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Does fretboard wood make a consistent difference in tone that you can hear?

I can hear a consistent difference between fretboard materials

  • Yes

    Votes: 183 41.5%

  • No

    Votes: 181 41.0%

  • Highly figured birdseye quartersawn carrotwood

    Votes: 77 17.5%
  • Total voters
    441
#541
GrapeBass said:
Don't bother, it's like dude needs an apple to fall on his head to believe that gravity exists.
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Things that are up come down, pretty consistently. People agreeing on what is warm or what is bright are pretty inconsistent. I haven't said I'm denying anything, I've said that your subjective understanding of tone is meaningless to anybody else. I don't think you've read a single thing I've written here, but here's the source of the snark I've mentioned. Lots of snark and loud opinion but zero facts or substantive points of view. If you're saying it's objective fact, then demonstrate it. The only demonstration so far is that nobody agrees on what tonal characteristics rosewood, maple, and ebony have - a bright sound clip gets confused for ebony when it's rosewood by everyone who claims to be able to tell a difference. Mike Tobias says ebony is warmer than maple due to maples hardness, yet ebony is a lot harder than maple and so is "warm" rosewood. Sadowsky uses terms like "sweet." Meaningless and useless to me.

My 32+ years experience is surely as valuable as yours - you demand my respect for yours, but where is yours for mine? I also can hear one bass is warm and another is bright. I also can't provide you with what harmonics make up those tonal characteristics. Where we differ is that I'm saying none to very little of those differences are attributable to the type of fretboard wood used. I'm just as right or as wrong as you, because those differences are meaningless to you - what matters to you is what you hear, not what I hear. Same here.
 
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#543
tfer said:
A tighter grain structure allows higher frequencies to resonate easier.

An aluminum baseball bar and a wooden one sound different when hitting a ball. They are almost exactly the same size and shape, and yet the aluminum one rings, while the wooden one doesn't. The difference is the frequencies that each material resonates at - the grain structure of each absorbs different frequencies.
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Aluminum bats are also hollow, so there's that. But I imagine a solid aluminum bat would sound different than a wood bat.
 
#544
tfer said:
A tighter grain structure allows higher frequencies to resonate easier.

An aluminum baseball bar and a wooden one sound different when hitting a ball. They are almost exactly the same size and shape, and yet the aluminum one rings, while the wooden one doesn't. The difference is the frequencies that each material resonates at - the grain structure of each absorbs different frequencies.
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Baseball bats aren't producing those sounds via an electric signal chain. That analogy applies for acoustic instruments, but not for eclectic instruments. It's a different type of wave.
 
#545
MtManiac said:
Baseball bats aren't producing those sounds via an electric signal chain. That analogy applies for acoustic instruments, but not for eclectic instruments. It's a different type of wave.
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When I've got time later this summer, I'm gonna figure out a way to install a tuning peg and pickup on a baseball bat, and post the results.

Of course, when one sounds like a bass, and the other sounds like a sitar, someone is going to complain that I didn't use rosewood.

Like I stated earlier, it's simply willful ignorance.
 
#547
These basses sound very different from one another. Coincidence? I think not!

:woot:


B12F258A-239B-4BC3-AD35-A2765C034CC7.jpeg
 
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#548
tfer said:
When I've got time later this summer, I'm gonna figure out a way to install a tuning peg and pickup on a baseball bat, and post the results.

Of course, when one sounds like a bass, and the other sounds like a sitar, someone is going to complain that I didn't use rosewood.

Like I stated earlier, it's simply willful ignorance.
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A string vibrating through a magnetic field produces a specific type of wave through the electrical chain all the way to the amp, which converts it to another type of wave. You can hear one type and you can't hear the other. A bat hitting a ball is the second type, the type that you can hear. Tonewoods matter to acoustic instruments and baseball bats. To the extent that they matter (if at all) to electric instruments, it is negligible. That's proven by physics, and if you don't take my word for it (why should you), go talk to a physics professor, who will also agree that it matters to acoustic instruments. We don't have to have this argument at all - for one moment, question your own understanding, and check it out.
 
