Make YOUR own "bass tone" pie chart!

[organworthyplayer337]

This thread is not going well for the OP.

You can say that again

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

Right, and when we're done with that, we do a pie chart to determine who the best candidate is.
Too much subjectivity for either chart.

 

[organworthyplayer337]

I changed the OP, have fun.

I'm done hahaha

 

[Groove Doctor]

Here's 15 very funny pie charts. #3 and #11 are awesome.

Invalid Link Removed

 

[eyeballkid]

It always astonishes me that neck material and construction are usually ignored. Body and fretboard are insignificant factors compared to the neck. It's a thin, highly stressed part of the structure and inevitably its resonance colours the tone of a bass.

Im not ignoring it at all. It makes a difference, especially in construction, but after playing hundred of basses I've found that, build quality being equal and good, that the fretboard wood is far less noticeable in its character to tone than strings and especially your choice of cabs.
If "neck build quality" was a factor then it would be much bigger slice of pie, but I made that chart with the assumption of good build quality somewhere on the American Fender/ Ernie Ball level. I gave body wood a bit more, not because I believe in "tone woods" per se, but because the suitability of certain individual slabs of wood really seems to matter to how lively or dead a bass sounds.

Ps... im not attached to the points of my chart. It's a 1am thought experiment I put out as a suggestion.

 

[Doner Designs]

Considering the tone of i.e. a Precision bass (Your Bass);

1. Pickup/Pickup Position
2. Bridge
3. Body Wood
4. Fretboard Wood
5. Electronics [pots, caps etc]
6. Strings
7. TECHNIQUE

In a percentage, how much does, lets say; the bridge contribute to the basses overall sound?

Also what other component should be added/included?

Of course it's not an exact science but you can estimate with a percentage

Create a Pie Chart, Free . Customize, download and easily share. Just enter the amounts, pick some colors/fonts, and we'll take it from there!

Make your own personal chart, and post it (you can just type it out and post it here if you want)

*Edited

I like the question. I'll skip the pie but rank them and am skipping technique because it is not part of the bass. Looks like you dropped amp and cab, probably for similar reasons. For electronics, I assume you mean passive. Tone controls, whether on the bass or on the amp, can change your tone more than almost anything though it does not necessarily sound good or natural.

EDITED....

1. 30% Strings
2. 30% Pickups (kind and placement)
3. 20% Electronics (series/parallel/single, cap values, etc)
4. 10% Neck wood (not listed, probably because you assume it will always be maple)
5. 5% Fingerboard wood
6. 5% Body wood

Technique, amp, cabs, EQ and effects sit on top of all these. I'm only ranking what a bass builder can control.

 

[SteveCS]

You can say that again

Actually I think it could be going a lot worse - ! But the discussion has been, by and large, civilised and informative.There are so many factors affecting the inherent 'tone' that it can never be modelled on a simple Pie chart.

I like the question. I'll skip the pie but rank them and am skipping technique because it is not part of the bass. Looks like you dropped amp and cab, probably for similar reasons. For electronics, I assume you mean passive. Tone controls, whether on the bass or on the amp, can change your tone more than almost anything though it does not necessarily sound good or natural.

1. 45% Strings
2. 35% Pickups
3. 10% Neck wood (not listed, probably because you assume it will always be maple)
4. 5% Fingerboard wood
5. 4% Body wood
6. 1% Passive electronics

Technique, amp, cabs, EQ and effects sit on top of all these. I'm only ranking what a bass builder can control.

C'mon Steve, you know better than to put passive electronics that low IME, pickup phase and series/parallel switching, volume pot values and settings and, in particular, tone cap values can really change the voice of an instrument, far more than any of the woods used.

 

[micahwc]

Let's see if I did this right

Highcharts export server

Apparently not...

Strings 40%
Pickups and electronics 25%
Technique 25%
Body wood 5%
Fretboard wood 5%

 

[Doner Designs]

Actually I think it could be going a lot worse - ! But the discussion has been, by and large, civilised and informative.There are so many factors affecting the inherent 'tone' that it can never be modelled on a simple Pie chart.

