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body wood does matter

#261
mcarp555 said:
I have to respectfully disagree. The amount of "stiffness" between types of wood is so small as to be irrelevant. If the components are strong enough to counteract the pull of the strings, then the mass is stiff enough to not be affected very much by the vibration of the strings. People go on and on about the wood of the body, neck, fingerboard, etc. but ignore the potential differences in electromagnetic components, which would have a much greater effect:

- Pickup windings (how many does it take to change the sound? Can you show two pickups are wound exactly the same?)
- Pickup height
- Quality of the solder joints
- Pot quality/cleanliness
- Shielding
- Strings in general (that's a hole with no bottom!)

Does a body made out of concrete, aluminum or legos really sound that much different than ash or alder, etc.? Could you tell the difference in a blindfold test? After all, the "stiffness" of these materials would vary greatly from any kind of wood. If you play a bass unplugged, are any differences clear-cut? I would think if the wood really mattered, then playing unamped would reveal a great deal of variation, since you've removed the electromagnetic forces completely.

As I've stated before, the idea that the wood imparts some contribution to the sound is partially based on the fact that it does affect the vibration of the air within an acoustic instrument; that can't be denied. But an electric instrument only superficially resembles an acoustic one. All that matters is the string vibration in a magnetic field; the wood has little or no effect on that (certainly less than the things I've listed); it seems counter-intuitive to many people, just like the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun does not appear to match what we see. But what we experience does not always conform to reality. It's the aural version of an optical illusion. Thinking the wood affects the sound affects how the sound is perceived.

I realize many people disagree with this. Vehemently. But with people having their own opinion on which wood sounds "brighter" or "darker", it points to being very subjective, not objective.
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I totally agree with your disagreement.
I've come out of partial hibernation here to help your cause by saying: Wood is just a convenient place to hang the p'ups, bridge, switches, wiring and the neck. It cannot contribute to adding anything to the 'tone' of a n electric slab-guitar.

If it's pretty - put a clear-ish coating on it, otherwise paint it.

A slab-bass guitar's wooden body is the Black Hole for vibrations - a giant 'sink' for any vibrations that get to it via the upper nut and the bridge.

Vibrations go IN - and they don't come back OUT.

There is no way to reanimate the strings to make them travel again unless you smash the bass with a hammer or slam it on the floor.

String vibrations decay until they cease and disappear - period.

Here's what I've noticed --- many of my basses are made from scrap leftover cutoffs from construction sites and they sound every bit as a bass guitar should. I do that on purpose to screw with the heads of 'certified and sheepskin possessing luthiers' and those who also believe in unicorns and Tinker Bell.

tinkerbell.jpg


Oh yeah --- I've had some that were 'dead' but it was my fault in choice of p'ups, strings or whatever skill I had at 2AM soldering. Once those problems were sorted out, they came to life and sound as good as brands that cost over $2500.00

Here's what I HAVE noticed though---- in acoustic instruments - and this may be where people are fooling themselves into thinking that wood matters............

My son found a Johnson acoustic guitar in a dumpster, under an accordion (you know the old joke) and it was pretty much totaled. The whole box was crushed, the neck was broken off and the headstock had snapped.

I suspect it was the headstock damage that got it condemned to the dumpster in the first place - but a Johnson isn't worth a repair of much over $50.00 anyway. I'd say $15.95 really. After all, it is a Johnson.

I digress ---- but I decided to rebuild it as a challenge.

I got through it all pretty well, but I decided to remove all the gobs of plastic coating on the poor thing. With it, it sounded like playing a hammer without an amplifier.

After I scraped it bare naked and thinned the plywood (a pretty poor quality plywood at that) and then re-coated it with a nice furniture clear semigloss lacquer (HVLP applied) - the thing became a tone monster! It resonates and it is loud whereas before, you could hardly hear it and it had that cheap Chinese thunk of the plucked notes.

OK - that was an acoustic. This is an electric bass guitar site (and not very many acoustic ones) at that. So where's the corollary in my story to Talk Bass Slab Basses (HERE) and my acoustic experience (THERE)?

There isn't one........... Simple.

From HERE to THERE is a long stretch of the imagination and although it makes someone feel all warm-n-fuzzy to say that a bass sounds good unamplified - that too is a lie that they tell to themselves so frequently that they believe it.

Slab basses are totally different from acoustic boxes, no matter what they are - (violin, guitar, zither, autoharp or whatever).

That's why we amplify them* - because there are too many variables that are not acoustic, with which we have to contend.

