Lets talk about finger board woods...

[JW56789]

Aside from the random piece of wood that will never grow up and behave, I think the builders will choose smartly from what's available. Companies that build thousands will certainly be careful vis-à-vis warranty costs and bad press, and individual builders even more so as they don't have volume and accessory sales as a pad against when 'good basses go bad'.

Personally, while I know that harder woods for fingerboards tend to boost a little high-end zing or even add a bit of shrillness in a few cases, I prefer them as 'extra insurance' when it comes to truss rod issues and setup.

 

[mikewalker]

Our shop was using Jatoba and Chechen (Metopium brownei) for fretboards ( sometimes even neck lams!) a dozen years ago. There's lots and lots of great woods out there, you just need to choose the right cuts, properly seasoned...

 

[Blaze Barlow]

I just posted about the odd choice of finger board wood on my new Ibby Mikro, Jatoba. It's apparently a harder wood than Rosewood and it's obviously better available for manufacturing. Which brings me to the point of this post. Does anyone know what moving away from traditional woods used will do to the sounds/feel/durability we are all used to? I'm seeing a few out there now that seem like a odd choice, like Pau Ferro, so this may end up being the norm now that Rosewood is starting to vanish from production. Thoughts?

.............................this............

 

[Rev. Cornelius]

a string is a simple spring and, for instrument purposes, will follow Hooke's Law, where the amount of vibration is proportional to the force of your pluck.

Sorry, but someone has to say it. Wasn't James Jamerson the author of Hooke's law?

 

[Nephilymbass]

I just posted about the odd choice of finger board wood on my new Ibby Mikro, Jatoba. It's apparently a harder wood than Rosewood and it's obviously better available for manufacturing. Which brings me to the point of this post. Does anyone know what moving away from traditional woods used will do to the sounds/feel/durability we are all used to? I'm seeing a few out there now that seem like a odd choice, like Pau Ferro, so this may end up being the norm now that Rosewood is starting to vanish from production. Thoughts?

I just posted about the odd choice of finger board wood on my new Ibby Mikro, Jatoba. It's apparently a harder wood than Rosewood and it's obviously better available for manufacturing. Which brings me to the point of this post. Does anyone know what moving away from traditional woods used will do to the sounds/feel/durability we are all used to? I'm seeing a few out there now that seem like a odd choice, like Pau Ferro, so this may end up being the norm now that Rosewood is starting to vanish from production. Thoughts?

I’ve had basses with several different types of fingerboard wood. Ebony, rosewood, maple, even Purple Heart. I’ve gone back to my roots. Back in the 90s I had a couple all maple neck basses and lately that’s what I’ve been more drawn to so the rosewood thing doesn’t really bother me. In fact I’d be totally fine if companies like fender only used maple necks for their fretted basses, I do like ebony board fretless though. I don’t think my preferring maple lately has anything to do with the new trends. It’s just a coincidence that my taste changed after a decade or so of playing darker fingerboards around the same time rosewood is disappearing

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I don’t think fingerboard wood makes much difference on a fretted bass, the strings never touch it. Fretless is another story, the harder the surface, the more “mwah” kind of “blooms”. The new synthetic rosewood and Ebano boards look interesting, nearly impossible to distinguish from real wood, and more stable.

 

[MotorCityMinion]

I've had a few Modulus basses with phenolic boards -- decent and bulletproof... but it's just not wood, which is what I like.

Same here. I have a Modulus Bassstar neck on a PJ body. Straight, great action, plays well, but it just feels so life less. It's my most reliable instrument but not my first choice.

 

[groooooove]

there are so many great choices. only a few are "steeped in tradition."

I don't mind never owning another rosewood board again - I don't dislike it, but when you can have wenge or purple heart, who cares about rosewood anymore..

 

[chadds]

I recently commissioned a build and got to hand pick my wood. I looked at rosewood, but what struck my eye was a piece of quartersawn wenge for the neck. When I asked the guy doing the build about wood, he told me that he hasn't seen the wood make a tremendous difference in a solid body electric. In fact, he said you can use the same type wood and depending on the source of the wood it will be different. His advice, pick the wood that was the most appealing and that wasn't too heavy.

