Different Pickguard Changes Tone

[markjazzbassist]

bopp have you thought that one pickguard pulls the pickups up/down more than another therefore changing the tone?

 

[ggoat!!!]

A metal one.

That's what I said!

 

[mongo2]

Mongo, to answer your question, yes the underside of the aluminum guard is scraped around the holes for best contact.

OK. Maybe there is some sort of Hall effect/eddy current/shielding weirdness going on.

 

[ElMon]

Thought experiment: If putting a thin top wood on a hi-end bass changes the tone in a significant way, then wouldn't a thick piece of resonant aluminum ALSO have the ability to change the tone?

*note: not saying one way or the other. My anecdotal contribution: I have an NYC Sadowsky PJ5, and I have an anodized gold guard and a tort guard. With the anodized guard, I notice that the bass is a little bit louder acoustically. When I plug it in and get it to volume, I can't tell a single bit of difference between tort/anodized gold

 

[Dash Lashes]

 

[kenneffdupriest]

changing my pickguards never changed my tone but I sure got laid a lot more. just sayin

 

[MobileHolmes]

Aluminium is not highly magnetic (it is to a very small extent). But it is good conductor of electricity and is often used to make radio antennae.

I would not be surprised is D Bopp has witnessed a genuine physical phenomenon. I'm just surprised that it is so noticeable.

Of course it will sound different comparing conductive vs nonconductive pickguard. The anodized one helps create a large Farady cage around everything. That can affect the highs to a small degree. Stop mocking the guy for cris sakes.

Yeah, I actually don't think the initial post is implausible at all, given that you are putting a big chunk of conductive stuff in close proximity to a bunch of electrical stuff.

 

[Topkat13]

Don't know about this one folks...kinda like say'n changing toilet paper changes the smell.

 

[David Jayne]

Thought experiment: If putting a thin top wood on a hi-end bass changes the tone in a significant way, then wouldn't a thick piece of resonant aluminum ALSO have the ability to change the tone?

Maybe, if you believe that putting a thin top wood on a high-end bass actually changes the tone.....

 

[northbynorth]

I remember when I switched from Schaller to Dunlop straplocks. Talk about an epiphany! The difference wasn't in the actual sound of the notes played, but the "space" between the notes and the existential groove of my playing. The Dunlop straplocks provided a sense "air" and "space" to my playing. Black backgrounds between plucked notes were seemingly "more blacker." There was simply more "there" there. I installed the Dunlop straplocks when the humidity in my home was 34% and allowed no ionizing substrates to operate in a 32 meter radius as to not interfere with the wood to metal interaction as I didn't really want to have to screw the straplocks into the body more than once; 1 fiber of wood lost can drastically decrease the blackness of the blacks. The sense of immediacy and detail in my playing increased substantially. But, I ended up ultimately having to take the straplocks off and reinstall them because I initially installed the Dunlop straplocks during a full moon cycle, but I realized that the alloys contained therein might not "mesh" with the moon's cycle so I uninstalled them using latex-free gloves, waited exactly 4 days, and reinstalled them again this time during a harvest moon, specifically at 11:07pm as there are scientifically less charged free electrons in the air at that specific time and the harvest moon has less of a chance of contributing to the oxidization of the exposed screwthreads. I also ordered specially treated Jamaican alloy steel screws this time, just for the funk of it. This made a HUGE difference, and what I thought would be detrimental by unscrewing the straplocks turned out to be a mindblowing sonic revelation! Once again, the black spaces between notes were actually even more "more blacker." The sense of immediacy was immediately more immediate than immediately before, and I had an even greater airy sense of spacial air in the same air space. There was even more "there" there, even more "there" there than there was "there" there before. Dunlop straplocks are keepers! But, I might be missing some of that fluidity of note sustainability mojo that I was soooo used to when I was using the Schaller straplocks...but I've found that if I use baby wipes versus regular Charmin my fluidity improves substantially...and the blacks are even blacker upon visualization. I never knew I had so much funk in me!

How do I give multiple likes!

 

[Batmensch]

I can't believe some of you are taking this seriously.

 

[bobthegood]

I didn't read every page, but if this didn't come up yet, you guys may be under-estimating the difference in the color\weight of the pickguard screws themselves. Switching out the silver screws holding a black pickguard to black screws with black pickguard made them almost invisible, and the weight differential not only made a serious difference in tone, but also relieved back fatigue at the end of the night. Something to do with the magnetic field. Like maybe Tommy Copper for a bass. Oh wait, I switched amps. Never mind....

 

[blindrabbit]

I can't believe some of you are taking this seriously.

...said science loving, logical, data driven, evidence based people about 80+% of the threads on TB.

 

[ElMon]

Food for thought.......

1) Differences YOU hear in tone from bass-to-bass = likely no difference in audience. They might hear MORE low-end, or MORE pitch, or less of both

2) Those same differences bother you to a point where they affect your playing (bass is too trebly; I heard a friend's Sadowsky/Roscoe/Smith/etc and can't get it out of my head/etc) = audience MAY notice. Same rule applies when you have a SMOKIN bass in your hand (may not correspond to a dollar amount for said bass, in which case consider yourself lucky). It might just bring something out of you that the other ones would not.

3) If it's as simple as 'this pickguard or that', consider yourself LUCKY

4) I could be wrong.

 

[96tbird]

I use petrified pepperoni slices that I found under the couch as plectrums. Can I have a number?

 

[RED J]

Actually it's different tone changes pickguard. I have aged bright white to ivory / parchment by increasing low frequencies in my signal. It was worth the wait . Yup.

 

[justbass57]

I have a friend that has been in the audiophile world for decades, and the stuff that he comes up with and the stories that he can pass on are quite humourous.

One story that is on the net somewhere is the guy who place pieces of amber around his listening room and swears that it improves his listening experience.

Hey, if you can hear it, and it makes you happy, ...

 

[Dash Lashes]

Hey, if you can hear it, and it makes you happy, ...

^

for the record: i can hear it w/o the special ears apparatus

_Dash

 

[96tbird]

All joking aside, of course introducing metal into a magnetic field will have an effect. Also, if it is grounded it will have a different effect than if it is not grounded.

The only question is if your ears can tell the difference. Maybe they can.

 

[Kmonk]

I bought a new strap and my strings sound much more lively. I'm glad I didn't other people's advice about boiling them.