Does Alder or Ash Matter?

[Dr. Cheese]

I always preferred ash, but after playing an alder Stingray, and listening to clips of alder Sire V7s, I am thinking the electronics mean more than the wood. I must add that I borrowed an alder rosewood Sadowsky RV5 that was as live as any ash bass I ever played too.

 

[Mr_O'B]

It's on video where Mr. Sadowsky (at the 2014 Bass Player Live bass set up clinic), said that he notices more tonal difference from the fretboard wood than body wood.
Mr. Tobias had a slightly different opinion when he answered the question.

I don't have an answer. However, I can say that I owned an extremely heavy ash body MIM Fender FSR jazz bass with a rosewood fretboard that had a serious slap tone.

The bass was passive, but the slap tone sounded like the bass had a preamp! I believe the body wood was HEAVY Northern Ash, and the reason why it had such an incredible slap tone.

P.S. - I guesstimate that the bass weighed 10 + lbs.

 

[AaronVonRock]

I think anyone would be hard pressed to listen to a recording or a live performance and be able to distinguish if the body of an electric bass is ash or alder soley based on the sound.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

It's on video where Mr. Sadowsky (at the 2014 Bass Player Live bass set up clinic), said that he notices more tonal difference from the fretboard wood than body wood.
Mr. Tobias had a slightly different opinion when he answered the question.

I don't have an answer. However, I can say that I owned an extremely heavy ash body MIM Fender FSR jazz bass with a rosewood fretboard that had a serious slap tone.

The bass was passive, but the slap tone sounded like the bass had a preamp! I believe the body wood was HEAVY Northern Ash, and the reason why it had such an incredible slap tone.

P.S. - I guesstimate that the bass weighed 10 + lbs.

I am pretty sure really heavy Northen Ash impacts sound, but most of us avoid 10-13 lb. basses these days.

 

[Curtis Rielley]

I does slightly. Like resonance and certain frequencies the woods tend to accentuate depending on the wood, sometimes a lot and sometimes almost nothing. But a lot of it is by electronics that shape the sound.

 

[MEKer]

Look again at answer post #3.
Ash or alder you ask------either one means nothing to the sound. The electronics do it (yeah yeah, HOW you play/technique, string type, etc affect things) . Unless of course if it is an acoustic...there you can get some tonal differences altho, again, even there, 99.99% of listeners would not hear the difference attributable to the wood species of the acoustic. Pretty much the same 99.99 would not hear a bit of diff between wood. Any diff they hear will be from other things, but often they will vehemently claim the wood is doing it. Whatever pulls their trigger I guess. Who cares.
Playing an enjoyable bass well is what means anything.

 

[Belka]

Look again at answer post #3.
Ash or alder you ask------either one means nothing to the sound. The electronics do it (yeah yeah, HOW you play/technique, string type, etc affect things) . Unless of course if it is an acoustic...there you can get some tonal differences altho, again, even there, 99.99% of listeners would not hear the difference attributable to the wood species of the acoustic. Pretty much the same 99.99 would not hear a bit of diff between wood. Any diff they hear will be from other things, but often they will vehemently claim the wood is doing it. Whatever pulls their trigger I guess. Who cares.
Playing an enjoyable bass well is what means anything.

Actually there is a notable difference between ash and alder, but I agree that in an onstage situation with guitars and drums you'd be hard-pressed to hear the difference. There are some instances where it's crystal clear however. Whatever you do with pickups and electronics, an alder bodied bass for instance will NOT give you the Marcus Miller late '70s Jazz tone. A facsimile of it yeah, but not that sound.

 

[Doctor J]

While I believe body, neck and fretboard woods makes a slight difference, saying wood x=this and wood y=that is hugely erroneous, there are no set outcomes even with the same types of wood. Electronics are the Mayor of Tonetown, by a considerable margin. If you like the look and you like the feel you can always change the electronics to get the sound you want. There's not a poster on this board who can tell an alder body from an ash body purely from listening.

 

[Mr_O'B]

I am pretty sure really heavy Northen Ash impacts sound, but most of us avoid 10-13 lb. basses these days.

Dr. Cheese, I ordered the bass online, and it was my first heavy bass.
Despite the incredible tone, I sold the bass and never looked back. That bass taught me a lot about proper bass weight. My two current basses weigh 7.8 lbs. and 9.3 lbs.
---------
As far as body wood, my 7.8 lb. Fender Am. Deluxe jazz bass has an Alder core body w/Ash veneer top & back.
My 9.3 lb Fender MIM Deluxe jazz bass has an Alder body. Both basses have rosewood fretboards.