I know this is sacrilege to the "tone wood" folks. But we sat and discussed that some electric instruments used to be made of pine or even plywood, and they sounded great. Some very famous instruments weren't even made of wood...old Dano basses were masonite. Dan Armstrong used to build them out of acrylic. Some instruments have had formica tops.

I do believe quality materials make a big difference, but I feel that quality bridges, strings, pickups, preamps, signal path, amp/DI, cabinet and/or PA, and the room have a bigger influence on tone than any wood you build your bass out of.

My bass will have African mahogany body with three vaneers on the top (rosewood, wenge, and figured maple). The neck will be a laminate of birdseye maple, rosewood, wenge, and purpleheart. The fingerboard will be wenge. But the most important parts, to me, are the frets, nut, bridge, preamp, and pickups.

Notice that the builder said, “you can use the same type wood and depending on the source of the wood it will be different.”

 

[CapnSev]

Do you think how the wood feels (we don't believe there is a substitute for the sponginess of rosewood) and looks might be more important to the player than the difference in tone?

All the ingredients count in a submarine sando right???....same for guitars.

Nice sandwich analogy. I think that hits the nail on the head.

And yes, for me at least, feel trumps tone 99% of the time. I can manipulate tone pretty extensively with eq, strings, pickups, playing style, amps, etc. An instrument’s feel can only be doctored up so much. I think some woods feel better under the hand than others.

Then again, I’m a tone wood believer too, so start the bonfire and lash me to the stake, because here we go again for the billionth time...

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Of your 3 choices:
sounds/feel/durability
no/no/yes

Consider the physics involved, do you really think tone is affected and transferred through a metal fret?
On a fretless I would change my answer to:
maybe/maybe/yes

Dirk

 

[Turnaround]

When I fret a note, the string does not even touch the fretboard. My finger certainly doesn’t. I don’t think fretboard wood has much effect on the sound of the bass.

The string touches the fret. The fret touches the fretboard. The vibrations get transferred and that affects how the string continues to vibrate. The altered string vibration is sensed by the pickups. That's how the fingerboard wood affects the sound of the bass.

 

[Turnaround]

Personally, while I know that harder woods for fingerboards tend to boost a little high-end zing or even add a bit of shrillness in a few cases, I prefer them as 'extra insurance' when it comes to truss rod issues and setup.

Hardness does not insure stability, so I wouldn't rely on a wood's hardness as a measure of "insurance" when it comes to setup.

 

[roller]

Same here. I have a Modulus Bassstar neck on a PJ body. Straight, great action, plays well, but it just feels so life less. It's my most reliable instrument but not my first choice.

I couldn't sum up my opinion of Modulus any better than how MotorCityMinion put it.

I loved loved LOVED my Bassstar neck... slim and just a joy to play, despite it being nearly 40 years old and one of Modulus' first designs. I enjoyed it way more than the necks on my Quantum or VJ basses... but it was also not the first bass I reached for.

 

[bearfoot]

Ziricote is gorgeous, btw. I just used it on a bass uke project. I don't know how heavy it would be at 34" scale , but beauty-wise, I'd place it a notch above rosewood.

 

[roller]

Stainless steel frets affect the tone and feel of a neck vs. nickel frets. In my hands, they feel different... not better, not worse... just different. And yes, I do believe they brighten the overall tone a smidge... but not nearly to the degree that many have claimed. YMMV.

 

[chadhargis]

Notice that the builder said, “you can use the same type wood and depending on the source of the wood it will be different.”

I think he was referring more to weight and appearance. You can get a heavy piece of maple, or a more figured piece...even though it's the same type wood. You can't guarantee results by choosing a specific type of wood...you really need to feel and touch it. That's why it was important to me to pick a local builder who will let me swing by and rummage through the wood pile.

If I had to order one online and couldn't do that. I'd just stick with the standard alder or ash body, maple top, rosewood fingerboard, and maple neck. That's always a safe bet. It will give you a nice classic look.

But grabbing a piece of wood, seeing its beauty, feeling the grain, feeling the weight....that's a different thing. I'd grab a piece and say, "Ooooohh would this work for the fingerboard" and my builder would say, "Anything will work...just pick what you like". So I did, and I'll have a bass that doesn't look like any other. It will be mine, made for me, to my specifications. Preamp, pickups, strings, EQ, effects, amp, cabinet, PA, etc....will all impact my tone way more than rosewood vs wenge.