C'mon Steve, you know better than to put passive electronics that low IME, pickup phase and series/parallel switching, volume pot values and settings and, in particular, tone cap values can really change the voice of an instrument, far more than any of the woods used.

That's a great point. I was thinking too narrowly in terms of pot brands and values, ceramic vs orange drop and that sort of thing. You are totally right that coil splits, series/parallel, cap value changes, etc can have a major impact. I'll have to go back and edit. Been using active lately so I sort of forgot about that stuff.

 

[shoulderpet]

Im not ignoring it at all. It makes a difference, especially in construction, but after playing hundred of basses I've found that, build quality being equal and good, that the fretboard wood is far less noticeable in its character to tone than strings and especially your choice of cabs.
If "neck build quality" was a factor then it would be much bigger slice of pie, but I made that chart with the assumption of good build quality somewhere on the American Fender/ Ernie Ball level. I gave body wood a bit more, not because I believe in "tone woods" per se, but because the suitability of certain individual slabs of wood really seems to matter to how lively or dead a bass sounds.

Ps... im not attached to the points of my chart. It's a 1am thought experiment I put out as a suggestion.

I have no idea why body/neck/fingerboard wood and solid/hollow body makes so much of a difference but they do seem to make a noticeable difference.

To explain my point (and please forgive my over simplified explanation) a conventional bass pickup uses magnets to sense the string vibrations and send this signal to the amplifier.
As the pickups work using a magnetic field and not as a microphone then surely they would only be picking up the sound from the strings vibrating above them within the magnetic field of the pickup and not any vibrations or influences from the body/neck wood, therefore any vibrations that run through the body and any coloration of the tone due to the body/neck woods would be negligible at best.

I know this seems not to be the case and my reasoning is probably flawed but I would love to hear an explanation for this

 

[M.R. Ogle]

The vibration of the strings (which provide 100% of the available frequencies) are "damped" by stretching them on a wood structure.Some frequencies are attenuated, some are completely lost.
The pickups and electronics can only "transduce" those frequencies that are remaining.

 

[shoulderpet]

The vibration of the strings (which provide 100% of the available frequencies) are "damped" by stretching them on a wood structure.Some frequencies are attenuated, some are completely lost.
The pickups and electronics can only "transduce" those frequencies that are remaining.

Thats an excellent explanation, thank you for that

 

[two fingers]

This is not to start arguments, which I'm sure it will but that is not my intention;

So if technique is the biggest factor (not saying it's not A factor) in the basses overall sound, why do we have so many basses available? They sound different, right? If technique alone could make a Precision sound just like a Stingray or a Jazz, we wouldnt buy anything besides a P.

I'm just interested in others opinions on this, again my intent is not to start anything.

Honestly, although I am glad we have lots of choices, I think we spend waaaaaaay to much time, money, energy and creativity on bridges, pickups, preamps, tone woods etc. If we all spent as much time honing our techniques as we do shopping for whatever will make our basses "sound better" the whole bass community as a whole would be at the next level.

Plus, again, it will be different for everyone even if you take the player out. Why? Some guys dime their passive volume and tone knobs and tweek on their amps. For those guys strings and amps will have more of an impact. Some guys run a straight DI and use very complex onboard preamps to tweak their tone. For those guys electronics will have a much bigger impact. Some guys use a pedal chain as long as my driveway. You could hand those guys 100 basses and notice virtually no difference in tone because it's all in the pedals.

No matter what aspect of bass tone you want to talk about.....

There.
Is.
No.
One.
Pie.
Chart.
Period.
End.
Of.
Story.






Seriously...

It doesn't work. No matter what chart you come up with 80% of bassists will weigh in and tell you how it doesn't apply to them or how breath isn't their experience/opinion at all.

