Proof that the neck has a big impact in tone.

[Allegrus]

Yes, they have a big impact but not the most.

That's point I'm making ... we can't draw any conclusions from your test other than 'neck influences tone'. That goes without saying. Ultimately, I think you are going down a track that will result in a bass you find tonewise .. pleasing. Swapping different parts and pickups ... the fun part.

 

[Ian Lewis]

Could be it isn't just the neck. Pickups could be wound a little different. Capacitors and pots could be at different ends of tolerance limits. Bodies will be of different densities. One neck joint could be a more solid connection than the other.

A bass is the sum of its parts - all of them, and you've got all different parts.

I agree. The only way to compare a necks affect on tone is for every other component to be exactly the same.

 

[Spirit of Ox]

That's point I'm making ... we can't draw any conclusions from your test other than 'neck influences tone'. That goes without saying. Ultimately, I think you are going down a track that will result in a bass you find tonewise .. pleasing. Swapping different parts and pickups ... the fun part.

Yeah that is my ultimate goal. I kinda shot myself in the foot with the initial wording of this topic. The word, proof, was way more seriously than I intended. Im not a an engineer or luthiers, just a guy that's been doing parts basses for 20 years.
It seems like everyone is saying that pickups are the be all end all of your tone. I've always found the neck to have such an important part.

 

[Spirit of Ox]

I agree. The only way to compare a necks affect on tone is for every other component to be exactly the same.

Yes, that's why I actually took the Geddy neck off and put the Warmoth neck on and got the same results.
I should've done that initially but this topic created a lot of contraversy.

 

[wvbass]

Yeah that is my ultimate goal. I kinda shot myself in the foot with the initial wording of this topic. The word, proof, was way more seriously than I intended. Im not a an engineer or luthiers, just a guy that's been doing parts basses for 20 years.
It seems like everyone is saying that pickups are the be all end all of your tone. I've always found the neck to have such an important part.

I've played the pickup game, and I definitely have my favorites, but a pickup swap doesn't typically change the character of the bass. A switch from passive pickups to active pickups can be dramatic, and so can a change of pickup position or type. But just a good ole pickup swap? I like to do it too, but the differences are often very subtle.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

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.

I can tell you in two words what has the most significant impact on tone. Something I learned while studying acoustics.

Your ears.

 

[Beejay772]

Basic rule for anything in life applies here. If you are comparing anything only change 1 thing. You must use same everything else. Even the process of taking strings off to swap neck and restraining the strings can loose some of the tone of the strings. You must use a brand new identical set each time.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

I've played the pickup game, and I definitely have my favorites, but a pickup swap doesn't typically change the character of the bass. A switch from passive pickups to active pickups can be dramatic, and so can a change of pickup position or type. But just a good ole pickup swap? I like to do it too, but the differences are often very subtle.

Pickups can make a dramatic change sometimes. I had a Jazz with overwound Kent Armstrongs and I swapped them out for some standard wind pickups and it was a huge change. However, it was a smaller change for the bass I moved them into, as the pickups in there were already fairly dark. Ditto a MusicMan pickup I set up with a series/parallel switch for which changed it from quite a thin, almost brittle sound run passive to something rather meaty. In that case I swapped the neck on the bass too, and that was less of a change in sound than the switch on the pickup, and that was changing a Warmoth neck with steel bars in to a Squier neck as had originally been on the bass. There was quite a change when I rebuilt the pickups in a cheap Strat copy by removing the ceramic pole magnet and pole pieces and put in alnico slugs, although a bit more subtle than the series/parallel switch.

Quite often, though, people are changing one pickup for something of better quality but with pretty similar characteristics - roughly the same number of winds of the same size, often similar magnets, and in that case it's subtle. Sometimes it's a change from ceramic to alnico, but only the one bass I've had has had ceramic magnets, and that was one that was dark which got changed out to one just very slightly darker as noted above.

 

[stuntbass77]

20 years of neck swapping is all the proof my ear need. The tone generally follows the neck.

 

[Tazziedevil]

I've always felt that a guitar/bass is the Sun of its parts, and every component plays a small part in the eventual end tone. Body wood, neck, fingerboard, Bridge, nut, pots/caps, wiring, pickups, bolt on vs set neck, strings...
change any of them and you will get a change in final tone, some more than others.

if wood didn't matter, then why not use balsa wood or any old scrap of timber you have lying around? It may work okay, bit it sort of goes without saying that using a 2x4 for a neck will not get you as nice a tone as maple.

