Well, since it's well known that everything about this topic is subjective, that can be safely assumed.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
heavier bass = better tone?
- Thread starter woaheasylang
- Start date
Well, since it's well known that everything about this topic is subjective, that can be safely assumed.
Again - to reiterate - you were right on RF and linear amplification over a narrow beam. Good on ya for that and that's a very hard concept for many to - er, conceptualize.
Thank-you for the discussion as it made me go back to times before fire and round wheels.
I was digging through my large*, though messy brain to remember j-factors in front-side antenna radiation.
* My mom said I had a big head. She would know I guess.
I just cant buy into this whole "tonewood" thing....in an acoustic obviously there is a huge difference between different woods...but in an electric...I just cant believe it....everything about an electric bass(apart from your fingers or pick) is electric...I am sure that a minimum of 99% percent of the tone comes from (not in order of influence). strings, pickups, pots, caps, wires , cables, amp, ....the whole thing is about electricity and magnetism.....I just cant believe in so called "tone woods".....I believe that the best electronics on a plastic bass would sound better than the best so called tonewood with the cheapest electrics...or can someone prove me wrong?
I blame that on the fact that I've been doing it professionally for over 25 years.
I think you're in the right mindset. But don't be so all-inclusive since you'll surely get flamed by people with bigger pricetags and higher-end electronics.
Stay to one chapter and verse at a time.
Don't forget that the wood just takes away perhaps 'zones' or certain bands of frequencies that many feel are additive qualities more to their liking, when in reality they are just the zones of sounds that they want to hear.
Take away the bad and the preferred sounds 'better' - but not really.
I really hated saying that - since it too is speculative and leads to false conclusions if taken out of context.
Maybe my next scripture from The Book Of Joe 1:2 If it sounds good, play it.
I feel an epiphany coming on.
well if someone can give me a GOOD reason to believe then perhaps I may...but I just cant believe the idea of the wood affecting wholy electronic and magnetic signals
this is how we should form our perceptions. the big name bass players
See? Here's where the wheels fall off.
Chambered bodies are different. It now becomes quantum physics all over again.
Well, considering that master luthiers have been selecting different woods for different tones for decades, don't you think your non-expert opinion is pretty foolish?
How about you proove yourself wrong? Take your favorite bass, and saw off as much wood from the body as you can without damaging anything else. Play it and see how it sounds. You'll realize pretty quickly that the wood is a critical component in the tone, and that's it not all electronics and magnetism.
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,636
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
yes, the electronics pickup the magnetic signals, but the neck and body wood (as well as bridge, heads, type of construction, i'e. bolt-on, set neck or neck thru) determine the manner (i.e. harmonic structure, attack, sustain, decay etc) that the strings vibrate.
Oh, come on. Have you (or anybody else in the history of electric bass) actually ever played one that did not have enough sustain?
I think we've all got to consider that when we talk about different woods for different tones (as speculative and undefinable as that is) we need to remember that different woods can only take away certain sounds we individually perceive as undesirable.
Take away the bad and the good becomes more predominant - but never actually improved.
If you prefer a brighter sound - then the wood that takes away the lows would be your choice.
If you want a deeper, lower tone or sound, then build with a wood that takes way the peskier highs and brassy-ness.
If you want more punch - then kill the sustain.
Then when you've done all that homework, figure out if you want a heavy headstock, a thin neck, through-body, bolt-on, laminated fingerboard, brass hardware, cloth-wound wiring, stainless steel screws, pickguard or not, leather strap or nylon, flat-round-bronze-NPS-chrome-coated strings, active/passive, J-configuration or P, etc.
Oh - don't forget the squabble about 60/40 solder verses 50/50 and even the newer 10/40/50 types.
Pick one from column 1,
two from column 2
....and up to four from column 3.
With two or more you get eggrolls.
What can be affected by the woods is the motion of the vibrating string which is in turn transduced and modified by the pickups.
Not trying to diminish your point, but I think that you have lost many with the academia behind your argument (in earlier postings). Being that I have a background in RF (since 1989), cabinet building (since 1990), metrology (not meterology) (since 1992) and instrument building (since 2007) I was able to follow, yet I would never attempt to explain it in such technical terms...no need. Even around the various shops that I worked in (GE, Underwriters Labs) I refused to speak in a way that did not communicate in the simplest of terms.
It has been my experience that the more dense (not heavy) the wood the "brighter" the sound. Even in the same species of wood. I have seen ash bodies with a very open grain that mimic the properties that one expects with alder. Wood that is not properly, or fully dried behave differently than wood that has been dried. Properties vary in kiln dried and air dried wood. Both of these point to moisture content. Now this is coming first hand from someone that has built more than a few hundred basses on a production line, meaning that all other variables (electronics, solder, wire length etc.) were the same. Believe it or not, I and others have noticed slight variations on sound based on paint as well. Metallics behave differently based on certain properties, and hardness of paint makes a difference. Sure these differences are subtle almost to the point of being negligible, but they do exist and are measurable.
Yes, I could go into the physics behind this, but no need. I just say that the density, not the weight, is the factor; not just in the body, but neck as well. I have an instrument that will prove this right away. The body is a two piece swamp ash construction, with a very open grain on the E,A side of the instrument. The E string sounds HORRIBLE; totally nonconsistant in comparison to the other strings. EVERY BIT OF THE INSTRUMENT HAS BEEN SWAPPED! Started with the strings, then nut (see if it made a difference on the open E, used plastic and bone nut), bridge, followed by p'ups, then preamp, finally the neck! NO DIFFERENCE, the E string still sounds like ASS!
