All I know about resonance (which is virtually nothing) I learned from this:
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OK TB, define "resonance" in a bass.
- Thread starter darwin-bass
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The view of an Acoustical Physicist - I studied the Acoustics of musical instruments (precisely what we are talking about here) in college.Pardon me?I think that scientifically, resonance is exactly the opposite. For instance, I think about resonance when I read people using the "mwah" term.
Resonance - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Basses have several types of resonances going on. A resonance is a situation where there is energy in a vibrating system, and it lasts for more than one cycle at a certain frequency - that means there is energy going back and forth between two forms.
In a string, there is kinetic energy (when a string is moving), and there is potential energy - when a string is at it's maximum excursion ,and stops for an instant in time, the string is stopped, but as it's displaced from it's rest position (it's stretched a bit) the energy is stored at that instant. A bit later, its moving again - the energy is going back and forth between kinetic energy and potential energy.
The neck on your bass does the same thing - you don't pluck it, but some of the energy in the string goes into the neck and body (more goes into the neck as it's less massive and less stiff). It vibrates back and forth, and just like the string it exchanges potential energy and kinetic energy.
The neck on your bass has multiple resonances - just like a string where you can play harmonics (resonances at multiple notes) a neck does a very similar thing - at varying points on the neck, there are places where it moves easily at various resonant frequencies, and places where it doesn't move easily. The places where it moves easily are called antinodes. When a string is vibrating at one of the neck's resonant frequencies, if the fret for that note on that string is at an antinode, you get reduced sustain - a "dead spot" if it's bad. When that happens, the string wants to resonate, but it's losing energy into the neck quickly, because the neck is easy to move at that point at that frequency. There are lot of conjectures on TB about how dead spots arise - this is the (well known) Physics behind that phenomenon.
Sustain is accomplished in this physical system by keeping energy in the string. When you read someone talk about how a bridge "couples energy into the body effectively", their understanding of the system is completely backwards - anything that couples energy from the string anywhere else will kill sustain, not enhance it.
Your pickups and the cable (and any other capacitance in the circuit) they are attached to also resonate. In that system, the energy goes between being stored in an electrical field in the capacitor to being stored in a magnetic field in the pole pieces of the pickup - just like in the physical resonator, energy is going back and forth. If you put enough resistance in that circuit, you damp that resonance, so it rings for a shorter time.
If you make yourself a bass with a roasted neck and a roasted body (the neck is more important), you will notice that it "rings". Roasting wood crystallizes resins (which are mechanical resistances), so the mechanical system of a bass with roasted wood (which doesn't have those resistances damping it) resonate longer than one with regular wood. Yes, you can hear this in the output of the bass - it is most obvious if you tap/strike the back of the neck. Pickups do not respond to just the vibrations of the string - they respond to the relative motions between the body (where the pickup is attached) and the string - if the body is moving (it is*) that movement changes the distance between the body and the string, so motions of the body are, without a doubt, heard by the pickups.
* Proof that the wood in your bass is moving is easy to show - a contact tuner (snark, etc) will work pretty much anywhere on a solid bodied instrument - as those tuners work by sensing vibrations of what they are attached to, you can easily demonstrate to yourself that the wood in your instrument is vibrating.
Mwah is not from resonance - mwah happens because the end condition of the string where your finger is is different - it buzzes a bit on every cycle, generating harmonics that last because they are being created by a mechanism that is stealing energy from the string's vibration - you lose sustain on the fundamental, but you simultaneously create some ongoing harmonics with some of that energy .
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People abbreviate lots of stuff - resonance might be better understood [in this context] under its full title of "Sympathetic Resonance".
I could also be wrong - won't be the first time, nor the last.
I could also be wrong - won't be the first time, nor the last.
Resonance is the tone in between punch and mojo…
But if I had to posit seriously I'd say that a bass is resonant if the most prominent character when plucked is the pure note/ pitch ringing clearly to the ear. As opposed to timbral characteristics.
But if I had to posit seriously I'd say that a bass is resonant if the most prominent character when plucked is the pure note/ pitch ringing clearly to the ear. As opposed to timbral characteristics.
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Every time you pluck a note on your bass, resonance of the string is what keeps it ringing. The resonant frequency(-ies) of that mass per length, at that tension, at that effective length, gives the pitch of that note.
However, the bass itself also resonates, and it can and will enhance and reduce certain frequencies of the strings vibration by constructive or destructive interference (not sure what the correct terms are in english, non-native speaker here).
A "resonant" bass is simply an instrument that has a mass, stiffness, damping properties and dimensions that enhance and/or reduce frequencies that makes it sound and play nice. Which is not the same for every player.
However, the bass itself also resonates, and it can and will enhance and reduce certain frequencies of the strings vibration by constructive or destructive interference (not sure what the correct terms are in english, non-native speaker here).
A "resonant" bass is simply an instrument that has a mass, stiffness, damping properties and dimensions that enhance and/or reduce frequencies that makes it sound and play nice. Which is not the same for every player.
It's how the strings makes the bass as a whole vibrate and those vibrations "reflecting" back to the strings, affecting and in large determining the overall tone, timber and sustain of the instrument.
This is also why construction design and wood, or whatever material the bass might be made of, actually matters.
This is also why construction design and wood, or whatever material the bass might be made of, actually matters.
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Probably not the answer anyone here is looking for, but I'm looking for an instrument that sounds great plugged in, and makes me want to play it. I'm also looking for a bass that acoustically (and electrically) plays and uh... "resonates" acoustically as a felt thing equally-as-possible across the range of the instrument, with minimal or no dead spots.
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What does resonance "sound like"??? I thought "resonance" was a FEELING. When your clothes washer "resonates" because the load of the small rug versus your gym clothes means the drum spinning with uneven weight distribution WILL produce a FEELING. A "resonance", but is that really a "sound"???
Anyway, whether a bass has "resonance" or not, and however someone would define it, I go back to the things I want in an instrument, and ask if the boxes are checked on the things I want (great amplified sound, inspiring to play, acoustically even) what difference does resonance make, or does it matter, or why how much of it the bass has, should matter as to whether its a good instrument with desirable qualities?
"The instrument is light and resonant and feels 'alive' and like every molecule gets put into the sound" VERSUS "The instrument is heavy and solid and every vibration goes into the moving string, as those frequencies aren't absorbed by the body. It all gets transmitted to the string and the sound" Etc...
Whatever.
Regardless of the entrenched opinion of heavy versus light, and other related arguments, give me an instrument that checks MY boxes, and not what impresses or comports with what others like, and in the words of Jaco Pastorius: "Gimme a gig, you know?" Not much-navel gazing with that guy, and I think a perspective that's still valuable- perhaps more now than it ever was before.
All I know of my fretless StingRay 5 seems to "sing" with most notes, but noticeably less with others on the D string around the 10th fret slightly on the G string at the 7th.
I am by no means an expert, and you have already had an expert chime in, but when I think of an instrument with resonance, I think of instruments with a natural, built-in, reverb. Like a piano with its soundboard, or an acoustic guitar with its sound chamber. In my opinion, a solid body electric bass guitar, does not have it.
All the materials that a bass is made of, as @micguy says, will work together to make the sound of the instrument. A group of parts where, for better or worse, every part has an effect on every other part. Basses that are made of materials that interact well produce a better sound.
