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How exactly does wood affect tone in electric basses?

#162
hoytbasses said:
to springboard off of John's post.... i , for one, was merely trying to entertain and add a little levity. My sincere apologies if anyone was offended.

having said that, I took a new all black walnut bass that I just finished to a 1000 seat jazz festival last night. Kent Armstrong Jazz pickups, quarter-sawn maple neck with Indian rosewood FB and bottom of the line GHS Bassics strings..... That bass cut like a knife! Oh yeah.... wood matters. It held it's own with a MTD that shared the bill with us......



wood definitely matters. it's just that you can't fully manipulate ALL the variables as predictably as we luthiers would like... but we can dial it in close.

enjoy your weekend, folks

kfh
Click to expand...
Hey Karl,

From the photos I've seen over the years, it always looks like you do a fair amount of shaping on your tops, rather than just slab-with-roundover. If I may ask,
- How thick are your tops? It looks like you make them thick enough to not expose the core wood, despite the carving.
- Is it just hand work with rasps and planes, or do you do any router "topography" first?
- Do you do the shaping purely by eye and hand, or do use patterns for the contour?

Thanks.
Pete
 
#163
nemo said:
Check samples here - same model of bass - all things equal, besides woods combinations:
Invalid Link Removed
Click to expand...

That's a really interesting link.......

However, I can't say that I hear ANY difference that couldn't be accounted for by minor changes in finger placement or attack on the strings. In fact, I can't say I hear any difference at all between most of the clips.

This is very reassuring. I can now say with a high degree of confidence that the wood used in the instrument makes absolutely no audible difference to me!
 
#164
Pilgrim said:
That's a really interesting link.......

However, I can't say that I hear ANY difference that couldn't be accounted for by minor changes in finger placement or attack on the strings. In fact, I can't say I hear any difference at all between most of the clips.

This is very reassuring. I can now say with a high degree of confidence that the wood used in the instrument makes absolutely no audible difference to me!
Click to expand...

Seriously? You might need better speakers or something. I can clearly hear a difference on the first set I listened to, which was the soloed bridge fingerstyle.

Agreed though, it's a good link. Much nicer to hear something more than opinion.

What would be interesting is to see the same type of test done with 2 seperate basses of each wood combo. That would be a better indicator of whether the differences are due mostly to the wood, or just the individual piece of wood the bass is made of, or the player's consistency.

Still, it's a big step in the right direction.
 
#165
Arx said:
Seriously? You might need better speakers or something. I can clearly hear a difference on the first set I listened to, which was the soloed bridge fingerstyle.

Agreed though, it's a good link. Much nicer to hear something more than opinion.

What would be interesting is to see the same type of test done with 2 seperate basses of each wood combo. That would be a better indicator of whether the differences are due mostly to the wood, or just the individual piece of wood the bass is made of, or the player's consistency.

Still, it's a big step in the right direction.
Click to expand...

I can definately hear a difference, too. Very interesting.
Here's another, maybe a bit too drastic comparison between a carbon and a wooden bass posted some time ago.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=398269
 
#167
Psychicpet said:
holy hell this is awesome.

i love it when we want so badly to prove something with instrumentation and scopes and probes.


different wood sounds different. obviously if different cuts of similar species sound different then it's not going to take NASA or MIT to prove that different species sound different.



sweet jebus this is awesome.
Click to expand...
Chrome sounds different than gold plating, they actually use different metals. Sadly not everyone can hear the difference between different metals.
 
#168
Rodent said:
guess it's hard for some to catch the subtle nuance between "exactly" and "any kind whatsoever" :D
Click to expand...
If you can only process in binary there is no difference.

No smoking in this thread! It's a fire hazard with all these strawmen.

Can someone who can hear these differences offer a way we can see them demonstrated? Can we post clips to be identified or do we just trust that if it's written on the internet it must be true?
 
#170
One possible extension of an answer to the OP that hasn't been brought up yet (and this is just me reasoning, I have no empirical data to back it up):
1. The body vibrates when you play.
2. Exactly HOW the body vibrates when you play, is a function of it's shape, material, and the nature of the other vibration that makes the body vibrate (i.e., that of the string).
3. The pickups are attached to the body.
The conclusion that I draw from this is, the string vibration that the pickup "sees" is a combination of that of the "pure" string, and that of the body. Now, given the vastly higher mass of the body as compared to the string, it's gonna vibrate at an amplitude that is magnitudes lower that the string. Still, the effect is there; whether it's audible is another question altogether.
 
#171
BobXboB said:
If you can only process in binary there is no difference.

No smoking in this thread! It's a fire hazard with all these strawmen.

Can someone who can hear these differences offer a way we can see them demonstrated? Can we post clips to be identified or do we just trust that if it's written on the internet it must be true?
Click to expand...

Well' if you listen to those clips linked, it should be a pretty clear difference. I'm not saying it's conclusive, as there's other explanations possible other than the wood, but it's a good start.

If you can't hear it, try with a good pair of headphones or something. Through your average set of computer speakers you're probably not going to be able to tell the difference.

running them through a fft should also reveal some differences in the frequency response.


BobXboB said:
Chrome sounds different than gold plating, they actually use different metals. Sadly not everyone can hear the difference between different metals.
Click to expand...

Oh, please... :rollno:
 
#172
DontFeedTheTrolls.jpg
 
#174
I used to think the wood had very little affect on the sound of a solid body electric bass until I got two similar basses with different body woods.

I have two Dingwall Afterburners – a 1 and a 2.

Admittedly, there some difference between the two:
The AB1 is a 6-string passive and the AB2 is a 5-string active. These basses have the same shape, the same strings, the same pickups (and pickup height) and when the AB2 is in passive mode, it is a fully passive bass.

When the settings are identical on these basses, they sound very different. The AB2, (walnut, bubinga and wenge) is much darker sounding with a heavier fundamental and higher output than the AB1. I have to make sure my amp's EQ is flat when I use the AB2. Any amount of boost quickly gets out of control even in passive mode.

The AB1 is made of alder, maple and wenge. I describe it as more "traditional" sounding. I don't need to be as careful with the amp settings for this bass.

These are two very different combinations of wood, so the difference in sound is quite dramatic. Now, if we're talking about the difference between alder and maple and ash, the difference is probably less noticeable. Probably even less if were just talking about different fret board woods.

My point is that the argument that wood makes a difference is not bogus. Wood does make a difference but in some cases the difference may be negligible.

Just my 2 cents for the original poster.

And now back to the nastiness...
 
#176
I see a lot of whining and trying to stifle the thread but for anyone that claims they can hear wood types, under what kind of situation can you do this? I'm hoping some one will have the clean testicles Wilser is looking for and be able to actually back up the tough guy talk with some kind of a demo. If I said I could fly it would be reasonable to ask me to get a few feet off the ground.

Basically can anyone go beyond just boasting and move into the real world?

So, who can hear what under what conditions and does any one have the guts to test it?
 
#177
mongo2 said:
Someone might be able to hear the difference between plating metals...if they were a beagle.

:D
Click to expand...

People here claim they can, there really is nothing on a bass that you can see that someone hasn't claimed makes a difference in tone. Glue is also a big tone changer for many and 3 piece bodies sound worse (or have less resonance ;) ) than a 2 piece body unless expensive tonewoods are used in the body then more pieces give more resonance and good tone and sustain. Any real expert can tell you that.

Funny how you rarely hear talks about how truss rods change tone.
 

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