Can You Tell The Difference??? ASH vs. ALDER

[stepswork4me]

silly wabbit.

Pesky ego....

FYI many luthiers with as much experience as Dan have come to the exact opposite conclusion.

FYI, many luthiers with more, less, and equal experience as Dan agree completely. Every luthier that I've ever spoken with or read their opinion says that body wood matters VERY VERY little in solid body instruments. In acoustics, it's a completely different story. As a luthier friend of mine says, "Tone is not a building material".

 

[Batmensch]

And how successful are the ones that dont?

I don't have any statistics. Do you?

 

[Spencer!]

I dunno. It at least proves that differences between ash and alder aren't like night and day in every case.

There are plenty of cases where they are like night and day. The best bass builders I know feel the same way, and I trust them over anyone else.

 

[danclaro]

can you hear a difference in these two tracks? (and this is with a drum machine playing, with no compression directly into a zoom H4)

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@JohnK - I vote 1=ash and 2=alder.

The second one sounds a bit more mellow to me and that reminds me of alder. Note that what I hear more than differences in wood is that slamming MusicMan-style pickup. Sounds great!

 

[mongo2]

I dunno. It at least proves that differences between ash and alder aren't like night and day in every case.

Very true, though I've had pieces where they were more different than the two samples the OP showed here, for example Ash not having as much mids as Alder, Ash having more/different highs than Alder, things like that.

 

[5string5fingers]

Couldn't hear any differences in johns clips like i could between the first two of dans. Nice playing though. Either way it doesn't matter much to me. I pick basses on the sound and feel of a bass as a whole. A quality built bass is going to sound great regardless of it's body material. Same goes for a cheaply built bass with fancy woods.

I think it's obvious you're going to have a huge variance between woods even with in the same species. We are talking about a natural material. This is why, I've had personal experience with this, you can go to a place like guitar center, grab an acoustic guitar off the wall and it sound terrible,and then go grab the exact same guitar model,woods,etc, in a difference finish,and it sound great.

 

[BassyBill]

There are plenty of cases where they are like night and day. The best bass builders I know feel the same way, and I trust them over anyone else.

Very true, though I've had pieces where they were more different than the two samples the OP showed here, for example Ash not having as much mids as Alder, Ash having more/different highs than Alder, things like that.

Have you guys ever come across cases where there are really noticeable differences in tone between bodies made of the same wood species? Genuine question asked out of curiosity.

 

[Spencer!]

Have you guys ever come across cases where there are really noticeable differences in tone between bodies made of the same wood species? Genuine question asked out of curiosity.

Yes, in fact the biggest differences I ever heard were from two late 60's Fender jazz basses, both alder/rosewood. One of them sounded just like Marcus Miller's bass, and the other sounded like what most people think an alder jazz should sound like. A few months ago I played about a dozen vintage Fender jazz basses back to back (all alder/rosewood) and each one sounded distinctly different.

 

[mongo2]

@JohnK - I vote 1=ash and 2=alder.

The second one sounds a bit more mellow to me and that reminds me of alder.

That was my impression as well. #1 definitely sounds more "alive" to me, but I don't usually play "Guess That Wood" since I've heard so much crossover.

Of interest to me is that they have different necks which IME can contribute more to the tone than the body.

 

[cassius987]

I can't tell a difference in John's clips at all. In Dan's I can hear the difference in clip 1 but not clip 2, unfortunately I have hindsight bias that I can't eliminate.

It is VERY hard to be scientific and precise without going to lengths even more elaborate than Dan did... It gets expensive fast, too, and even then people will question your work every way imaginable. This happens in the actual science profession constantly (and yet hacks are constantly getting published, too).

Dan, thanks for posting this! You sure got people's knickers in a twist which means you must have done something right.

 

[mongo2]

Have you guys ever come across cases where there are really noticeable differences in tone between bodies made of the same wood species? Genuine question asked out of curiosity.

Yes. Heck I made two bodies cut from the same plank not 6 inches away from each other that sound different.

It also works for necks. Combine the applicable ranges of two variables and it can be a real crapshoot.

 

[BassyBill]

Yes, in fact the biggest differences I ever heard were from two late 60's Fender jazz basses, both alder/rosewood. One of them sounded just like Marcus Miller's bass, and the other sounded like what most people think an alder jazz should sound like. A few months ago I played about a dozen vintage Fender jazz basses back to back (all alder/rosewood) and each one sounded distinctly different.

