Can you really tell your tonewoods?

[Arthur U. Poon]

If you cant do a blind test and tell the difference between a Stingray with a maple fretboard vs a rosewood, then something is horribly wrong.

+1. Ebony fingerboards as well. IMO Maple is generally a bright sounding body wood, Alder has a pronounced midrange, whereas Ash sounds to me as if the midrange has been slightly "scooped". The differences may be subtle, but they're noticeable to my ears.

 

[Arthur U. Poon]

+1. Ebony fingerboards as well. IMO Maple is generally a bright sounding body wood, Alder has a pronounced midrange, whereas Ash sounds to me as if the midrange has been slightly "scooped". The differences may be subtle, but they're noticeable to my ears.

To further clarify my post: I notice these slight differences in tone more when I'm playing my basses without an amp. I also agree the same species of wood can have a different tonality due to the wood's density. Case in point: I own 2 Jazz basses both with Alder bodies. Both basses have maple necks & rosewood fingerboards. The hardware and pickups are identical. One body is quite a bit heavier than the other. IMO the heavier body has a more defined fundamental with less overtones, whereas the bass with the lighter body is very resonant, has less of the fundamental, and has more overtones.

Good point in regards to the types and amounts of glue(s) used, I've never thought of that! And also the maple neck with a separate maple fingerboard. I'd like to hear the sound of that. Did'nt Fender do this way back with the Telecaster?

Great posts everyone!!

 

[Mudfuzz]

NO the separate maple FB came later [i.e. late CBS, I think]; at fist broadcasters [tele] had a one piece neck with out a truss rod, when fender added a trussrod around a year or so, they put it in through the back [hence the skunk stripe] so the didn't have to retool.

I think that a one piece neck has a different sound then a FB of the same wood, just as if you change the FB and or neck wood or body, hell swapping parts of the same wood will change the sound.

On one bass that I have built I have had three different necks on it, the bass is loosely based on a tele bass II, alder body Dimazio model one pickup and a badass bridge, the original neck was a 7 piece [gorilla glue] 4 cherry [3/4"] and 3 padauk [1/8"] with a rosewood FB [epoxy and the frets were glued in with supper glue], when the bass was stung it had a very open and acoustic sound, very un Fender-ish. I later swapped that neck with a warmoth P neck [birds eye maple with rosewood FB] off of a thunderbird shaped [H mahogany, duncan P pickup and a shaller bridge] bass [which sounded pretty close to a hard ash p-bass, very tight and dense sounding overtones] that I had also built, because the T-bird was overly neck heavy and my cherry/padauk neck is much lighter then the Warmoth one. Well what happened? Fist the T-bird now balances like a dream, and the lighter neck added some air and warmth. On the fist bass [which is called the “butter bass” because the finish is of that color] got the Warmoth P neck, which in turn made it sound somewhere between a P-bass and a tele bass II; later on I swapped the Warmoth P neck for a Warmoth J neck [maple with light flame and a rosewood FB] because I Like the feel of J necks a little better, and the sound changed with that swap as well, this neck gave the “butter bass” more highs and air to the sound.

All this made very drastic changes to the sound of the basses, yet all three necks had the same type of FB wood, think if that had changed as well; all the different arrangements have sounded great. Most likely the difference between my neck and the Warmoths has to do with the fact the it is light and stiff vs hard and heavy, but the two Warmoths, I have no idea.

 

[CoolHat]

Interesting subject and I´m happy to see that the discussion has remained civilized. Kudos to Erik for having the courage to play devil´s advocate here. I´m gonna do a little ranting here, so beware...

Me, I´m a firm believer of empirical scientific research. In the case of fingerboards I really haven´t had a chance to form an educated opinion. There are so many variables that make an instrument sound like it does, that just taking two basses and saying that the difference in sound can be traced to one detail is highly suspectible.

Someone says:"I tried a JB with maple fingerboard today at shop X and it was much snappier than the one with rosewood board that I played in shop Y yesterday." To me that kind of comparison is pretty much meaningless. There are countless variables that aren´t even inherent to the bass itself. In the first place, two shops means two totally different acoustic spaces. The basses were played through different amps; even if the brand and model was constant, there´s no way the volume and tone settings were perfectly identical (and we all know that even a small increase in volume changes our perception of sound drastically). And what about the strings... And as always, the biggest variable of them all sits right there, behind the bass. We hear what we see. We are not sequenced synthesizers, so we never play two exactly identical notes. And even our hearing varies.

But of course that doesn´t mean there isn´t a difference or that an experienced player or luthier couldn´t hear it in right circumstances. But personally I can safely say I do not have that skill and I suspect some people who claim to have it are...well, not lying but perhaps (unintentionally) overestimating their expertise a bit. People like to see themselves as 100% objective and rational individuals, who base all their descisions purely on intellect and whose empirical perceptions are always exact and devoid of any bias. It´s human nature.

