I recall seeing a video from Fender's Custom Shop. The luthier would test the resonant frequency of the neck and find a body with a resonant frequency that complimented it. This was a big part of their process to get a lively performing guitar. I am not an engineer so cannot explain it fully.
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Proof that the neck has a big impact in tone.
- Thread starter Spirit of Ox
- Start date
This is the thing for me when discussing "tonewoods": the huge signal chain everything goes through.
I'm not a huge believer in specific tones of woods, and while there are some differences, your bass is just the starting point of the signal chain anyway. When your bass is on a recording or comes through a PA, it has gone through a ton of different boxes that all change the tone more than wood every could.
For acoustic instruments, tonewoods make more sense, as the instruments are usually more acoustically sensitive and they are processed a bit less - at least when playing with no heavy PA. You don't have all the electronics affecting the tone. But electric instruments (or PA'd acoustic ones) can be processed to sound like pretty much anything.
I remember a talk about 10 years back, when a guitarist in a relatively big group said he's using a Line6 for his touring because he gets all the dozen tones he needs with a push of a button. All the guitarist guys were of course shocked that he didn't want to spend an hour in the soundcheck dialing in a bunch of analog amps. But as he put it, once it goes through a PA at 120 db, no-one in the audience is going to hear much difference, and care even less.
But what matters in a bass and it's woods is that YOU personally like the feel, sustain and maybe even tone of it, IMO. Different woods also feel a bit different, and that of course brings us to psychoacoustics. So it's perfectly ok if someone prefers maple or rosewood or ebony - even if it doesn't affect the tone that much.
25 years ago when playing guitar in a band for a bit I went from a 1x12 and 100W valve amp to a small combo for stage volume, but using an amp emulator to the PA and it worked fine. This was some forced on me by the valve amp catching fire on stage and being very much not repairable.
BTW, I am in no way asserting the neck has no, or even minimal impact on the sound. My assertion is the OP's statement that a same of two different instruments with different guts and no controls over myriad variables is somehow "proof".
But it's still a ridiculously small same, and your experiment doesn't control for the mass of tuning machines, stability of the neck/ body joint, frets and how they're sesated, set-up, strings and results of metal fatigue from tensioning to pitch, releasing it to swap necks, and restringing etc.
When I ran a guitar store ('77-88) we had two typically mediocre Strata, one a natural trem body with a rosewood board neck, the other a transparent red harrd-tail with a one-piece maple neck. Notbbad, but neither was anything to remark on. A customer wanted a natural trem Strat with a maple neck. So we swapped necks. The resulting natural/maple was another boring mediocre late '70s Strat. The resulting harrd-tail with the rosewood was one of the finest Strats I've ever touched since I started playing ca. 1973. It wasn't the set up or strings, etc. because I did the set up on both after the neck swap. It was a synergistic combination of all the factors that made that specific neck and that specific neck a special guitar where another neck with that body combination wasn't even average.
The point bus there are a tremendous number if variables that must be addressed to state that any one factor is why you perceived the difference you did.
I never knew that or heard that and back in 1985 I worked at a place were we sold "1". We literally had over 50 Fender basses, maybe as many as 100, but we had the one Alembic and it was by far the most expensive bass we had there. Good to hear they figured it out. I'd have to say they didn't publicize that very well. But even if it was greatly publicized, with the scientific method, the results need to be repeatable and peer review is always welcome. Besides, you know bassists are always eager to discuss such things.
Can't deny that Alembic makes great basses!
^^^^^^^^ THIS
there is no such thing as "same" unless they are actually the same. "same" pickups are not the "same" because of manufacturing variations. "same" means physically moved something to a new bass and tested in isolation, as in the only thing you changed, and then you must measure with scientific instruments, your ear does not meet the criteria for "scientific instrument" otherwise this is just confirmation bias masturbation.
Amen to this.
A terrible assumption that many people make is that identical basses will sound identical. This is likely NOT true because of the variable nature of wood.
Luthier Ken Smith said he has built "identical" basses made from matching pieces taken from the same planks of wood, and was surprised at how different those basses sounded when all else was equal (strings, in particular).
By that same token, one neck could sound different from another even if both were from the same manufacturer and made of the same materials (rosewood/maple, or whatever).
FWIW, I've experienced this with sibling basses I've owned. Just one example is a pair of 1997 Fender Roscoe Beck fivers. All components equal, remarkably different tones. Some may snark at Fender QC, which is why I mentioned Ken Smith above as a better example, but the difference in tone was so great that I think it's a perfectly fair example.
Has to do with the drying of the wood - roasted is literally roasted in a kiln and has a darker colour.
I've told this story before, but...
In 1985, I bought a Fender Precision Elite II bass, which had a maple fingerboard, C-width neck (1.75 " at the nut). I'd been used to B-width, and my wrist was hurting, plus the new width was getting in my way, playing-wise.
I bought a new B-width neck, which also had a maple fingerboard, put it on, and played a gig that night. The decrease in tone "girth" was pretty shocking. Less mass = less tone!
The next day, I switched necks again and returned the new one. The guy at the store looked a little puzzled when I told him "I don't like how it sounds."
On that momentous day, I learned the wisdom of adapting to a great sounding bass. Practice, practice, practice!!
In 1985, I bought a Fender Precision Elite II bass, which had a maple fingerboard, C-width neck (1.75 " at the nut). I'd been used to B-width, and my wrist was hurting, plus the new width was getting in my way, playing-wise.
I bought a new B-width neck, which also had a maple fingerboard, put it on, and played a gig that night. The decrease in tone "girth" was pretty shocking. Less mass = less tone!
The next day, I switched necks again and returned the new one. The guy at the store looked a little puzzled when I told him "I don't like how it sounds."
On that momentous day, I learned the wisdom of adapting to a great sounding bass. Practice, practice, practice!!
Most people don't notice, don't care, or don't want to know. It might be the biggest open secret on TalkBass!
I went further and tested the Warmoth neck on the Geddy lee and it was darker in tone than the stock Geddy lee neck. My point to the test shows that the Geddy lee neck has a brighter snappier tone than the steel reinforce Warmoth neck which is darker and tone but also more even in tone as well.
- Aug 21, 2003
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Don't that sway you either...As someone who has played over 100 warmoth builds with 10 of them being my own. I find the Warmoths "in general" are brighter in the upper mids.
Even if it's true that the neck change has the most significant impact on tone for this scenario ... it's not proof that in general, necks have the most significant impact on tone.
