Ed;
We Engineers/Luthiers do get this. It may be an electric bass, but the pickup and electronics are only one part of how it creates its sound. We understand how the frame of a bass vibrates, and how that vibration affects the sound on the strings, through the pickup, and out to the amp. We deliberately work with different structural designs, woods, and internal reinforcements to adjust the overall sound of our basses. The mechanical side is not voodoo or unquantifiable magic. How it works is basic physics and engineering. It's not a mystery to us.
Working with the frame of a bass is a tricky problem, because there are many, many variables involved. So it's really difficult to accurately predict the sound by normal engineering calculation methods. We aren't big companies with giant R & D budgets. We aren't going waste our time doing a laboratory test and writing a paper to prove that every single design element we come up with works. We develop our designs by experimentation; lots of building basses and testing and keeping notes. We know what works and doesn't work and how it works by hearing it with our own ears in our shops. Our proof is handing players a finished bass and getting their opinion of how it sounds. That is the real test of our work.
Now, it's the nature of the musical instrument business that there's no absolute definition of what is the "best" sound. Basses are played in different ways, and musicians have different techniques and tastes. You players aren't interested in a chart of numbers. You'll have your own opinion on whether this bass sounds better than that bass. So we're always playing a guessing game with you, making the bass to what we think sounds good, and then seeing if you like it.
For about ten years, I've been writing here on TalkBass, trying my best to explain the science and engineering behind all this Tone From The Frame stuff. I've openly shown and explained most of my structural tricks that I've developed, and how I use them in my basses. Most other builders are somewhat secretive about their techniques. I'm not. I want to help other Luthiers make better basses and improve the state of the art.
But here we are. You can see from this thread that the majority of TalkBass posters still think that anything about creating tone from the frame of an electric bass is mystical hooey. They buy into that old idea that an electric bass is nothing but a pretty slab of wood with strings and pickups. Even though there's evidence all around them that it isn't true. And they ridicule us Luthiers as idiots or shysters. It's very frustrating. I don't know what else to explain, that I haven't already.
Back to the subject of this thread: Playing an electric bass unplugged is not the full answer of how it will sound through an amp, or whether you'll like it. The pickup system does play a big part in the amplified sound. But playing unplugged will tell you how it works mechanically. Not so much how it sounds unplugged, but how it vibrates in your hands. How much it vibrates and in what frequency ranges it vibrates. If you pay attention to that, it will give you a good idea what the bass will sound like when you apply a pickup and amp to it.
