Showdown said:
And... Harris was using flats long before he started using his signature strings, and he sounded the same, so... i don't think his strings are brighter than regular flats.
Again IMO.
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how bass parts affect your sound?
- Thread starter Son of Bovril
- Start date
And... Harris was using flats long before he started using his signature strings, and he sounded the same, so... i don't think his strings are brighter than regular flats.
Again IMO.
The Penguin said:Off to the personal attacksThanks for conceding
He didn't bring up "pretend science"...
Not that I want to be involved in that tangent
The Penguin said:
I stand corrected...he was obviously posting under your name too:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3404692&postcount=71
And what was "ironic" about my statement.... or did Basshole bring that up too?
I was willing to let your smarta$$ Western Union comment slide and not waste anymore of my time trying to have an mature conversation on the subject.
The point I was trying to make is that with an electric bass the electrical components have more effect on the sound than the neck/body woods. I'll continue to believe that until I have good reason to believe otherwise.
I don't know anyone who plays his or her bass with the peghead sticking against a wall. A C-clamp will produce similar results, as will increasing the size of the peghead.
I don't know anyone with little swinging ball on their bass.
Since the inertia has taken this thread downhill I'll say what I thought before:
I gotcher Western Union right here pal.
The point I was trying to make is that with an electric bass the electrical components have more effect on the sound than the neck/body woods. I'll continue to believe that until I have good reason to believe otherwise.
I don't know anyone who plays his or her bass with the peghead sticking against a wall. A C-clamp will produce similar results, as will increasing the size of the peghead.
I don't know anyone with little swinging ball on their bass.
Since the inertia has taken this thread downhill I'll say what I thought before:
I gotcher Western Union right here pal.
GlennW said:
Funny, I believe my very first post in this thread said that very same thing. I placed pickups ahead of body and neck woods. http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3402256#post3402256
Now...you agree that a C-clamp (which affects the mass) will change the sound, but different wood densities won't? Listen...whatever. You clearly have this all figured out (lol). And to think, all those fine luthiers wasting so much time choosing woods...they could have saved so much time just by checking with you first!!
I can see you're lightyears ahead of me in the knowledge of such matters.
Even though Penguin likes to refer to it as pretend science (talk about your personal attacks), I just love how you say that Inertia can't be transferred, and then I prove you dead wrong with something as simple as Newton's Cradle. I know you don't anything about swinging balls...sorry I had to bring it up.
Forgive me for trying to share some of my knowledge with others, boys. Clearly with so many intelligent people around here such as yourself, my involvement isn't needed.
Oh, and Penguin, Glenn...welcome to my ignore list.
I am far from being an expert in the technical aspects of how basses are built or what affects what, but I have been playing for a loooong time, have purchased dozens of basses through the years, currently have over 20 now, and from my personal experiences, I have discovered that the electronics (preamp and pickups) have by far the most influence over the bass sound than the type of wood. Although the wood does make a difference, I personally cannot really distinguish one from the other once that you are hearing the bass out of your amp. Some sound dark, or mellow or sustain more? Yeah whatever, maybe so, but I can't tell the difference. Slap in some different pickups and oh yeah, you hear the difference there. I haven't swapped much in the way of preamps (other than replacing a few flawed Carvin preamps) but certainly, obvious difference there too. One thing is for sure, although I prefer certain woods from a visual standpoint, I'd never pay a premium for ANY wood just for some kind of "sound" difference.
Ironic, dishonest, whatever. Posting you don't want to be involved in something and commenting on it at the same time is being involved in it.Brad Johnson said:And what was "ironic" about my statement.... or did Basshole bring that up too?
Irony is invisible in this threadBasshole said:I can see you're lightyears ahead of me in the knowledge of such matters.
(talk about your personal attacks)
Good, then stop sending me those stupid PM's whining about the heartbreak of being contradicted and what a victim you are.
If you're going to lock out everyone who doesn't praise you sufficiently it's going to be a quiet board pretty fast. 2 down in one thread alone?http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Snewton.htm
1.) strings
2.) preamp (if available, otherwise a passive tone knob)
3.) pickups
4.) nut/bridge
5.) body wood / neck stiffness
6.) neck wood
That's how I see it. The strings make the most difference in sound. The pre-amp has an active shaping circuit which is supposed to dramatically alter the sound. Pickups are important, bridge and nut (attachments to the body) are important. Body wood affects the resonance and sustain more then the tone, IMO.
