Does body wood matter?

[GBassNorth]

Well, "irrelevant" is in the ears and feel of the musician. This is why "does tonewood make a difference" and "does tonewood matter" are two completely different questions in spite of the efforts of many here to say they are the same question. For example the wood in my Squier P-bass is not alder and should be. Admittedly the difference is slight, but it matters to me.

If wood selection matters to any one person, then it matters, period. How much it matters, why it matters and who it matters to is irrelevant, at that point people are just arguing about shades of gray and preferences. I don't think anyone can argue that there isn't a person on the face of the earth that gives a hoot about what wood their bass is made from. As long as one person cares about their wood selection then we can't claim it doesn't matter. We can only claim it doesn't matter to us.

It's kind of like a car with either an automatic or manual transmission. There have been cars made that perform equally well in either transmission type. I have no problems driving either and really have no preference, to me it doesn't matter. But it would be foolish of me to say transmission types don't matter when buying a car. To some people they matter very much, even to the point of it being a deal breaker, therefore it matters. It's that way for me on P basses. If it's not alder I'm not interested - it matters.

 

[tbplayer59]

I think this question went off track. It's not that alder sounds better / worse / different than ash or maple or walnut. It's that different pieces of wood sound different from each other, and some sound better.
This is why all basses don't sound the same, even of the same model and materials.

 

[Matthew Fisher]

Uh oh, did I just toss in the soundman argument. This could start a TB black hole!

Thank god the pedal I got the other day came in a box.

You also just broached the subject of religion. Scorched earth, and sow the enemy's fields with salt!

 

[TheIndieKid]

Sorry to open an old thread, but does wood affect a semi-hollow bass, or does the fact that it uses pickups mitigate the sound of the hollow body cavity?

 

[Watchootognbout]

Who knows?
Different basses sound different.
Even different basses with the same wood types.

 

[bassdude51]

Alder and ash or good choices...........humm, have we heard this before?

#1 beat to death subject on TalkBass? Wood?

The conclusion to this over asked subject has been definitive............it doesn't matter.

 

[Old Blastard]

Most of my hollows/semi hollows are made of maple and in plys. I hear a difference between the semi, full hollow and solid bodies, but it could just be me.

When Smokey sings I hear violins.

 

[dmt]

Short answer: alder

 

[NoiseNinja]

Type of wood a bass guitar is made of has an indirect effect on how the bass is going to sound as it will influence on how the strings vibrate, which is what the pickups pick up.

When that is said probably not as much as the type of wood the neck and fretboard is made of.

Try look up "tonewood" on google.

Or use these two guides to get an idea:

For a basic explanation: Bass Guitar Tone Woods | Bass Gear | StudyBass

For an explantion on specific types of wood:

Invalid Link Removed

Or

Link Removed

 

[chris_b]

To the OP:

To anyone starting out, how the bass feels is more important than what it's made of.

In reality you're going to buy a bass made from Ash or Alder. Either will be just fine. On cheaper basses the pickups and pre amps will be producing much of the sound but as you go up the "quality" scale the woods (still mostly Ash and Alder) will be selected for their sound and tone. If you're in the several thousands of dollars range then you're in that market place.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Type of wood a bass guitar is made of has an indirect effect on how the bass is going to sound as it will influence on how the strings vibrate, which is what the pickups pick up.

When that is said probably not as much as the type of wood the neck and fretboard is made of.

Try look up "tonewood" on google.

Or use these two guides to get an idea:

For a basic explanation: Bass Guitar Tone Woods | Bass Gear | StudyBass

For an explantion on specific types of wood: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

A chunk of wood has a pretty narrow range of resonant frequencies (see pointers to a scientific study of pine 2x4 from 1948 I posted a while back). Given this, the effect of the body on the strings will be at a relatively narrow spread of frequencies. Basically, a dead spot. I have not seen any convincing, scientific evidence to suggest otherwise, although if someone shows me something, I will change my mind.

Another thing that leads me to be unconvinced, is that I have a bass with a Warmoth neck with steel reinforcements, that also has a maple fingerboard, yet the dead spot is just where it is on an unreinforced, rosewood fingerboard jazz bass. These both have alder bodies, but the dead spot is in the same place as a Precision with a basswood body, and a Jazz with an ash body. It doesn't seem to make much difference.

 

[BoogieZK]

It's easy to understand that if a vibration is traveling inside wood, the wood capacity to vibrate is influencing the vibration in question.
Now, what is the degree of influence, I can't do the math.

I found that Neck and fingerboard affect the sound and you can ear it.
I found that the bigger part of a bass sound can be modified with different strings configuration.
Steel, nickel, cobalt, gold....
I prefer Steel, no matter the bass.

 

[NoiseNinja]

A chunk of wood has a pretty narrow range of resonant frequencies (see pointers to a scientific study of pine 2x4 from 1948 I posted a while back). Given this, the effect of the body on the strings will be at a relatively narrow spread of frequencies. Basically, a dead spot. I have not seen any convincing, scientific evidence to suggest otherwise, although if someone shows me something, I will change my mind.