 

[chadds]

Yeah. I didn’t want to go there for the deceased equine flogging.

Everything matters. To a greater or lesser degree. Some of us use amps that are so colored that nothing much about the bass matters. Others use gear where the opposite appears way more prominently.

My choice of basses leans toward the stiff but with great acoustic properties. This can be a $340 ‘51 reissue or a bouteeqee. One of my basses rattles the strap locks when I’m sitting and the strap is slack.

Beliefs get in the way so we are sure what we see or hear. Even when science says otherwise.

I will end this argument once and for all when I create a bass made only of Tort P-bass pickguards. Then the evidence will show that that’s tone. SVT? Phhhhhffft! Maple bridge, bone volume knobs, painted headstock, passive or active nitro lacquer? Strings? You’re kidding right? None but the mighty Tort delivers.

 

[JIO]

I'll have a crack. Hooray!

The magnets? Nope. The wood has no impacts, unless there are buried nails or other magnetic material lurking, but even then the induced currents go nowhere, so you might as well call it zero impact.

The vibrations? Now that is a different story. But you get that, right? Alloy necks, super-high mass bodies (like concrete), the bridge mounting, the way the neck is joined to the body, the same for the tuners. And then there is the nut. Physics-wise, a string is a simple spring and, for instrument purposes, will follow Hooke's Law, where the amount of vibration is proportional to the force of your pluck. All of those little things mentioned, like the neck join, will cause the oscillations to decay, as will energy losses from the string material (and air resistance and so on). That's sustain. The stiffer the structure, the longer the sustain. The more mass in the string, the longer the sustain. And the quality of vibrations is also impacted. Some materials will dampen some of the frequencies more than others.

So it is basically a complex system where all these small parts impact how the string wobbles, and thus what the magnets can get to work with. Not as complex as resonant wooden boxes, but also not completely straight forward. And all that doesn't mean you can't make a workable bass from a plastic fretboard attatched to a metal pole with some pickups attached. You can. But IMO it won't be very nice to play or look at...

Considering what has already been done over decades of bass guitar making (to isolate it solely to our instrument) the thing always left out of the discussion is why wood remains the material of choice to make a bass from. There has been graphite/carbon fiber basses, there has been bodies made of formed resin, and necks of aluminum. (and bodies too) But the overwhelming majority of basses are made of wood. The often stated appeal of wood is that it is user friendly - it's 'warm', 'natural', and visually appealing (grain patterns, colour, etc) It's also a weight that appeals to our sense of what a bass should 'feel' like. (depending on personal preference) Maybe a completely different material will eventually be utilized that will be 'the perfect material' for a bass. But I bet these wooden instruments will be even more coveted if that were to happen, and their players will sing the praises of wood for their sound/tone.

 

[graphics1988]

Considering what has already been done over decades of bass guitar making (to isolate it solely to our instrument) the thing always left out of the discussion is why wood remains the material of choice to make a bass from. There has been graphite/carbon fiber basses, there has been bodies made of formed resin, and necks of aluminum. (and bodies too) But the overwhelming majority of basses are made of wood. The often stated appeal of wood is that it is user friendly - it's 'warm', 'natural', and visually appealing (grain patterns, colour, etc) It's also a weight that appeals to our sense of what a bass should 'feel' like. (depending on personal preference) Maybe a completely different material will eventually be utilized that will be 'the perfect material' for a bass. But I bet these wooden instruments will be even more coveted if that were to happen, and their players will sing the praises of wood for their sound/tone.

That reminds me of a MARUSZCZYK bass i bought last year - super light, sounded great, but i still do not believe it was of pure wood - it felt cheap...almost like a cheap plastic that was molded to look like it had ash grains etc., When you tapped on it, it felt like a hollowed out piece of plastic - it was chambered obv, but ive tapped other chambered basses without that cheap feel. For that reason alone, i sold it. It didnt "feel" like a bass should....and who knows, maybe the MARUSZCZYK basses are good - i wouldnt know, i sold it very quick.