2.) preamp (if available, otherwise a passive tone knob)
3.) pickups
4.) nut/bridge
5.) body wood / neck stiffness
6.) neck wood
That's how I see it. The strings make the most difference in sound. The pre-amp has an active shaping circuit which is supposed to dramatically alter the sound. Pickups are important, bridge and nut (attachments to the body) are important. Body wood affects the resonance and sustain more then the tone, IMO.
The Penguin said:
Read for comprehension. Here's what I said:
"Not that I want to be involved in that tangent
" I've said nothing about the tangent that you're on, only that YOU started with the pretend science comment in this thread, something you still deny.
What is my position on the actual subject?
That's right, you don't know because I didn't get involved with it.
Yes, I'm "involved" because I made a simple observation.
Yes, that's irony. It's also hamster... another word that doesn't fit the situation.
And speaking of dishonest... You accuse someone of bringing up what you clearly brought up yourself:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3404692&postcount=71
That's dishonest... thanks for the proof.
BassDudeSA said:
The standard body woods usually don't come at an upcharge. Many seem to think that's why people say there's a difference in wood... to charge more money. The differe3nce in price is typically becuase different woods have different prices. Ash, Alder, Maple and Mahogany don't sell for the same price.
Fuzzbass said:
Then why do Alder and Ash Jazzes sound different? Why do Alder Jazzes more easily achieved the rounder tone Jaco had (for SOME people anyway, including myself) than Ash ones? There doesn't seem to be a Jaco pickup out there.
They could recommend an Alder Fodera with a splittable Duncan not in the bridge position or an F Bass (to a beginner) but hey, they're beginners so why would anyone do that?
The simplest way to get in the ballpark is not some proof of anything other than being the simplest way to get in the ballpark. A more difficult or expensive way to do it is no less valid and it doesn't have to fall within your guidelines. I can get a killer Jaco vibe with my Zon in my avatar and it doesn't have Jazz or single coil pickups. I've also handed my bass to others and without touching any controls not hear the sound I was getting.
Must be the pickups
The most importrant aspect of the tone equation IMO is the nut behind the wheel. Change that nut and all bets are off. Some people can make almost any bass sound great. Conversely some can make almost any bass sound like crap.
Everything else after that is a variable. The most important aspect will be that which differentiates it from other basses like it. COULD be pickups, COULD be wood, COULD be strings, etc.
Basshole said:Funny, I believe my very first post in this thread said that very same thing. I placed pickups ahead of body and neck woods. http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3402256#post3402256
Now...you agree that a C-clamp (which affects the mass) will change the sound, but different wood densities won't? Listen...whatever. You clearly have this all figured out (lol). And to think, all those fine luthiers wasting so much time choosing woods...they could have saved so much time just by checking with you first!!
I can see you're lightyears ahead of me in the knowledge of such matters.
Even though Penguin likes to refer to it as pretend science (talk about your personal attacks), I just love how you say that Inertia can't be transferred, and then I prove you dead wrong with something as simple as Newton's Cradle. I know you don't anything about swinging balls...sorry I had to bring it up.
Forgive me for trying to share some of my knowledge with others, boys. Clearly with so many intelligent people around here such as yourself, my involvement isn't needed.
Oh, and Penguin, Glenn...welcome to my ignore list.
Ok I apologize to everyone but I can't let this slide.
Inertia is a bodies resistance to a change in it's state of motion.
All bodies are going to have an inertia. But the value of inertia for that body is going to always be the same as long as it's mass and shape don't change.
Newtons cradle shows the conservation of energy theory which states that energy can't be created or destroyed but only change from one form to another.
Each ball and string has an individual inertia but that does not change or get transfered. What does happpen is the change of energy from one form to another mainly potential to kinetic.
Again I apologise to everyone else for throwing rfuel on the fire.
Anyway all that being said. I wonder how wood effects the production of harmonics by the string. After all isn't it these harmonics the give the bass it's timbre.