Another thing that leads me to be unconvinced, is that I have a bass with a Warmoth neck with steel reinforcements, that also has a maple fingerboard, yet the dead spot is just where it is on an unreinforced, rosewood fingerboard jazz bass. These both have alder bodies, but the dead spot is in the same place as a Precision with a basswood body, and a Jazz with an ash body. It doesn't seem to make much difference.

So how do you explain that different basses of the same model can sound vastly different from each other, even when made from the same type of wood?

As I take you will agree with me that wood probably is the biggest variable factor on a bass, even from a specific piece of wood to another of the same type, while there is much less variation in hardware, electronics and strings of the same type/model.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

It's easy to understand that if a vibration is traveling inside wood, the wood capacity to vibrate is influencing the vibration in question.

It's only likely to affect it destructively. A small amount of energy will become sound, some heat, and only a tiny proportion will find its way back to the string and is vanishingly unlikely to be in phase.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

So how do you explain that even different basses of the same model can sound vastly different from each other, if it is not the wood, even made from the same type of wood?

I have two basses of the same model of the same year with the same construction and same pickups and they sound identical. However, pickups, capacitors and pots are only the same within certain tolerances, so in general they will sound sightly different, so I wouldn't rush to attribute it to wood. I did once put the Warmoth neck on the rosewood fingerboard jazz, and the difference was minimal, and since it's hard to get exactly the same set up, that might have been a factor. Changing the pickups from overwound Kent Armstrongs to 1964 Wizards made a big difference, though.

As I guess you will agree with me that wood probably is the biggest variable factor on a bass, even from specific piece of wood to another?

It can vary, but it doesn't mean its significant to the sound.

In my opinion and from my reasoning wood would be the explanation as there is much less variation in hardware and electronics of the same type/model.

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily have equal weight in terms of tone (and in any case electronics components are often +-10%, and wood is in much the same ballpark in terms of density, so your premise is incorrect). But colour of cars varies a lot, but doesn't affect speed, but horsepower will, so talking about the colour when discussing speed is irrelevant.

 

[NoiseNinja]

I have two basses of the same model of the same year with the same construction and same pickups and they sound identical. However, pickups, capacitors and pots are only the same within certain tolerances, so in general they will sound sightly different, so I wouldn't rush to attribute it to wood. I did once put the Warmoth neck on the rosewood fingerboard jazz, and the difference was minimal, and since it's hard to get exactly the same set up, that might have been a factor. Changing the pickups from overwound Kent Armstrongs to 1964 Wizards made a big difference, though.

2 samples doesn't make much of a statistical evidence.

Neither is your hearing bullet proof in any sense.

Also Warmoth makes necks with rosewood fingerboards too.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

2 samples doesn't make much of a statistical evidence.

No, and this is an entirely reasonable point, but I noted it as a counterexample only anecdotally.

Having seen numerous demonstrations of different construction techniques with the same hardware, I am unconvinced that wood can make much difference, as the properties of those alternative methods vary much more than woods typically used in bass construction. Additionally, given what I've read of the properties of wood, and my understanding of physics I see no particular mechanism that could account for the perceived variations, as the magnitude of the effect seems to be too small. This is not to say there isn't any effect, but I can't see that there is likely to be an audible one. If better evidence comes along, though, I'll change my mind.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Also Warmoth makes necks with rosewood fingerboards too.

Indeed they do, but that's not what I have.

 

[Doctor J]

All my basses sound like basses, regardless of wood species. Some don't even have wood. Ahhhhhhhh.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Zombie thread! Run! I offer this story only to further muddy the already opaque waters:
1983 Steinberger XP-2 with EMG pups, graphite/Carbon composite neck, epoxy paint coated rock maple minimalist “flying bee” body. Sounded great, very bright “snappy” tone, maybe a little clinical sounding. Over the years I gravitated towards a less trebly tone.

I wanted to build a more traditional body with a “warmer” tone, found a nice one piece sapele mahogany body blank and carved it up. The new body was a good bit bigger than the old, but neck pocket and pup locations were reproduced as exactly as I could make them, within a few thousandths in all cases.

100% of the hardware, neck, electronics, and even the relatively new strings were transferred from the maple body to the mahogany body.

Result: Played through the same old amp, the bass sounds warmer, less high end snap, maybe a little less sustain. There is more physical sensation of the body vibrating, I can feel the string vibration more clearly, which must mean more string energy is getting absorbed by the body wood, maybe it’s bleeding off more high frequency? I honestly don’t know. The difference is pronounced enough that I think it exceeds the wishful thinking effect, but I have no before and after tapes to prove it. I am convinced body wood has some small effect based on this inadvertent experiment, but agree that the neck, strings, and pups are the primary contributors to amplified tone.