(* them = slab basses and guitars)
 
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#263
mongo2 said:
That statement shows the wood does matter.
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No - I can see you're gonna take me to task here.

I say that it's The Black Hole to counter the statements that it somehow re-animates the strings to increase sustain or improve tone quality. There's no way that this can be a good thing. All wood can do - if it does anything at all - is to detract from any possible improvement of sound.

It cannot amplify - in fact, any 'sound' or vibrations you feel from an unamplified bass - is wasted and won't get to the amplifier anyway.

Concrete, aluminum, cast iron, glass and porcelain basses sound like basses. My scrap wood basses sound like basses as do my custom wood --- ie: Black Walnut, Cedar, Cyprus, Pine, Lodge Pole, Cherry and Mountain Ash basses all sound like basses.

If you wait a month or so, maybe I'll build one out of ice for you.
 
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#264
SurferJoe46 said:
No - I can see you're gonna take me to task here.

I say that it's The Black Hole to counter the statements that it somehow re-animates the strings to increase sustain or improve tone quality. There's no way that this can be a good thing. All wood can do - if it does anything at all - is to detract from any possible improvement of sound.

It cannot amplify - in fact, any 'sound' or vibrations you feel from an unamplified bass - is wasted and won't get to the amplifier anyway.
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One word: Resonance.

The energy from the string vibrations is subject to constructive and destructive interference at different frequencies within the structural materials according to the characteristics of those materials.

The real wild card/crapshoot is the ability of a listener to discern those differences. It's a fact that different people have different hearing capabilities. Some can hear a difference and some can't. So for those who can't hear the differences it is true that the wood doesn't matter but to those who can hear the differences it can matter very much.
 
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#265
mongo2 said:
The real wild card/crapshoot is the ability of a listener to discern those differences. It's a fact that different people have different hearing capabilities. Some can hear a difference and some can't. So for those who can't hear the differences it is true that the wood doesn't matter but to those who can hear the differences it can matter very much.
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This is the same argument you meet from people who sell (and belive in) thousand $ cables and other mumbo jumbo. Still, no one has been able to prove any difference.
 
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#266
Fredrik E. Nilsen said:
This is the same argument you meet from people who sell (and belive in) thousand $ cables and other mumbo jumbo.
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It's a fact that people have different hearing capabilities. For example, I don't notice any difference in "high end" instrument cable and my Spectoflex cables but I do notice a difference between them and a cheap cable especially in long runs. However, I don't dismiss those who say they do notice a difference with high end cable. They can, I can't. No biggie but I get to save some money on cables.
 
#267
mongo2 said:
It's a fact that people have different hearing capabilities. For example, I don't notice any difference in "high end" instrument cable and my Spectoflex cables but I do notice a difference between them and a cheap cable especially in long runs. However, I don't dismiss those who say they do notice a difference with high end cable. They can, I can't. No biggie but I get to save some money on cables.
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Yes, it's a fact that people have different hearing capabilities. It's not a fact that it's documented that it is a real difference in sound.
 
#277
Fredrik E. Nilsen said:
This is the same argument you meet from people who sell (and belive in) thousand $ cables and other mumbo jumbo. Still, no one has been able to prove any difference.
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Physics of resonance dictate that there will be differences. The energy required to drive resonance in the body, neck etc has to come from somewhere, and the only source is the vibrating string. An instrument with a body/neck that has low resonance will sustain longer with fuller tone. If the resonant frequency of, say, a thin flappy headstock coincides with that of the note being played you get a dead spot - this can be confirmed by clamping the headstock against, for example, a wall, whereupon the note will ring true.
Taking that logically to a conclusion, every and all parts of the system - shape, material, temperature, internal structure, etc. - all affect the resonance, and thereby, sustain and tone. The question is, can the effect of each component be isolated and characterised both individually and in combination. Bridge builders, architects of tall or earthquake-resilient buildings, along with aircraft and performance car designers, do it all the time, so the answer is yes. That said, I'm not aware of any experimental or modelling data wrt electtic basses. So the question then becomes, beyond the extreme case of the deadspot, does it matter in practice? The answer to that, I'm afraid, comes down to individual preference, personal experience and anecdotal evidence.

Fredrik E. Nilsen said:
Yes. And still no evidence of a real world difference in sound. Strange thing.
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This one is easy, and there is no testing required as the physics have been modelled and proven. Coaxial cables have measurable capacitance per metre. When connected, the circuit is identical, electrically, to a standard tone control rolled all the way off. Normal RC filter equations apply. A sufficiently long cable will act as a filter.
 
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