vicenzajay said:
What would be more relevant for you... what you hear or what a scope shows? Can a scope show every nuance that we hear?
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Rosewood/Maple Finger Boards - Tone difference?
- Thread starter rob_the_bassist
- Start date
What would be more relevant for you... what you hear or what a scope shows? Can a scope show every nuance that we hear?
Personally, I'm happy when people understand that.vicenzajay said:
There really is no science in musical instruments, it's all anecdotal myth with a bit of tribalism IMO. We like someone's building skills so they automatically become omniscient in the eyes of so many. The egos kick in, people start typing in all caps and we have yet another mini battle of science vs. religion.
Here's some of my anecdotal observations of other anecdotal observations. The more you can see it the more it effects tone. Once you plate either brass or aluminum it sounds the same. Bare metal you can see sounds much different. Body cores, while making up more of the mass have less tonal influence than body faces. Wood painted solid colors sounds the same. Basses known for being crap can become the holy grail once Marcus plays them. Oddly this doesn't work for Jeff Berlin
Oh yeah, swamp ash trees grow under water
You can hear wood species but can't tell the difference between dogs and cats?Brad Johnson said:Sit, boy.
I will rue the day that some drunk headbanger comes to me after a show and says "You know, you could get a snappier tone with a maple fretboard."
Brad Johnson said:Which, AGAIN, has zip to do with the question... so why keep bringing it up. No doubt if a bassist pulls an all-nighter and then eat pancakes it might affect his tone... but it's not relevant to fingerboard woods
I've found that you can't make anyone feel inferior who doesn't already. As such I don't have a problem with anyone who's trying to make someone else feel inferior, be it real or imagined. It's usually pretty transparent.
That's one of the main reasons threads like this repeatedly go down the path they do IMO... ego. Be it this topic or something as simple as the perennial: "what box do I need to even my fingerstyle and slapping?"
"A box called practice"
"Well, are you saying I can't play???"
I don't know... are you saying you can't control this?"
Making a blanket statement that it doesn't matter is pretty silly. As if one couldn't imagine there ever being a noticeable difference. Heck, there may not be depending on the situation but in many cases there is.
You're whole posting method has zip to do with normal human interaction. You want talk about having nothing to do with the thread then you could look in the mirror. Your statements about all nighters and pancakes are definitely out of the thread and you're the one brought up the screws in the first place.
You're also the most antagonistic poster here and you're now trying to see if you can turn another thread into a verbal fistfight like last year.
If you want to drag everyone through that again then go ahead. Maybe you can get us both banned next time on top of getting another thread closed.
Get a slab of wood. Get two necks. Rosewood board on one, maple board on the other. Cut two neck slots in the slab of wood and mount the necks on the same plane, opposite each other( a bitch to play, but...). Get the same strings, and same cheap bridge. You don't think there will be an audible and tactile difference? Even acoustically, there's gonna be a difference( IMH40yearsplayingO)
I just played my Fender P-bass with a rose wood fb and nickel strings thru my pod into my computer and then played my active ibanez roadster with stainless strings thru my ampeg rig and still can't tell the difference.
Isn't it funny that the things we get the biggest discussions going about are the ones which are hardest to demostrate proof of.Fretless5verfan said:I'm glad you of all people said this. Can we PLEASE let this thread die now?
I've been one who used to believe in a noticeable difference because I was told there was one, but now I believe that if there is a difference, that it's not a big enough one to worry about.
All of us will make our own decisions about which instrument choice is going to serve our needs the best and I have instruments with rosewood, maple and ebony fingerboards, all of which I love and allow me to sound like, surprise surprise, me.
That's the bottom line; I sound like me no matter what I play and all of you still sound like you.
Let's play bass!
Moo said:You can hear wood species but can't tell the difference between dogs and cats?
Who said anything about cats?
Just so the rest of TB is in on what the Scientific Method is, perhaps we should define it.KJung said:
The Scientific Method is not some complicated thing. It simply means that you form a hypothesis for a given observed response, and then test the hypothesis in a controlled way. The important thing to understand is that you can not prove a hypothesis; you can only disprove a hypothesis. Hypotheses which can not be disproven remain viable explanations. That's pretty much it.