In the end I´m also a pragmatist and discussion about fingerboard materials etc. is academic to me (but not uninteresting). If a bass sounds good it really doesn´t matter what it´s made of. I let the luthiers decide how they are going to reach their sonic goals. My job is to choose the bass I like.

 

[ModulusFan]

I think you guys are all nuts personally. You could build 10 of the exact same bass, with all of the same materials, all cut on the same CNC, and have all 10 of them be slightly different than the others. I think this is most of what people think they hear, and base their comparisons on. Switching strings makes more of a difference than any wood combination can. Phenolics are the only construction piece that makes a drastic difference, IMO.

 

[Ari]

I am soon going to post a new blind test once all my soundclips are ready. It should be interesting!

 

[Mudfuzz]

I think you guys are all nuts personally. You could build 10 of the exact same bass, with all of the same materials, all cut on the same CNC, and have all 10 of them be slightly different than the others. I think this is most of what people think they hear, and base their comparisons on. Switching strings makes more of a difference than any wood combination can. Phenolics are the only construction piece that makes a drastic difference, IMO.

At all times I used the same stings: cromes

 

[erik_hammarlund]

You know, i can see the fingerboard 'whack' argument in theory. I mean, clearly if you made the fingerboard out of foam rubber it'd sound different, and likewise if you made it out of stainless steel (now that would be an interesting sound...). but rosewood and maple sound pretty similar. I think you'd find a larger within-species variation than you would between the averages of the two species.

Interestingly, the data I could easily find online which seems relevant (take a small piece of the wood, whack it with a mallet, record the pitch via strobe tuner) suggests that maple and rosewood are damn similar. (interesting article, link at bottom of post) So maybe this comes down to a Tara-Labs type question: is the difference there? (maybe here, though in Tara's case probably not) Is it detectable by human ears? (maybe) or are the "I think this sounds totally different" comments influenced by unconscious psychological predispositions?

Maybe someone who has a good bass selection will make some samples. you should use a *tiny* bit of eq to try to make them sound similar (why? because 1) this may be necassary to compensate for other slight differences between the basses, be they string age, body wood grain, imperfect plucking; and 2) if you can eq out the difference with 1/4 turn of a single knob, it probably isn't enough of a 'huge' difference)

Or, to make the test REALLY fair, do it with identical basses--blindfolded--and have a friend hand you the basses randomly as you play and sample. Start with all the EQs way off as they're handed to you, and 'zero' them by ear. (this may also support the 'poor acoustic short term memory' concept, if your separate 'zeros' sound totally different).

and an interesting aside: in that whole garage full of $3000+ guitars, you know what one of the best sounding ones is? It's a beat-up, large body, 1980 (or so) Ovation with a cracked-and-repaired spruce top. Which goes to show, perhaps, that you don't always hear what you think: I'd bet that most people (including me) would pick the nice brazilian Taylor as 'sounding better' if we saw someone playing it. We would dutifully comment on the warm yet resonant tone of the sidewood, and the way the Brazilian 'sound' came through (we wouldn't talk about the fingerboard because we wouldn't think of it). but blindfold them first, and I bet thy'd pick the Ovation 8 times out of 10.

Invalid Link Removed

P.S. Anyone know what happened with the Tara Labs/Bob Lee thing?

 

[GooseYArd]

Interestingly, the data I could easily find online which seems relevant (take a small piece of the wood, whack it with a mallet, record the pitch via strobe tuner) suggests that maple and rosewood are damn similar.

Yeah the problem here is, I think, just because there are some kinds of woods or other materials that will have a measurable effect on the sound of the instrument, it doesn't mean that every single kind of material has got its own "sound". So if I say something like "the fingerboard material changes the sound", and somebody listens to maple and rosewood, they're probably not going to hear much difference, but inevitably some guy will come along who claims he can, either because he's just listening really hard, or because he's full of it and wants everyone to think he has great ears (like an audiophile type, most of them are full of it).

Frankly, I think the reason that rosewood and maple were the two woods that Fender used is because they're similar in a lot of ways- for a company manufacturing a lot of instruments, they need there to be consistency, you don't want one two have two choices of fingerboard and one of them is so hard that you need different tools to machine it, or so heavy that it changes the balance of the instrument, or that it has some big effect on the sound (like if the options were either maple or foam rubber ). So it stands to reason that they eventually gravitated to two materials that were pretty similar, except for color.

The exceptions, in my experience, are the kind of extreme materials, like northern ash, very dense ebony fingerboards, particularly on a bass like an alembic that might also have ebony neck laminates- it's like tapping a piece of steel almost.

