Help Me Design My Next Test!

[Rickengeezer]

Given the flexibility of the "Atkinson Scrapbass", I'd like to hear it at 32", 34", and 35" scales strung with a low B to see if scale length matters as much for the 5 string as people seem to think.

 

[Waterpilot]

I don't have anything to add to help but just wanted to say thanks for continuing on with these...

I've had a good time with them and it helps me by trying to study the differences both before and after.

 

[trowaclown]

1. I will suggest you change just one variable. Shouldn't that be the aim? From what I remember in science class, you can only pin down a factor if you change it (i.e. the variable) and results are affected. Every other factor should be left unchanged i.e. constants. So it would be best if you change just one variable, either neck or body wood.

2. At the same time, I will suggest a wider 'difference' between the variables. I'm sure if you were serious, there'll be members on this forum willing to lend their resources. If you want to retest body woods, then I'd suggest drastically different densities, such as the lightest basswood body you can find versus the heaviest hard maple body you can get. With these two woods providing a larger contrast, you MIGHT just have more variety in your results, or maybe not. At the same time, I'd suggest a 'control'. Maybe just a thin sheet of something stiff enough to hold the neck and bridge, but with very little mass, again possibly giving you different results.

3. Since the argument of players have popped up, I suggest you eliminate the factor as much as you can by having different players play the same few 'basses', recording a few times of each. The labelling should be the same though. Then have the lines both isolated and mixed. Continuing the example from above, let's say we have the three basses 'basswood', 'maple' and 'plastic'. You scramble them randomly to make 'plastic', 'basswood', 'maple', and have 3 different players play them, but all in that order, and you post clips in that order. i.e.:

Player A: plastic soloed, plastic mixed, basswood soloed, basswood mixed, maple soloed, maple mixed
Player B: plastic soloed, plastic mixed, basswood soloed, basswood mixed, maple soloed, maple mixed
Player C: plastic soloed, plastic mixed, basswood soloed, basswood mixed, maple soloed, maple mixed

That's about as far as I can think. Polling wise...I can't think of a good range of options to keep the experiment fair. Can anyone suggest something?

 

[steve_rolfeca]

...without devising some mechanical way to excite the strings you'll never get consistency enough for those guys.

Ebow?

This.

Don't do it freehand. Use an ebow or a little hinged arm with a pick on it. Hold it in a fixed jig, to ensure accurate registration over the string for each test.

Instead of playing a musical passage or passages, with all the little nuances of tone and tempo that can influence the results, play single notes, exciting an open string with the doohickey you've created.

If people can (or can't) consistently hear a difference on individual, isolated notes, in a situation where there's background music to mask it and no possible variation in picking attack, then you've got a useful result.

You'll still get quibbles about whether your test subject fleet was large enough, whether your recording gear was good enough, etc. But you'll have removed your playing from the equation, and satisfied 90% of your audience.

 

[trowaclown]

You'll still get quibbles about whether your test subject fleet was large enough, whether your recording gear was good enough, etc. But you'll have removed your playing from the equation, and satisfied 90% of your audience.

I fear the audience will never be satisfied...

Have you read The Little Friend by Donna Tartt? There was a little tiny section about charismatic preachers that handled snakes when preaching, and Tartt basically gave a commentary that faith is powerful enough to bulldoze over everything.

Should the preacher handle the snake safely, then that surely was a miracle.

Should the preacher get bitten and called back to heaven, then that, surely was a miracle too.

 

[chokeslam512]

35" vs 34" b string test. Also best for metal test.

 

[xaxxat]

Thanks everyone for the input! There are some great ideas.

However, maybe I wasn't clear in my original post. For this test I'm planning to use 2 Precision basses: one with an Alder body and all Rosewood neck, and one with a Maple body and all Maple neck.

With those test subjects, how do you think I should conduct a tone test?

I think you should video the tests so that all the "experts" can get them right...

After all, audio is so... visual...

 

[Batmensch]

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of the treatment I've received from the "Wood Matters" crowd. Absolutely stunning.

I simply cannot understand why some people get so insanely emotional about BASS WOOD TONE, for Pete's sake. I'd hate to see how they react in person to stuff that really matters.

Furthermore, this just goes to show how closed-minded they are. Here I am offering them the opportunity to provide input on how to make my "flawed" tests more useful, and the found of the "Wood Matters" club tells me to die.

I will no longer participate or even read the "Wood matters" club thread
A. Because it would be ultimately pointless.
B. Because their club really isn't just about wood anymore. The club shoud be renamed the "Let's Trash Anyone Who Disagrees With Us" club

 

[NKBassman]

For this test I'm planning to use 2 Precision basses: one with an Alder body and all Rosewood neck, and one with a Maple body and all Maple neck.

With those test subjects, how do you think I should conduct a tone test?

I'd say record 4 clips. Alder/Rosewood, Alder/Maple, Maple/Rosewood, Maple/Maple. Use the same pickup, same bridge, same brand of strings, etc.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I'd love to hear a test with the only variable being the neck. With two different basses the argument will be that the brighter pickups in one offset the less bright pickups in the other or that strings made a difference. I truly believe that most of the tone attributable to wood is in the neck, but I'd love to be proven wrong. If the outcome is to see if people can determine a difference in tone, play three samples. Two with one configuration and one with the other configuration. Then the goal will be to pick the one that's different versus telling which clip is rosewood and which is maple. 33% will be correct based on pure chance. Any number higher than 33% will, based on the number of responses, determine the level of confidence in musician's ability to tell a difference in tone.

 

[jmercer91]

I'd say record 4 clips. Alder/Rosewood, Alder/Maple, Maple/Rosewood, Maple/Maple. Use the same pickup, same bridge, same brand of strings, etc.

agreed

 

[copasetic]

Thanks everyone for the input! There are some great ideas.