#549
MtManiac said:
A string vibrating through a magnetic field produces a specific type of wave through the electrical chain all the way to the amp, which converts it to another type of wave. You can hear one type and you can't hear the other. A bat hitting a ball is the second type, the type that you can hear. Tonewoods matter to acoustic instruments and baseball bats. To the extent that they matter (if at all) to electric instruments, it is negligible. That's proven by physics, and if you don't take my word for it (why should you), go talk to a physics professor, who will also agree that it matters to acoustic instruments. We don't have to have this argument at all - for one moment, question your own understanding, and check it out.
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...and the objects that the strings are being suspended on affect the harmonic content of the vibrating strings by dampening certain frequencies.
 
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#550
MtManiac said:
A string vibrating through a magnetic field produces a specific type of wave through the electrical chain all the way to the amp, which converts it to another type of wave. You can hear one type and you can't hear the other. A bat hitting a ball is the second type, the type that you can hear. Tonewoods matter to acoustic instruments and baseball bats. To the extent that they matter (if at all) to electric instruments, it is negligible. That's proven by physics, and if you don't take my word for it (why should you), go talk to a physics professor, who will also agree that it matters to acoustic instruments. We don't have to have this argument at all - for one moment, question your own understanding, and check it out.
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My wife IS a physics professor. She's the one giving me the correct wordings, such as 'system'.

And in a system, provided there is a physical connection, everything contributes. A string's vibration pattern is a reflection of that system - it isn't separate from it.
 
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#551
tfer said:
My wife IS a physics professor. She's the one giving me the correct wordings, such as 'system'.

And in a system, provided there is a physical connection, everything contributes. A string's vibration pattern is a reflection of that system - it isn't separate from it.
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Oh great, now we have to bring our wives into this... LOL

Mine is a therapist/social worker, you don't want to bring her into this. ;-)
 
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#555
I'm not sure why this is so confusing.

Everyone who doesn't hear a difference states that the electric bass is different than an acoustic instrument. That somehow the effect of woods are ignored by pickups.

If that were true, you'd hear only a sine wave.

Instead, the sound of your bass is filled with harmonic content. Some is muted and some is exaggerated.

Play 2 different basses acoustically. What is making them sound different from each other? Use the same brand of string. They'll still sound different. Why is that?

Because those strings are being forced to vibrate differently. Your pickups will transmit that. If they didn't, all that would come out of your amp is a sine wave.
 
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#558
tfer said:
I'm not sure why this is so confusing.

Everyone who doesn't hear a difference states that the electric bass is different than an acoustic instrument. That somehow the effect of woods are ignored by pickups.

If that were true, you'd hear only a sine wave.

Instead, the sound of your bass is filled with harmonic content. Some is muted and some is exaggerated.

Play 2 different basses acoustically. What is making them sound different from each other? Use the same brand of string. They'll still sound different. Why is that?

Because those strings are being forced to vibrate differently. Your pickups will transmit that. If they didn't, all that would come out of your amp is a sine wave.
Click to expand...
BTW - wife posted that.

Teacher side coming out.
 
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#560
tfer said:
I'm not sure why this is so confusing.

Everyone who doesn't hear a difference states that the electric bass is different than an acoustic instrument. That somehow the effect of woods are ignored by pickups.

If that were true, you'd hear only a sine wave.

Instead, the sound of your bass is filled with harmonic content. Some is muted and some is exaggerated.

Play 2 different basses acoustically. What is making them sound different from each other? Use the same brand of string. They'll still sound different. Why is that?

Because those strings are being forced to vibrate differently. Your pickups will transmit that. If they didn't, all that would come out of your amp is a sine wave.
Click to expand...

but then we have to consider the pickups and how different windings and magnets affect the magnetic field, etc.
 

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