 

[xush]

Epiphany! I've just reversed my entire philosophy on tonewoods! Yep, a full 360%!

I changed this:
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to this:

the wood knobs sound so much better! Now I see why DonZ likes them so much!
Guess I'll have to try some chrome knobs on my JP for a while to see how much the ebony really improves it.

thanks for the revelation, AGB!

 

[dveeus1]

I was made a believer in tone woods back in the late '80's. I had the fortune to sit for hours at a shop in a Chicago suburb and play some where between 10 and 12 different California Tobias basses. I played Basics, Classics, and the Signature series. All of the fingerboards were the same (Pau Ferro). But, in the basic series there were different body woods. And, in the classic and signature series there were different body wings, top laminates, and neck laminates.

Playing through a SWR SM 400 head and a SWR goliath (I remember the rig because I bought it) there was a MARKED difference in sound within and between series of basses. And, later bought a basic 5 with a bubinga body

The right wood in the hands of the right craftsperson ......

 

[neptoon]

there are 4 warwick corvette fretlesses hanging on the wall at the local guitar center with the same specs...2 of them sound like butt, one is ok and the other is the voice of god....i dunno, man...i still don't like corvettes...

 

[Sofa King]

I don't know about that man, i've seen a pretty hard to ignore case of tonewoods making a big difference. I went to a little jazz jam session in my local church's basement and i met a bassist who was toting a SKB3005 with a mahagony(sp?) body and the same bart 3 band 18v pre-amp. Naturally i wanted to A/B my SKB3006 against his for the whole tonewood issue which i wasn't convinced of beforehand. He started playing with the onboard flat and with his TD650 set to what he told me was flat, i have no clue if it really was or not, but anyway his roscoe boomed like nobody's business. So he unplugged his roscoe and i plugged mine in (also flat onboard) and had HIM play it to make sure the bass was the only variable, and to my surprise, no boom and a more acoustic styled sound. No controls were touched, the same lines were played by the same guy in the same manner, what else could it have been? My extra special boom reducing high C string? j/k

Now i know basses that are built nearly identical sound a little different but this was a HUGE difference

Just curious, were you using the same brand of strings, same age, same usage and abusage, etc?

 

[neptoon]

The right wood in the hands of the right craftsperson ......

and then you have that

 

[Fretless5verfan]

Just curious, were you using the same brand of strings, same age, same usage and abusage, etc?

we were both using DR Lo-Riders of the same gauge, but now that i think about it, his could have been slightly newer than mine, about a month's difference IIRC. But they both were well inside the worn in but not worn out phase AFAIK.

I am...Sofa King...Re Todd ed...sound familiar?

 

[Ari]

The "blind test" thread is ready and waits for your input:

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125491

 

[Brendan]

Is there a difference? Mayhaps. But it's utterly useless.

Wood, pickups, preamp, strings, cables, preamp, speaker cable, cabinet ($175 power cable too, while I'm at it). A whole band doing the same thing, and you want to tell me Rosewood vs Maple is for anything but looks?

Good one, mate; and hey, if you can tell the difference, great on you: but as soon as the music starts, it's all aesthetics.

That, and knowing how highly open to suggestion and how short our aural memory is, who's to say we don't make the difference between rosewood and maple fretboards? Physics be damned, our ears don't play well with science.

 

[Fretless5verfan]

Is there a difference? Mayhaps. But it's utterly useless.

Wood, pickups, preamp, strings, cables, preamp, speaker cable, cabinet ($175 power cable too, while I'm at it). A whole band doing the same thing, and you want to tell me Rosewood vs Maple is for anything but looks?

Good one, mate; and hey, if you can tell the difference, great on you: but as soon as the music starts, it's all aesthetics.

That, and knowing how highly open to suggestion and how short our aural memory is, who's to say we don't make the difference between rosewood and maple fretboards? Physics be damned, our ears don't play well with science.

I don't think its UTTERLY useless though. It's all about the state of mind you have with your bass. Even if you THINK you hear a difference that you like, that actually isn't there, it produces a satsifaction with your sound that enables you to create freely and truly enjoy yourself while playing. I think that is more important than anything.

P.S. Mayhaps?

 

[The Urbs]

I have noticed though, that when slapping or plucking the strings on the bass, there are differences in sound.

 

[CoolHat]

I don't think its UTTERLY useless though. It's all about the state of mind you have with your bass. Even if you THINK you hear a difference that you like, that actually isn't there, it produces a satsifaction with your sound that enables you to create freely and truly enjoy yourself while playing. I think that is more important than anything.

Very good point. After all, music is about feelings. If something in your bass irritates you, it is going to affect your playing, even if it´s only a product of your imagination or something musically irrelevant (like appearance).