Modern Wood

[Marial]

For me, it's the buckey burl trend. To each their own, but buckeye burl is.... well, it's not something I would choose. It often has the strange distinction, at least to my eyes, of looking both diseased and synthetic.

Spalt is a different story, which just goes to show we're fickle creatures. I think spalted woods can be quite beautiful.

 

[itsalljustaride]

Spalting is technically the only thing that really qualifies as "rotted". Burled wood just comes from a different part of the tree (down near the base usually). The reason we qualify these as "imperfections", is mostly due to tastes from the furniture industry, but even there you'll find things like birdseye, burls, and such are used to great effect. If it requires a lot of epoxy, etc to hold the spalt and burls together and fill gaps it gets a bit weird to be using it, but even then it can still look great. Probably a pain for the luthier making it, but that's why you pay extra. An out-of-place knot or something is a bit weird, but even there this mainly comes from construction/furniture tastes. I've seen some guitars with a tasteful knot here and there in the body, and it looks ok.

 

[itsalljustaride]

For me, it's the buckey burl trend. To each their own, but buckeye burl is.... well, it's not something I would choose. It often has the strange distinction, at least to my eyes, of looking both diseased and synthetic.

Spalt is a different story, which just goes to show we're fickle creatures. I think spalted woods can be quite beautiful.

Buckeye burl has been described to me as looking like the bass has The Herp.

 

[DwaynieAD]

Fair enough. Maybe a wood such as poplar burl would be an example of one of the woods I'm thinking of.

well burl is a malady of the wood so you're not far off. I think they look pretty cool myself but prefer color on my basses most of the time.

 

[DwaynieAD]

I like my spalted maple....
View attachment 813856

see, I feel like that may have been what the OP was talking about because, to me, that looks like it would crumble if I touched it.

 

[Pudge Fish]

see, I feel like that may have been what the OP was talking about because, to me, that looks like it would crumble if I touched it.

That baby is rock solid! But redwood backing helps.

 

[BassHappy]

Basshappy
Do you have a build thread going on that? Want.

Hi Gilmour

Yeah, there is a build thread. They are hollow twins - a P and a J - pretty much identical except for body shape and the "F" holes in the P. Kind of my take on a Southwestern Native American approach with the turquoise inlays in the bridge and fingerboard, and on the knobs.

As I am known for - at times boring, long winded and tedious - but at least there are a lot of photos.



Build thread is here:

Taking the Plunge on Building Two Fender Hollows...

 

[tr4252]

Whatever anyone else likes or dislikes is OK with me.

Having said that, I like straight grained woods on the instruments I actually play, because a working instrument is a tool in my opinion, and I appreciate function more than appearance. Working with exotic woods is a pain in the neck because of all the different densities and grain directions, in my experience. The inconsistent grain has less structural integrity, too.

From a purely visual point of view, I think a lot of the exotics are beautiful works of art. I just can't be allowed to own one, as my tools tend to pick up nicks/dents/scratches in use.

Tom

 

[Robroy]

I'm not big on plain wood grain myself, but I just rack it up to this: Art is subjective.

I hate black cars too, though it is the "ultimate" car color for a lot of people. Every new car I've bought in the last few decades has been white. Even my FR-S - But only because I couldn't get it in bright orange.

However, I think if I was a serious six string jazz bassist, exotic wood would be a requirement.

 

[cnltb]

Well, this is what passes for science in the musical instrument industry.

It does?

 

[cnltb]

The size defines the loudness, but the pitch stays.

it does?

 

[cnltb]

You are entitled to your opinion.

Thank you.

 

[HoboCop]

I like wood basses, and I've seen lots of busier more interesting grains on them that I like as well. The ones I find particularly unattractive is when someone has mixed all kinds of different woods and grains all over the bass, the body, the fretboard, the pickup covers, the knobs... it's just too much.

 

[wmhill]

these kinda things??

 

[brianrost]

I can't help but wonder sometimes is how the DB guys view all this constant talk about woods, colors, image, hardware, etc.

The DB world cares just as much about wood, probably more so. The big divide there is plywood/laminate vs. carved wood.

Pretty much everyone agrees that laminates are a tonal compromise but there are instances of laminate bases that sound better than carved basses simply because it's a lousy carved bass (usually a cheap one). Most players who use plywood basses do so for reasons of cost or to a lesser extent durability. There are some genres like bluegrass and rockabilly where plywood is preferred because that's the sound that the music was built on but they are the exception. I will never be able to buy a $50,000 DB although I have played some (sweeeeeet ). I play two 1950s era laminates that are currently worth about $2000 each, which is cheap in DB land, but they have an ebony fingerboard, nut and tailpiece rather than rosewood or "ebonized" maple you might find on a modern laminate to keep the price down.

It might seem that the DB world is more conservative but keep in mind the DB has evolved over centuries while the BG is only 65 years old. Over time maple, spruce and ebony have proven themselves. In the world of $50,000 bows you can be sure that wood is of very high importance

 

[dfoehr]

If it was our instrument (I am an owner here at Fodera), I greatly apologize for the issue. That said, since October of 2009 (since I have been involved with the Company) we have had less than five instruments that required repairs due to this kind of uneven shrinkage, so while it does happen it is far from common. To put this in better perspective, we built and delivered over 500 instruments with some kind of burled top wood during the same time period.

The other thing is that once this issue has been fixed once it generally will not recur...

Kindest regards,

Jason

No need for apologies. I think I purchased the bass around 2004 to 2005-ish. I've owned 7 Foderas through the years and only had the issue on the one bass. That being said, the bass in question was a phenomenal bass (tone, playability, etc.)

 

[Roxbororob]

As cnltb said, different sized and shaped wood will sound different when hurled to the floor. The video implies that you can gain some knowledge of a species of wood's resonance from this silly exercise. Do this is a controlled manner with the same dimensioned chunks and you may be able to say something about those particular samples. Do enough replicates and you can make some claims about a typical piece of that type of wood.

Thank you.

Thanks you responses and not taking offense to my comments. Its true that Mr Fullmer could have taken the time to cut exact matching pieces and dropped them from the same height on the same spot of the floor (BTW saying "hurled to the floor" is pretty subjective). But I doubt that a scientific demonstration is important to him. This man makes his living building world class basses with his bare hands (did you see that semi hollow body fretless he made for Abraham Laboriel?). Im sure he is aware of wood block Xylophones.


Im confident that if you think about it, you would agree that even if the test was had better controls, the varied densities of the wood samples would still have yielded similar results. Let down your guard and enjoy the music.

Edit: I just watched the video again. Pay close attention to what he says between 2:15 and 3:10.

 

[BioWeapon]

The size defines the loudness, but the pitch stays.

It would seem that you've never played a xylophone with wooden keys - I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, honestly.
Wooden keys on a xylophone, or other wood percussion instruments, are all made of the same wood. Yet, they all produce a different pitch when struck, due to their differing sizes.
(I didn't read through the whole thread, so sorry if someone's already pointed this out)

 

[Robroy]

Regarding sound:

 

[Roxbororob]

It would seem that you've never played a xylophone with wooden keys - I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, honestly.
Wooden keys on a xylophone, or other wood percussion instruments, are all made of the same wood. Yet, they all produce a different pitch when struck, due to their differing sizes.
(I didn't read through the whole thread, so sorry if someone's already pointed this out)

See post 97 (just before yours)