 

[MCS4]

Setting aside the effect of the amp and the player, I would rank them roughly in this order:

Pickups (kind and placement)
Strings
Neck construction
Electronics (unless you are specifically using a tone-enhancing preamp)
Body wood
Neck and fingerboard wood (unless fretless)

Edit: Am I missing something as to why so many folks keep telling the OP that there will never be a consensus or that there isn't only one chart that is right? The OP specifically asked everyone to make their own "personal chart" reflecting their own beliefs.

 

[DwaynieAD]

33% strings
33% pickup
33% everything else

 

[TwentyHz]

I'm assuming conventional construction using popular materials, etc., trying to hold all other variables constant. If the body was made out of a pizza crust, of course, it would have a big impact, as would a bridge made of a doughnut.

But more importantly, I think the biggest impact is our perception. My buddies and I joke all the time about what we assert are elusive Tone Gremlins. Seems like we can set equipment at the exact same settings in the exact same room, barometric pressure, what have you.... and some days, our ears just prefer things differently. Yesterday's sweet juicy inspired tone spot can be today's frustrating swamp of boring mush.

 

[LanOsb133]

So, you are saying that if I play my bass, my 4 year old kid plays my bass, and Victor Wooden plays my bass all without touching a knob or switch we will all sound the same plucking a note? Ridiculous.

Again, a guy who has played with me for 20 years, and a total tone snob, ruins any new gear for me. Why? Because I will show up with a new bass or a new amp and ask him how it sounds. His answer is always "Man, it always sound exactly like you playing bass". His point is that my fingers are so much a part of my sound that it almost doesn't matter what I play.

And to prove that point an engineer played back two tracks for me once and asked which one I prefer. I said "They both sound the same to me". He said "Yeah no kidn. That's my point." When I asked why he was making such a big deal out of it he explained that one track was recorded with a 5 string standard passive P bass. The other was recorded with an active Ibanez BTB with Barts. One bass is alder (8 pounds) and a one piece maple neck and one passive pickup. One is mahogany with a 5 piece laminated neck, two truss rods, active Barts and weighs almost 12 pounds. And without the labeling we couldn't tell the difference in the two tracks.

What does that do to a "bass tone Puerto chart"?

The notion that you would have the same tone as Marcus Miller, Flea, Jamerson, Wooten, Sheehan, Hamm, or Squire on the same exact bass with the tone knobs set the same is nothing short of laughable. The player makes all the difference. Attack, where you pluck, how you move the string (pick, thumb, index finger, any other finger, tap), how hard you play, and even how calloused your fingers are will all have a huge impact on tone.

Try this. Go out and buy a Sire bass and whatever amp Miller happens to be advertising for this week and see if you sound like him. By the same token, he has changed amp companies half a dozen times and changed basses several times. And guess what. It always sounds exactly like Marcus Miller playing the bass. He could play a Sadowsky through an SWR or a vintage 70s J through an EBS and it still sounds exactly like him.

Sorry for the rant. But that whole bit about the player not giving a bass its unique sound set me off a little. Why do we bother with all of this if it isn't the player? If it weren't the player, anybody could do it.

Sorry to burst your bubble but you clearly haven't read what I wrote. The PLAYER has a sound to his own. A sound that is NOT included in the BASSES sound. You seem to think Player and bass are synonymous, they are NOT. The BASS has its own sound, that sounds different in every persons hands, but the BASS ITSELF has its own unique sound qualities that other identical make/model/year basses would not have. So no, I'm clearly not saying and HAVE NEVER said that every person playing the same bass will sound the same, I'm saying (If you bothered to read) that the BASS itself has its own sound and voice, and the players way of playing the bass shouldn't be a factor as to the actual basses sound.

 

[DwaynieAD]

If the body was made out of a pizza crust, of course, it would have a big impact, as would a bridge made of a doughnut.

I want the bass you're building.

 

[mark beem]

Tone:

 

[Rib 13]

Tequila: 10%
Tip Jar: 40%
Hotties at the Gig: 50%