IMO, the basses can't be compared based on body wood alone.

There are too many variables: overall weight, Alder vs. Alder core with Ash veneer top/back and different electronics (preamps/pickups).
I believe the superior tone of my Fender Am. Deluxe has more to due with it having a superior fretboard and Fender Suhr electronics.

 

[Daniel Piper]

It matters with a translucent finish.

 

[bassbenj]

While I believe body, neck and fretboard woods makes a slight difference, saying wood x=this and wood y=that is hugely erroneous, there are no set outcomes even with the same types of wood. Electronics are the Mayor of Tonetown, by a considerable margin. If you like the look and you like the feel you can always change the electronics to get the sound you want. There's not a poster on this board who can tell an alder body from an ash body purely from listening.

While it's true that wood effects are minor and probably no listener could pick them out, the PLAYER can tell in a second. I've got a bunch of ash and alder basses and as a general rule the ash bodies are brighter than the alder. Now I love both tones, but they aren't the same. Basswood to me is even more rolled off and "foofy" sounding in a passive bass. BUT, as you note since the wood is a minor effect it is easily compensated by electronics. For example a Bongo bass is designed to use basswood (for lightness) and it is anything but "foofy"! Actually, Mahogany is my favorite wood and it's about half way between Ash and alder. But tends to be on more expensive basses so I only have a couple maghogany basses.

 

[Jughead6]

Ash burns more easily than alder, although alder burns with a hotter flame.

 

[Binary1]

Look again at answer post #3.
Ash or alder you ask------either one means nothing to the sound. The electronics do it (yeah yeah, HOW you play/technique, string type, etc affect things) . Unless of course if it is an acoustic...there you can get some tonal differences altho, again, even there, 99.99% of listeners would not hear the difference attributable to the wood species of the acoustic. Pretty much the same 99.99 would not hear a bit of diff between wood. Any diff they hear will be from other things, but often they will vehemently claim the wood is doing it. Whatever pulls their trigger I guess. Who cares.
Playing an enjoyable bass well is what means anything.

This. ^^^^

 

[Jazz Ad]

I prefer alder and poplar because they tend to be very light.

 

[drTSTingray]

I think anyone would be hard pressed to listen to a recording or a live performance and be able to distinguish if the body of an electric bass is ash or alder soley based on the sound.

I agree with you, and I would go one further - in many cases, within a band or orchestra mix, many people would be hard pressed to pick out what bass was in use, as has been shown before in blind tests.

However to the player, there may be a discernible difference between maple and rosewood boards and different body woods on otherwise similar basses.

I know this as I own and gig various Stingrays - those with rosewood boards are subtly different from those with maple - and alder/poplar bodies are subtly different from those with ash (slightly mellower). I also agree that body weight seems to make a difference - my heaviest Ray is the most resonant (a Stingray 5).

 

[SanDiegoHarry]

I always preferred ash, but after playing an alder Stingray, and listening to clips of alder Sire V7s, I am thinking the electronics mean more than the wood. I must add that I borrowed an alder rosewood Sadowsky RV5 that was as live as any ash bass I ever played too.

I used to be a 100% swamp ash guy, but I'm finding Alder sounds just a touch warmer/softer - which I like. The difference is small, but I *think* I hear it. So I choose based on that.

 

[Emanuel Apascaritei]

Between the two I´d go Alder, simply for it´s lighter....I refuse to play heavy basses....my back is more important to me than the tone.

 

[40Hz]

There's very little evidence to support the contention that the body wood found in a solid body instrument has any noticeable impact on the perceived tone of the instrument. The strings and electronics are responsible for 99.9.% of what you're hearing. With an active tone circuit, you could probably add a few more nines after the decimal.

About the only thing that might be affected by the choice of wood used is the sustain since the less vibration lost to the body will result in longer sustain times. But it's questionable just how much that would benefit a bass player since we're usually trying to control sustain with various muting techniqes rather than trying to find ways to prolong it.

And there's enough variation between various pieces of wood that there's a good chance the difference in sustain characteristics between two kinds of wood is no greater (on average) than the variation to be found between two different pieces of the same wood.

 

[JimmyM]

I have an ash P and an alder P with the same pickup installed on each. The ash has a rosewood FB, the alder is maple. They sound 100% identical except the ash P has a more noticeable dead spot. But otherwise, they sound the same to me.

 

[taylor16]

"Maple vs Rosewood" has significantly more of an influence on tone. And even then, it's minimal.