However, maybe I wasn't clear in my original post. For this test I'm planning to use 2 Precision basses: one with an Alder body and all Rosewood neck, and one with a Maple body and all Maple neck.

With those test subjects, how do you think I should conduct a tone test?

Dan --first, thanks for all the work that you've put into your tests. They're great and (if you can ignore all the chaff) have prompted some really interesting discussion.

I understand you plan to use the two basses you describe above. If you're married to that plan, all I can suggest is variety of players and playing styles to give people more dimensions on which to hear the samples that are produced.

If you're a bit flexible, I would find it very interesting to see 4 basses tested: two with one body wood and two with another. For example, four basses with maple boards but two have alder bodies and the other two have ash bodies. What this would give us is the opportunity to try to see if the differences between two basses that are exactly the same in wood (but separate instruments) are more or less than the differences between two basses that are of different body woods. I suspect we'll hear that the bass-to-bass differences are, at least qualitatively, greater than the body wood to body wood differences. But heck, I don't know. This would also move things slightly away from the criticism that there are only two instruments in the comparison.

Cheers!

 

[jimc]

I already admitted to not hearing a significant difference in pretty much anything!

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f8/confessions-tone-philistine-708335/

Those that did hear a difference admitted they needed to listen through headphones to hear it which is not your average gigging situation. Maybe tone woods should be called look-good woods? Just saying.

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

I'd say record 4 clips. Alder/Rosewood, Alder/Maple, Maple/Rosewood, Maple/Maple. Use the same pickup, same bridge, same brand of strings, etc.

That's what I'm leaning towards.

I also like the idea of recording at least one other bassist. Anybody in the Atlanta area want to help?

 

[grisezd]

Thanks everyone for the input! There are some great ideas.

However, maybe I wasn't clear in my original post. For this test I'm planning to use 2 Precision basses: one with an Alder body and all Rosewood neck, and one with a Maple body and all Maple neck.

With those test subjects, how do you think I should conduct a tone test?

The player will certainly know what s/he's playing in that case.
So the next thing is to pluck the string the same, same location on the string, same velocity and drag, and compare the two with a spectrum analyzer. The spectrum analyzer goes beyond "what I can hear" into "what exists" which will be different. But it's repeatable. An acoustics person could adjust the results for the weighting of a human ear's response.

The plucking instrument is going to be the tough part. You could construct a weighted "hand" that holds a felt pick, maybe, and drop it from a measured height past the string so the pick strikes the string. You could repeat with a plastic pick, or a finger cut from the hand of a tone-wood advocate (just kidding!).

You would want to repeat, I think, for an open string and a number of fretted strings. To make a straight "drop" test work you'd want to remove all the strings but one.

Or, you could drop a piano hammer or similar on the string and catch it so it doesn't strike twice. That would allow you to keep all the strings on, but you'd want to mute the others.

This sounds like a very fun test to do, but again is a lot of work.

Thanks for putting yourself through this so far!!!

 

[Gomeztool]

In the meantime, you could be using your downtime towards mass producing scrap lumber basses that sound like alder Dan! Open the sweatshop and I'll work there!

 

[Kipaste]

I think the same bass with same settings but with differend players is a brilliant idea.

Also I think there are plenty of fun still to be had with the classic P vs J imitation scenario. There was a similar test where a significant number of the devotees of certain basses got their favourite wrong and the test was critisized for being solo and that P would've set itself apart in the mix.

Of course the problem with this is that variety in pup tones it's actually quite difficult to have the test make any sense.

 

[Bassmunnky]

POLY VS LAQUER

 

[GlennW]

This would be a wood tone test only. But I have been considering a bridge test...

I haven't read all the replies, but on a wood tone test I'd like to hear two clips with the only difference being the necks. That should give some audible results. Also add some more treble (or cut the bass) than on your previous test. Computer speakers with bassy bass can get muddy in a hurry. That might be why about 1/2 couldn't tell any difference in your last.

For the bridge test I'd suggest the Fender threaded saddle against any other bridge. I've tried a few Fender style bridges and never noticed anything until trying the threaded saddles.

Good luck with it, and I'm glad to see someone put more effort than keystrokes into it.

 

[fourstringbliss]

Ok, these wood tone tests have been fun, for the most part. It seems a handful of folks are taking things WAY too seriously and getting very fired up, for some odd reason. But I think for 95% of us, we can appreciate these tests for what they are, and can learn a bit from them.

Now, some people have been asking me to test woods with more drastic tonal differences, such as Mahogany vs. Maple. Well, I don't have a Mahogany bass to test. But I could test two P basses, one with an Alder body and ALL Rosewood neck, and the other with a Soft Maple body and all Maple neck. These 2 basses should be VERY different in tone, according to conventional thinking. The Alder/Rosewood should be very "warm" and the Maple/Maple should be very "snappy and bright".

But before I embark on recording samples, I'd like some input. It seems some folks are very nitpicky about tests like these, and they complain that my pasts experiments have been terribly flawed and are essentially useless. Other folks aren't as uptight, but have still requested various small changes be made to the methodology to improve things a bit.

So, here is your chance. Please post your thoughts on how this test should be conducted. But please keep it realistic!

For instance, what type of strings should be used? What styles of playing should be recorded? How many clips should I make? Also, I tend to prefer "real world" samples where the bass is a part of a mix, but what do you think? Etc.

(It may be a couple of weeks until I'm able to actually get this done, but I wanted to solicit everyone's guidance in advance)

What about swamp ash/maple vs alder/rosewood - all else being equal?