The reason that approach is important is that attempting to prove a hypothesis prejudices the results, and results in incomplete connectivity between the hypothesis and the observed response. When you see this in any scientific work, it is regarded as bad science. Cold Fusion comes to mind if any of you remember that experience.
In the context of this thread, that means you should not state the hypothesis that the fretboard affects the tone, and then set out to prove that. You need to attempt to disprove it. In other words, showing conclusively that the fretboard does not affect the tone would disprove the hypothesis that the board does affect the tone. Of course. If you can't prove that conclusively, then the hypothesis remains viable.
Ken can add / correct, but that was the way I was trained in the Scientific Method.
Quite the contrary, it's not hard to demonstrate... in real life it can be extremely easy.
Instead the baggage handlers come in with science vs. religion, what serves needs "best", "egos", which make "more" of a difference when, bottom line the discussion was about "describe the difference?".
Which makes it all the more amusing that people feel compelled to chime in with "There is none"... then you clearly have nothing to describe
Not "which do you think sounds prettier" or anything of the like. None of this other stuff people like to load up with, just a question about describing the tonal difference... and in come the usual suspects.
Moo, in your 1/4 century, how many times did you perform your blind test and how many people actually failed?
Your account of how most people describe the two woods was cute. How do most people describe Ebony... even darker than Rosewood tonally? No... but then that blows the whole sound/appearance theory.
In the end, the weight of whatever difference hinges on what the player wants. If someone wants the tonal characteristics of a certain wood, it's much easier to use something that has that wood thanto try an EQ the sound. If "kinda close" is all you seek, fine. If OTOH you're trying to nail a tone, the difference can be huge.
Obviously for people who use basses as basically triggers for effect and that sort of thing will likely be far less concerned about the acoustic properties of the instrument.
And now let the "but it's not an acoustic instrument" silliness begin.
Instead the baggage handlers come in with science vs. religion, what serves needs "best", "egos", which make "more" of a difference when, bottom line the discussion was about "describe the difference?".
Which makes it all the more amusing that people feel compelled to chime in with "There is none"... then you clearly have nothing to describe
Not "which do you think sounds prettier" or anything of the like. None of this other stuff people like to load up with, just a question about describing the tonal difference... and in come the usual suspects.
Moo, in your 1/4 century, how many times did you perform your blind test and how many people actually failed?
Your account of how most people describe the two woods was cute. How do most people describe Ebony... even darker than Rosewood tonally? No... but then that blows the whole sound/appearance theory.
In the end, the weight of whatever difference hinges on what the player wants. If someone wants the tonal characteristics of a certain wood, it's much easier to use something that has that wood thanto try an EQ the sound. If "kinda close" is all you seek, fine. If OTOH you're trying to nail a tone, the difference can be huge.
Obviously for people who use basses as basically triggers for effect and that sort of thing will likely be far less concerned about the acoustic properties of the instrument.
And now let the "but it's not an acoustic instrument" silliness begin.
bucephylus said:
In the context of this thread, some are saying basses made with identical woods can sound different. That makes the contention that different woods don't sound different that much more "interesting".
MikeBass
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Generally if the discussion stays based on data and results, no one gets into arguments. Its when someone decides to voice their opinion, which is not supported by data that the fun starts. I think that was kind of Ken's point. Of course, the same is true in life, not just this thread.Brad Johnson said:In the context of this thread, some are saying basses made with identical woods can sound different. That makes the contention that different woods don't sound different that much more "interesting".
However, it may also explain why this thread has begun to resemble a soap opera more than an informed discussion.
Just because two identical woods don't sound exactly the same doesn't mean it's more of a difference than between different woods. It just implies that any change in tone could simply be no more than the same wood's own differences.Brad Johnson said:In the context of this thread, some are saying basses made with identical woods can sound different. That makes the contention that different woods don't sound different that much more "interesting".
