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Pickguard affect tone?
- Thread starter LowEndJazz4Life
- Start date
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,636
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
We all know that you need the proper tone plastic to get the best tone. I prefer at least 3 ply but 5 ply is by far the best.
yeah, tokk my pickguard off and sounds like my bass has a bitmore breathing room, im seein if anyone else agrees or if its just a mental thing, bitch
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,636
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
having a vinyl pickguard attached to the front of your bass, is somewhat similar to lightly placing the palm of you hand on the face of it. IMO, it does make a difference, but not a huge one. the gold anodized aluminum ones sound almost like no pickguard, as do really old brittle ones.
you mean mental? cause the above posts confirmed what i was thinkin, and if you meant metal, i dont get it
I replaced a 3 ply guard on a P bass with one made of Rosewood. Looks great but I can not tell the difference.
It was just a spur of the moment kinda thing. I said metal and not mental for various reasons:
1) I do think what you described is a "mental" thing, as in subjective, your own perception, something you imagine.
2) I said "metal" because at a superficial level it sounds like a nonsensical question, of the type "what bass is best for metal?", as teh first response stated
3) It is not entirely non-sense, however, and most questions ever posed here are NOT non-sense... and we should never discourage people from asking anything that comes to mind.
A *metal* pickguard is, I presume, most likely to have an effect in the sound, whilst the usual plastic pickguard I doubt you could even measure any changes.
Even a metal pickguard may not have much of an effect. I owned a Jazz bass once and I installed a metal pickguard. I didn't notice a difference... but it helped me shield it, especialy the neck pickup cavity, so that was nice.
There are basses and guitars that have metal plates that are claimed to affect their sound. The most famous I suppose is the Telecaster. Not just the fact that the bridge pickup is mounted on a metal plate, but older models had another metal plate under the pickup. There's lots written about it... I haven't tested it personally, but it makes sense to me that it can affect the field around a pickup, and therefore the sound. Whether I can hear the difference or not... I am not that sure.
That's all I meant. I guess I was too succint
If there's a difference in your mind what you hear, then there you go. That's all that matters.
There's no difference in my mind what my ears hear. And the logical part of my brain tells me the pickguard is not bearing any load of the string tension nor providing any rattling resonances and therefore agrees with my ears.
There's no difference in my mind what my ears hear. And the logical part of my brain tells me the pickguard is not bearing any load of the string tension nor providing any rattling resonances and therefore agrees with my ears.
I remember on some guitar discussion boards I used to frequent that some guys thought that a Strat sounded like it did (quacky was how one guy discribed it) because the pickups were mounted to a large piece of plastic instead of to the wood and suspended over a large hole (the route underneath) and that the plastic would vibrate different than the wood would.
I took the pickguard of one of my Jazz basses for a while and thought it sounded different but it could have just been me.
BnB
I took the pickguard of one of my Jazz basses for a while and thought it sounded different but it could have just been me.
BnB