First, my experience is that, due to the variable nature of wood, alder and ash Jazzes don't *always* sound different. We've had this argument before, so we can agree to disagree.Brad Johnson said:
Second: I've never said or even implied that wood doesn't make a difference in tone... only that it's importance is far, far less than pickups and electronics. In your example above, you're comparing an apple to an apple: J-basses. Pickups and electronics remain the same, so you're comparing wood versus wood.
To compare wood versus electronics, you need to compare apples and oranges, as I did. As I said, P-basses, J-basses, and Stingrays are essentially the same bass: solidbody bolt-on. The slight differences in shape and dimensions aren't a factor in tone. If we take a J-bass, remove the pickups and electronics, install a Stingray pickup in the correct location, and the Stingray preamp, then we now have a bass that looks like a J-bass but sounds like a Stingray. This is true regardless of whether the body is ash, alder, or poplar, or whether the fingerboard is maple, rosewood, morado.
So: if someone says "I want to sound like Jaco", people say "buy a J-bass". They don't say "Jaco's round tone came from alder, so it's OK to buy an alder P-bass".
theshadow2001 said:
To my recollection, there is something called "moving inertia" as well as static inertia, but perhaps inertia is the wrong term. I'm a bassist, not a scientist. Prefer the term vibrational energy? Potential? Whatever you care to call it the energy that is within a vibrating string passes via acoustic and physical coupling to the body and neck, via the bridge and nut. The more rigid the instrument, the less this is a factor. What remains, however, is the fact that the "tone" of the resonant body is what is removed from the overall tone of the string when this energy is transferred.
I am also a producer/engineer, and a car nut. In the other thread I gave an analogy to a Chevy valvespring. Now I'm going to give one to drums (it helps to have knowledge of many things, it's surprising sometimes how much carries over from one thing to another).
When tuning drums, I always tune the lower head either one semitone or so higher or lower. This accomplishes a number of things. First, it keeps you from having to tape the linen closet to the kit (something I abhor), or use gates to control over-ring, and second, it creates this wonderful pitch drop in the decay, almost like the old Simmons electronic drums tried to immitate (but exaggerated wildly).
What happens is, vibrational energy transfers from one head to the other and back contantly (via both acoustic and physical coupling), and as the vibrational energy flows back and forth, a bit is lost "in translation" all the time. This causes the drum to decay much more quickly than if the heads were tuned to the same pitch. In other words, the lower head (not struck) is coerced to vibrate more easily if its pitch matches the top head, but less easily if it differs. Someone who knows how to tune drums can use this to manipulate the drum's decay.
What is interesting is that it still does vibrate, though, even if tuned at a different pitch...BUT, it "costs" energy to do this "translation"...some of the vibrational energy is lost, and the drum decays more quickly, and has less sustain as a result.
When the neck or body of a bass resonates, it does the same thing. Its steals vibrational energy from the string, and the result is less sustain...just as in the case of the drum.
I view this vibrational energy as having "potential" to move things, therefore I called it inertia. It was my understanding that inertia was potential, either the potential to want to remain static, or to continue to move if moving, but I'm just as happy calling it "vibrational energy".
The fact remains that this energy or force can move from one body to another, just as in the case with Newtons Cradle (or as in a bass guitar and its strings)...but that just as the cradle demonstrates, the effect fades quickly as the energy is transferred back and forth. The balls quickly come to rest. One ball would swing alone back and forth for a much greater time. The transfer of energy makes the motion decay more quickly.
This is EXACTLY why a more rigid instrument has more sustain, and a resonant one has less. The sonic "fingerprint" of what the resonances remove (absorb if you will), however, is what gives character to the sound. This is how woods color the tone.
Pup's make a huge impact and I think the bridge does also. My son has a very similar bass to mine but with EMG JV pups/no active EQ and a BAII bridge. My bass (almost exactly like his) doesn't sound as good with a Hipshot B bridge and Bart's with Bart pre. True...it's all true and no he is not better than me....but he will be, I'll make sure of it.
Basshole said:
....except physics
I can see what your trying to say and it's true, how the body resonates with the string and their interaction must play a part in creating tone. The question really is how much of an effect does it have?
Enough to have a greater effect than pre-amp, technique, string choice? Enough to create an undoubtful difference in tone. That question I can't answer.
