
3. "Sound" is connected with spectrum, I did a lot measurements of spectra and found differences. But I could not find any property to establish a criterion for a "good" spectrum so that anybody would agree. As already mentioned it's mostly personal taste.

Again, I fly in the face of that tonewood fetishism and there are good (measurable) reasons! I am not a tonewood fanatic and do not discuss that topic with full commitment and do not watch this thread permanently in the future.

 

[bitwo]

Also he said that if you make a bass with an extremely stiff neck and body, more of what the string is doing will be passed to the pickups.

Have you ever tried a soft shim between neck and body? I have tried with a foam rubber about 7 mm. Check it out! Physics is a beast sometimes.

 

[jazzyvee]

Have you ever tried a soft shim between neck and body? I have tried with a foam rubber about 7 mm. Check it out! Physics is a beast sometimes.

I have neck through basses so i couldn’t try it. What did you find out?

 

[jd56hawk]

The tonewood fixation for e-basses does not make sense. It's a historic tradition from acoustic instruments, where tonewood really matters. Compare an EUB with a traditional upright bass.

For e-instruments the material of the body does not matter at all. It is said tone depends on the choice of tonewood for the body, neck, and fingerboard. The question arises: Body TONEWOOD - Myth or Fact? If this is your fervour, read on. I found an interesting video on youtube Tone Wood Tester: One guitar to test them all .The experiments are done with guitars, I assume that basses do not have separate truth?

I am not a tonewood fanatic and do not discuss that topic with full commitment. I prefer light bodies (of Paulownia 310 kg/m³) to protect my back.

Wikipedia: "In music, sustain is a parameter of musical sound over time. It denotes the period of time during which the sound remains before it becomes inaudible, or silent." This makes clear that this has to be distinguished from "tone".

My L2000 is only 7.3 lbs...swamp ash.
Should it sound better than a 9 lb L2000?
I think it does, but is it because of the weight or the strings or something else entirely, something spiritual?

 

[Fat Nermil]

My L2000 is only 7.3 lbs...swamp ash.
Should it sound better than a 9 lb L2000?
I think it does, but is it because of the weight or the strings or something else entirely, something spiritual?

How about the pickups? Or the bridge.

 

[jd56hawk]

Fantastic pickups, great bridge.

 

[Fat Nermil]

Fantastic pickups, great bridge.

Right. As others have stated, tone is a product of multiple variables, not just one. Wood in and of itself does not define the tone of a bass, it merely adds to it. Tone forms from wood plus pickups plus strings plus playing style plus etc ... That’s why the same bass can sound completely different when played by two different people. We all know this. I just don’t get why it’s still debated.

 

[Brad Maestas]

Methinks English is not their first language.

 

[MAJOR METAL]

Of course, but I would say it's most important audience is the musician playing the instrument, not necessarily the audience. For many of us, our technique (fretting hand and picking hand) changes with the unique voice of each instrument which is provided by different wood combinations.