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Body TONEWOOD - Myth or Fact?

#61
Dead spots are the usual argument that mass or wood matters. But that is an extreme case, a system fault, when the frequency of the (gripped) string equals a fundamental mode of the instrument body. In this case the body sucks off the energy of the string and the pickup does only dedect a minor signal. You simply can move the dead spot by adding mass (easily done by a clamp on the headstock) and change the fundamental frequency of the instrument body. Then, with the added mass the deadspot eventually happens on another fret of the fingerboard.
Thankfully that loss of vibrating string energy is minimal with other frequencies and is confined to surface (longitutinal) waves in the body. This is what the tuner will detect. Such surfave waves you have more or less with any material, happily that will not suck so mach energy off the string. (Maybe not with soft rubber.) That parasitary energy loss has an impact on the spectrum of the instrument, but it is small and hard to measure, as the freqencies are statistically distributet as the modes of a concrete (the instrument in this case).
You can do measurements yourself by the open source program "audacity", free download Download. That makes fun and as a scientist you might find it useful? If you compare spectra of e-instruments with different wood but loosly comparable experimental conditions you will find only minimal differences in spectra. I think that is what you found in your work? I would not make make such a fuss about this minor differences with different wood. And the tenet only hard tonewood makes a useful e-instrument is not verifiable experimentally.
 
#62
GretschWretch said:
Paulownia is an extremely light wood, as several threads on TB will attest. Basses consistently weigh in at below 7 pounds, some as little as 6 1/2.
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I have a bass that's 6.6 pounds (yes, full scale, solid body), using Swamp ash. And yes, Paulownia would make it lighter - I did have a Paulownia body at one point. Paulownia's claim to fame is it's structurally better (tougher) than Balsa - it's the lightest wood that will work in some situations. Paulownia's biggest issue is, while it's tougher than Balsa, it's not that much tougher than Balsa.
 
#63
Turnaround said:
This is precisely the point - the vibration of the body is affecting how the string vibrates. So it goes with "tonewoods". The vibration of the string is affected by the vibration of the body. Different woods vibrate differently - not wildly differently, but differently just the same. One can test that on his own by tapping different pieces of wood that are the same size and noting the difference of sound. If the wood vibrates differently it will affect any attached string differently.
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Your 2 inches hardwood of you bass hopefully does not vibrate as your Banjo membrane! The impact is a question of the quantity (the amplitude) of the vibration. As I have explained in another post, the vibration frequencies of the hardwood body are statistically distributed and I add here that the amplitudes decrease very fast with increasing frequencies. Indeed that has an impact, but that is very, very small! A resonant frequency of the body may cause a large impact, that can result in a ead spot, where the resonant body will suck off a gret amount of energy off the string.
In my experimental experience you cannot fix the differences trustworthy quantitaively. I do not know a single reliable report on this. Some people "hear" that differnces. Let me add with their "psychological ears and eyes"?
 
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#64
micguy said:
I have a bass that's 6.6 pounds (yes, full scale, solid body), using Swamp ash. And yes, Paulownia would make it lighter - I did have a Paulownia body at one point. Paulownia's claim to fame is it's structurally better (tougher) than Balsa - it's the lightest wood that will work in some situations. Paulownia's biggest issue is, while it's tougher than Balsa, it's not that much tougher than Balsa.
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Auburn University tested the strength of 18 lb p/cubic ft. Paulownia against Balsa, with an average weight of 10 lbs p/cubic foot.
Strength modus of rupture mor (psi)
Balsa - 2800
Paulownia - 5740
- Source: Dr. R.C. Tang, Auburn University
 
#68
I have nothing to add but this

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#71
bitwo said:
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".
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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.
 
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#74
I don't know how much the body wood effects the tone, but I do believe it does have some effect.

Plus, I think the majority of luthiers and instrument builders would argue that the body wood does make a difference. Seeing as they are the experts, I would be inclined to believe them.

I once transferred a neck from one body to another on the same model bass. I was surprised at how much of a difference it made.
 
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#75
Myth or Fact? As a civil engineer who spent a lot of time in testing labs, I can tell you that pretty much everything effects anything that you're testing. So, yeah, "tonewood" is more of a fact than a myth. The real question should be "how much effect does it have?" And, personally, my answer is - I don't know; mainly because I don't care. But, I suspect the answer is - on a solid body bass or guitar? Not a whole Hell of a lot... I have 23 basses and 7 guitars (plus a banjo and a mandolin); they're made out of most of the different "tonewoods" that basses and guitars are made out of. And, some of them are made out of stuff that they usually aren't made out of. Do they all sound different? Yes, they do; but not all that different. My Ricks sound like Ricks. My Gibson T-Bird sounds like a T-Bird. My Danelectro Longhorn sounds like (you guessed it) a Longhorn. They all sound like what they are. Which is why I have them. If you want to splash around in the Great Tonewood Swamp, be my guest; in fact, splash around for me some, too. I have better things to do - like playing my basses and guitars...:whistle:
 
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