That confirms to some extent my own thoughts on this. I think the different pieces of wood can resonate differently and affect tone to some extent, but not necessarily in a predictable way from species to species, and differences between same species examples may be just as likely to be noticeable.

I haven't done anything scientific to back this up, but I do know that I can walk into my local store and there will be some very noticeable differences between all the Jazz basses they have in stock. Some of these are very probably due to wood (as several other factors seem less likely to vary than a natural material), but not in any predictable way.

Last time I bought a stock Jazz (2004 maybe?), I tried about 5 MIMs and a couple of MIAs. The one that stood out as being qualitatively different more than any of the others was one of the MIMs. It was more different to the other MIMs than they all were to the MIAs, despite any other similarities or differences in components. I bought it.

 

[johnk_10]

@JohnK - I liked what you said about compression... which of your clips is which bass?

bass1 is swamp ash
bass2 is alder

IME, the ash has more mids and mid bass 'pop', and the alder has a more 'scooped' midrange, which has been the case with 99% of the basses that i've built.

 

[DanHibiki]

So the difference was mainly the way you played...

I think the experiment wasn't the best, because it suggested something and didn't deliver it (especially for those who didn't read the poll options). As some said, it works much better as a psychological test, but I don't think you wanted to prove how you can influence people's mind and/or how placebo effect really works.

And since many could actually hear a difference on the first set of samples, I don't think it allows to draw many conclusions about the subject.

But creating a real experiment would require much more effort with a larger number of samples and double blind testing.

A better way to achieve what you intended was to try to notice if there were some tonal difference between each bass and try to make each one sound more like the other one just changing your playing style and giving crossed options too (1-a/2-b and 1-b/2-a). That would be a nice experiment and would be really meaningful, but a hard one to do too, I think...

With that being said, I don't care about the wood tone difference, it is not huge and both sound good to me =]
Just play the damn bass... If it sounds good and you like how it plays, it is a good one and you should buy it

 

[chadds]

The point of this thread is to test people's ability to discern the difference in tone between Ash and Alder.

The point is not to "bring out the unique qualities" of 2 instruments.

Yet when we choose an instrument to express music aren't we attracted to or repelled by those distinctions? Don't some instruments just speak more easily with our technique or challenge us to expand our approach.
Okay it's a scientific exercise.

I play music.

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

I can't tell a difference in John's clips at all. In Dan's I can hear the difference in clip 1 but not clip 2, unfortunately I have hindsight bias that I can't eliminate.

It is VERY hard to be scientific and precise without going to lengths even more elaborate than Dan did... It gets expensive fast, too, and even then people will question your work every way imaginable. This happens in the actual science profession constantly (and yet hacks are constantly getting published, too).

Dan, thanks for posting this! You sure got people's knickers in a twist which means you must have done something right.

You're welcome. I figured this would ruffle some feathers, but underestimated to what degree.

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

That was my impression as well. #1 definitely sounds more "alive" to me, but I don't usually play "Guess That Wood" since I've heard so much crossover.

Of interest to me is that they have different necks which IME can contribute more to the tone than the body.

The same exact neck was used. I made that clear.

 

[BassyBill]

bass1 is swamp ash
bass2 is alder

IME, the ash has more mids and mid bass 'pop', and the alder has a more 'scooped' midrange, which has been the case with 99% of the basses that i've built.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought swamp ash and ash are two different species? And just as likely to be different as say, maple and walnut?

Just asking for clarification.

 

[johnk_10]

Pesky ego....

IMO, it's more like pesky experience.

FYI, many luthiers with more, less, and equal experience as Dan agree completely. Every luthier that I've ever spoken with or read their opinion says that body wood matters VERY VERY little in solid body instruments. In acoustics, it's a completely different story. As a luthier friend of mine says, "Tone is not a building material".

well, i have not found that to be the case at all, and i've been building soild body guitars and basses since 1973. and Leo Fender thought that different body woods made a substantial and noticeable difference too. i talked with him at great length about it when i worked with him in '79-'80, and
i really hate to break it to you, but our discussion about it had NOTHING to do with ego, so sling all the BS that you want.

 

[mongo2]

The same exact neck was used. I made that clear.

Untwist you knickers, I was talking about johnk_10s basses, as should be obvious from the post I quoted.

You also said 2A and 2B were different and that turned out to be a lie.