Inexpensive woods for warwick tone?

[Hopkins]

Well, I've already got you to concede that



to



So I'm guessing it's not just the vibration of the string that makes a difference in tone, the biggest influence on tone is how that string is manufactured, according to you, even though they are vibrating at the same exact primary frequency.

So your concession is noted.

Now, you might also be lead to believe that when you go to a Warmoth or Carvin website and they give an indication of the tonal qualities of the wood, they may have a point. Or when Ibanez makes their cheaper basses out of basswood, but their more expensive versions out of more exotic woods, it is for a reason. Or you might think that Roscoe, Xylem, Fodera, et al. choose their woods it has nothing to do with the tonal qualities of the wood but rather just making an expensive instrument more expensive.

So if you went from pickup placement and electronics are the most important part of tone to string manufacture is the most important part of tone, perhaps you might think about making another (albeit small) concession that the wood in the neck, fretboard, and body matters for tone.

Ok, man you got me, so let me clarify. Changing from a very bright stainless round, to a dead set of flats is the greatest change you can make to a bass that is already built. A drastic enough string change will make a larger difference than swapping pickups or preamps.

When building a bass, the decision of pickup placement is the biggest determining factor as to how the bass is going to sound. A two pickup bass with the bridge pickup as close to the bridge as you can get it, and the neck pickup about half way between the bridge and neck will be a far brighter sounding bass than one with the bridge pickup in the middle and the neck pickup as close to the neck as you can get it.

If you have paid any attention to my posts, I never denied the neck, and to a greater extent the fret board wood contributing to the tone slightly. Its the body wood that I don't think matters much.

Basswood, and other cheaper woods are used in cheap instruments because it is a cheap wood, especially when bought in bulk. That's not to say that expensive basses are not made of these woods. A MusicMan Bongo is not something I would consider cheap.

Boutique instruments like you have mentioned use exotic tops and backs because they are very nice to look at. Like JellinWellen mentioned, how much tonal advantage do you think a spalted top can make? As far as the tonewood theory goes, I think its all marketing, even if the manufacture believes it.

Anyway, thanks for trying to make me look like a dumbass

 

[Hopkins]

My suggestion, given the concession above, is that then one can (and might) extrapolate that the wood can be an important part of tone. Put another way: With the amplifier off and plugs in your ears, do you not feel the instrument vibrate when you pluck a string? Here's a bit of physics: if the instrument is vibrating, so are the pickups that "pick up" the vibrations of the string, which may affect the tone.

You are leaving out the fact that pickups are suspended under a piece of foam, or by springs and are actually in minimal contact with the body wood. How often do you play a solid body instrument without an amplifier? The acoustic tone of a solid body electric instrument is a moot point.

Simple physics.

It's as if you have an RF amplifier and a pick-up capacitor. If the capacitor is moving relative to the amplifier with a frequency that is equal to the amplifier frequency (either in or out of phase), it will dampen some signal and amplify others depending upon its phase difference. This difference might be affected by the response of the Hooke's Law constants (which can be a function of frequency) of the material that makes the capacitor move. It will do likewise with the overtones.

Fact is, a Tektronix spectrum analyzer worth a damn is worth about $60K and depending upon what you want more than that. Most boutique and major bass manufacturers may have access to such an instrument. I'd guess they might have done their homework to ensure that when one of their customers spends $4K on a bass, they are getting the highest quality tone that the manufacturer desires.

Small differences observed on a spectrum analyzer might prove there is a scientific difference between two body woods. But to properly test this, the same neck, hardware, electronics have to be moved from one body to the other. Then the setup, and pickup height would have to be set up within a few thousandths of inch from one body to the other. After all this, if the differences in tone cant be differentiated by the human ear, then the whole thing would be a waste of time.

 

[Joshua]

This is your friendly neighborhood moderator asking politely if everyone would turn down the snark a notch. I don't want to have to figure out "tone" on the internet, but if forced I will always err on the the side of caution.

 

[Hopkins]

This is your friendly neighborhood moderator asking politely if everyone would turn down the snark a notch. I don't want to have to figure out "tone" on the internet, but if forced I will always err on the the side of caution.

Sorry man, my fault

 

[M0ses]

I don't want to have to figure out "tone" on the internet,

I see what you did there and I LIKE IT A LOT.