I'm going to go with fretted and roundwound strings. Anything more would be a guess.
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I have a theory about maple fingerboards
- Thread starter jazzbass1967
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I'm going to go with fretted and roundwound strings. Anything more would be a guess.
turindev
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- Jul 1, 2005
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I make no claim that I can pick out a fb wood from a recording, but I am CERTAIN that I can very consistently tell the difference when I am playing the bass. There is a distinct character to the attack of the note that you hear on maple that is not there with RW. Do they feel different? Yes, but this is absolutely something I HEAR.
I've been playing for more than 20 years,
And it is there on everything from the
Cheapest Yamaha I ever owned to two ash/maple Sadowskys I had.
Does this translate to a mix? I don't know. Even if it did, it would easily buried. But, it's there. It's audible. It's consistent. And it drives me nuts. I have owned a bunch of maple fb basses and parted with everyone.
So much of this argument is very narrow. Can you hear it in a loud rock mix? Have you considered we don't all play rock? There are certain genres of music that expose the bass much more than others. The studio is much more revealing than the stage. You shouldn't make all presumptions from a rock band point of view.
I've been playing for more than 20 years,
And it is there on everything from the
Cheapest Yamaha I ever owned to two ash/maple Sadowskys I had.
Does this translate to a mix? I don't know. Even if it did, it would easily buried. But, it's there. It's audible. It's consistent. And it drives me nuts. I have owned a bunch of maple fb basses and parted with everyone.
So much of this argument is very narrow. Can you hear it in a loud rock mix? Have you considered we don't all play rock? There are certain genres of music that expose the bass much more than others. The studio is much more revealing than the stage. You shouldn't make all presumptions from a rock band point of view.
I agree with those points. I none of us could pick out a maple board bass in a loud rock mp3 mix, then so be it, but what's more important is how it sounds to you when you are playing it.
Jeez this might just be kicking the anthill at this point but I feel there is a small difference in sound between the two. More than tone, I physically feel a different response between the two. Maple definitely has a sharper and faster attack than rosewood. I feel that slapping on a male fingerboard is more rewarding because the strings slap back quicker with more snap. I have liked ebony and maple boards but never played a bass I cared for with a rosewood board.
Of course the difference is small. So is the difference between two body woods, two brands of roundwound strings, one pickup or two, high mass/low mass bridge, neck through /bolt on, single/double cutaway... All of these things affect tone in a small way that is arguable. If you play two basses with completely opposite specs you will feel and hear a substantial difference despite the amps and electronics. If not we would all just play a telecaster shaped P-bass with a one piece maple neck.
Of course the difference is small. So is the difference between two body woods, two brands of roundwound strings, one pickup or two, high mass/low mass bridge, neck through /bolt on, single/double cutaway... All of these things affect tone in a small way that is arguable. If you play two basses with completely opposite specs you will feel and hear a substantial difference despite the amps and electronics. If not we would all just play a telecaster shaped P-bass with a one piece maple neck.
Yes the frets ar embedded in the wood, but I think his point is the strings are not, and they don't as a rule, touch the wood at all, as they are isolated from the wood at all points (except for the nut) by metal. It's a variable that should be considered, IMO.
+1.
There are other factors that could change the sound between necks. Like, did the necks fit in the pocket exactly the same. Or was the nut cut the same. Or was the truss rod adjusted the same. These could affect the string height and/or the string position over the pickups which could affect tone.
Or, what about the guy's mood? Maybe he feels better about playing one neck over the other, causing him to attack the strings differently, which in turn can affect tone.
I'm surprised the two necks in the video clip sound so much the same, being that there are so many factors involved in just changing a neck.
those are good points but i can't see any of them making a bass sound more or less like a rosewood or maple board
The only way you could show that there is a noticeable difference other than a bunch of people claiming they can hear a difference (such testimony from people is always suspect and can be unreliable) would be to do an impartial and fairly complicated test.
You would need a specially constructed test bed, some kind of bass with a body constructed with some kind of relatively non vibrating material other than wood, with a simple electronics setup, perhaps one high fidelity pickup with no volume or tone control, with a neck that has a swappable fretboard. Then you woud need some kind of computerized device to play the thing so as to remove the human equation altogether, so you can be assured of absolute consistency sample to sample. Then after all that, each example would have to be recorded and played back in a blind A/B test, and the participants should be able to identify the different fretboard materials consitently and correctly. Until someone does such a test (or for that matter for body woods as well), there is no way to know for sure.
You would need a specially constructed test bed, some kind of bass with a body constructed with some kind of relatively non vibrating material other than wood, with a simple electronics setup, perhaps one high fidelity pickup with no volume or tone control, with a neck that has a swappable fretboard. Then you woud need some kind of computerized device to play the thing so as to remove the human equation altogether, so you can be assured of absolute consistency sample to sample. Then after all that, each example would have to be recorded and played back in a blind A/B test, and the participants should be able to identify the different fretboard materials consitently and correctly. Until someone does such a test (or for that matter for body woods as well), there is no way to know for sure.
Strings are metal and they vibrate, resonate and transmit musical frequencies. How is the metal used for frets, bridges and tuning pegs different in that way?
Are you saying the metal used for frets, bridges and tuning pegs are some how completely free of transmitting vibrations and resonance?
If there were such vibrational transmission thru the frets, etc. it would transmit vibrations TO the wood FROM the strings where they would be absorbed by the wood.
Use your finger and tap on the wood body of your bass. Try doing it in several diffrerent locations on the body.
Are any of the taps on the wood being captured and transmitted by the bass pickups?
- Feb 16, 2008
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yes.
i don't understand why people don't think that the particular way that a string vibrates on a bass is a result of every component on it, and the pickup just picks up those particular vibrations.
- Feb 16, 2008
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- John K Custom Basses
i can see what you're getting at, but IMO, that would not be an accurate way to determine it at all, since we aren't comparing basses with 'swappable' fingerboards, and the construction of one would be entirely different from a one piece maple neck and a maple neck with a capped rosewood board.
I agree with you here and you can hear my bass when I knock on the wood too (or the metal pickup cover too for that matter) I'm just saying that good wood is good wood for an electric instrument. I don't believe in an electric instrument that wood x combined with wood y will give you tone z every time and its possible to get it through other variables.
True enough, but it would still be a more accurate test than the usual claims that people always make when the say they can hear a difference. You need at least to do a blind test where the participants will not know ahead of time what each sample is supposed to be. You could probably lose the swappable n fretboard idea, it was just a thought. I still stand by the rest of my testing criteria. Again, it would be more accurate than a bunch of "apocryphal" stories (if I'm using that word correcly).
The real influence the body, neck, any other structural components and hardware have on the tone/timbre of an instrument is in how the strings energy is transmitted through them and then fedback to the vibrating string.
It's those effects on the vibrating string that the pickup transduces which has the most effect, not microphonic transduction of the vibrations of the wood itself.
It's those effects on the vibrating string that the pickup transduces which has the most effect, not microphonic transduction of the vibrations of the wood itself.
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