Chambered Body, What's The Upside?

[fhm555]

hey folks, in keeping with my desire to learn, i've been doing a little reading and looking at chambered bodies.

I started with an assumption the ultimate goal was a lighter bass but i also thought it would be vital to overall instrument balance in regards to the dreaded neck dive thing as to how much was removed from where. Lastly i wondered just how chambered a body could be and still handle the stress of string tension over time.

Oddly enough, a visit to Warmoth and a perusal of available raw bass bodies revealed little if any significant weight savings in chambered versus conventional bodies but the cost difference was pretty significant, especially when considering the (relative to cost) tiny loss of weight. Is weight so important to so many that it's worth a significant increase in price for a few saved ounces?

As for the location of removal and amount of wood removed, in my albeit limited reading up, i can find no trend, rule of thumb, or any other consistent factor that might govern this aspect of chambering.

So is chambering truly a worthy improvement that would benefit solid body bassdom as a whole, or is it akin to Tide changing the size of their individual soap granules simply to justify their claim of a "new and improved" version of an already proved good and worthy concept.

While i have no designs on a chamberd bass, like Emil Faber, i too believe knowlege is good.

Thanks in advance for any and all info.

 

[ClassicJazz]

Chambering for the most when used with bass building is to reduce weight. Does it affect the sound? I don't know if there is a clear answer on that. But I had two Sadowsky basses, one chambered and the other solid. I really could not tell the difference. I know Sadowsky started to chamber his basses mainly due to he was having a harder time finding good light weight body woods and the weights were going up on the instruments.

 

[ClassicJazz]

Here is what a Sadowsky chambered body looks like...

 

[DD Gunz]

Wow, that's not at all what I expected a chambered body to look like inside. I have never given it much thought before I saw that picture.

 

[nostatic]

This is what my Yin Yang Deluxe chambering looks like. I find that the tone is a bit more open (this is walnut that tends towards very compressed). Rob Allens are chambered as well, but with larger areas (more what you're probably thinking).

finished bass

 

[DD Gunz]

^ Thats more of what I had in my head. Larger pieces, taken out. The first picture looks like a lot of work for little reward. However, I know nothing about building instruments at all and I am sure it has tactical advantages.

 

[lz4005]

^ Thats more of what I had in my head. Larger pieces, taken out. The first picture looks like a lot of work for little reward. However, I know nothing about building instruments at all and I am sure it has tactical advantages.

Removing wood for weight relief and chambering for tone are two different things with two different goals.
The Sadowsky picture is weight relief. The Fodera is chambering.

 

[nostatic]

This is the chambering on a Rob Allen Deep 5 - very different beast though compared to a typical electric

 

[DD Gunz]

Removing wood for weight relief and chambering for tone are two different things with two different goals.
The Sadowsky picture is weight relief. The Fodera is chambering.

I don't doubt it at all. I am not familiar with it but find it interesting. I didn't even know Fodera bodies were chambered. I wonder how Warmoth's chambered versions compare.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

You mentioned that you were looked no at Warmoth. Check out their roasted swamp ash bodies. Those are typically a pound or so lighter.

 

[ctmullins]

I'm a fan. Mostly for weight relief. But I also believe it can add some complexity/texture/character to the tone, even though there's no way to prove it.

 

[MrLenny1]

Reduce weight. About 1 lb less than my solid body 5's.
My chambered Stambaugh 5 has 3 sections that are
chambered, the center block is left in place.
Tone seems a bit more open but hardly noticeable IMHO.

 

[kesslari]

I've always wondered what the chambering in the MTD "Marilyn" basses looks like.
CT, that's a gorgeous bass there. Wow.

 

[MVE]

My Warmoth J is chambered. I chose it because I wanted a rediculously complicated stack knob / varitone that was quite heavy and I thought it would compensate for some of the weight.

 

[GretschWretch]

Danelectro and Multivox Marvel were chambering their instruments in the 1950s. And the wood removal was not merely "token."

 

[ThuzzleFump]

Here is what a Sadowsky chambered body looks like...

As a moderate trypophobic I will try to unsee that picture.

Are You Afraid of Holes?

 

[bholder]

I think whether chambering affects sound or not depends a lot on how open the chambering is and what sort of wood the top is made out of. Some chambered basses are just lighter with similar tone, others (like my Kania fretless 5) have almost a semi-acoustic / hollowbody sound due to the chambering and top.

 

[saltydude]

^ Thats more of what I had in my head. Larger pieces, taken out. The first picture looks like a lot of work for little reward. However, I know nothing about building instruments at all and I am sure it has tactical advantages.

A lot of work in an initial & financial sense. Very obvious to me it was placed in a body jig or fixture then cut by a CNC machine. Probably took about 60 seconds.

 

[Watchootognbout]

I've got a heavy bass.
13.6 lbs of weighty walnut to be exact.
I've thought about boring some shallow holes of different sizes in the back to take some weight off.
But I'm not really sure about the percentage of wood/weight removal to make a difference.
There's only so much surface area on the back.
(Of course noone should bore holes in the neck through stringers)

 

[R Baer]

I think that on a neck through, the difference in tone would be so slight as to be negligible. As for bolt ons, it really depends on how the chambering is done, but in my experience, the chambers bodies are slightly warmer sounding and with slightly less attack to the leading edge of the note. Solid bodies tend to be just a tad punchier. Again, the differences are pretty slight and vary from bass to bass.