 

[TH63]

Yep. There can be differences in every single part of the bodies even if they're made with the same materials. Sorry but this isn't proof at all. Even if you switched the necks and strings onto the same body, you need to have the instrument played by a machine that would not be prone to changing how it plays when the instrument changes. And then even after that, you would need many, many versions of each kind of neck to determine if the differences are between the neck materials or just between those particular necks. You might find that many necks that are theoretically identical sound noticeably different from each other and many necks that are fundamentally different sounding the same as one another. Unfortunately science is nowhere near as easy as your test.

Thank you. My thoughts exactly.

 

[airfrank]

I'm surprised at how much snappier my epi t-bird classic IV sounds compared to my epi EB3 unplugged.
Both are strung with d'addario XL 50-105's.
The t-bird has a seven ply mahogany/walnut neck through while the EB3 has a mahogany neck. I believe both fretboards are rosewood.
I can't attribute the difference to anything other than the woods used and neck construction but maybe I'm overlooking something.

Could be it isn't just the neck. Pickups could be wound a little different. Capacitors and pots could be at different ends of tolerance limits. Bodies will be of different densities. One neck joint could be a more solid connection than the other.

A bass is the sum of its parts - all of them, and you've got all different parts.

 

[JR Bass 62]

I just did a really accurate A/B comparison on the neck affecting the overall tone of a bass
My basses are stock 2016 Geddy Lee Jazz bass.
2009 mim body with Warmoth roasted maple jazz neck (standard profile), Kluson high mass bridge, 2019 mim Geddy lee pickups, and both have fresh DR Fat beams.
Comparing the tone only with the front pickup since the Geddy has 70s spacing and the custom doesnt.
The Geddy is noticably brighter and snappier and the custom is darker, and woodier sounding with more low mids. The sustain was about the same but of course the Warmoth has no dead spots and a more even tone compared to the Geddy lee.
So with two basses with the same pickups, strings, body wood, and similar bridge, it seems like the neck has a big impact of tone. More than I would've thought.
Can anyone else elaborate on this?

 

[JR Bass 62]

I don't want to start an argument. But why go thru all that headache ? Get a bass that does it for you, Start gigging!!!

 

[chadds]

I don't want to start an argument. But why go thru all that headache ? Get a bass that does it for you, Start gigging!!!

That was my experience when I first started playing. My teacher talked about music and intent through technique. I wholly respect the scientists among us who get their jollies out of that quest. It's not mine. There comes a time when if you use your ears and hands you know what will bring the music. You know what will inhibit or enhance your technique.

We are all different people. Some of us hear overtones that other's can't. I would never tell my fellow that they don't see a hint of blue in that grey. Science isn't a lord over us but another tool to use to understand and manipulate the environment. At the end of the day the lab coat says well the double blind proves this or that. At the end of my day none of those double blind people play with me, attend my gigs, invite me to studio sessions, ask me to sit in, or buy my music. This quest can be like model trains. Which I love! You can discuss it build great scenery, buy new or vintage and have a roaring great time. Music provides a much larger effect to a large audience and is about what comes out of the instruments.

A talkbass concert: Audience comes quietly in. Curtain parts. P bass with tort alone on a stage with a fridge and SVT. Audience on their feet. Curtain closes. Curtain parts. Alone on stage: Generic SS head on 4x10 on a 1x15. Audience boos because of the potential comb filtering. To save things an assistant runs out with an expensive cord and replaces the cheap guitar cable. Mild polite applause. Curtain closes.

The missing link on TB is that we aren't with each other. Some say you can't hear this or that and were we in their presence they set their amp up to their preferences and it's all compression, eq and amp sound. Others use extremely clear amps capable of exceptional reproduction so the sound of their bass is what we hear.

What's sad is there are new players here and the emphasis on the tone coming from just gear is a distraction. I love these discussions because by selecting and upgrading my signal chain I can get the sound in my head coming out of the cab. To the above I so agree it's the ears. What are you able to hear? What are you trained to hear? What are you able to do with you fingers to make that happen out in the air?

 

[dougjwray]

Science and subjectivity both play a part.
If you decide to experiment with switching string gauges, it helps to know that fine tools have made measurements before the strings have been packaged, right?
But then there is this: How many of you have picked up a bass in the morning and found that the action has gotten way higher overnight? It's not the bass-- it's YOU! You're exhausted!

 

[dougjwray]

One argument which always annoys me is this one:
Instruments will sound different due to many factors, but the audience -- and 99% of musicians -- will never hear the difference, so who cares?
I always think of Clapton's switch from Gibson to Fender in 1970, and the army of outraged ex-fans who have never forgiven him.

 

[Rick Carlos]

The neck of a bass has a massive effect on tone. I put a Warmoth neck on my 64 P bass and it sounded completely different.