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Rosewood/Maple Finger Boards - Tone difference?

#101
SamJ said:
I HEAR you about the set up.. trust me... I've got my CS Jazz bass now at the luthier for a set up.. costing me $120 and will take 3 days to test and set.. etc..

I'm even discussing this very issue of "set up" in another thread now.. but I find the ebony flows for me best.. why? I don't know, but it's going to be on my next Fender for sure.
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ya gotta go with what you want. if anything, it will be pretty. peace, jeff
 
#102
I'm just gonna tag onto this cause I find it interesting. So far Moo is persuading me the most.

study: My boss had a limited edition Fernandes retrorocket (AMAZING GUITAR!, seymour duncans, HEAVY ash body, maple neck and board with vintage tint/gloss) in short. Best sounding guitar I've heard. Well the neck warped and while it's in the process of being fixed/replaced the guitar has a chinese Fernandes maple/rosewood neck on it, everythign else is the same (tuners etc.) Does it sound the same? My boss doesn't think so... I agree but am I just seeing the difference, is he? I honestly don't know. Is the percieved difference coming from the neck, fingerboard, fretwire, gloss? I honestly can't say... The guitar also doesn't stay in tune as well as before? Fingerboard? doubtful....

Does the fact that the quintessential strat sound from every strat god (other than SRV) has been maple/maple neck say something?

I think I'll take the skeptic position for now... cogito ergo sum yada yada...

Sorry for all the guitar talk:p
 
#103
jzucker said:
But his experience carries a lot of weight. Many times in these forums folks want to beat their chest and claim that everyone's opinions are equally valid. Sure, in an utopian world Roger's opin is no more valid than a kid who's been playing 5 months and wearing a hockey mask for gigs but in the real world, folks like Roger who have not only been in the trenches but are making instruments for hundreds (if not thousands) of folks in the trenches carries more weight.

Sorry to be politically incorrect but that's just the way it is.

You can still have your opinion but in an open forum, someone's qualifications give their opinion more or less weight...
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+1 ... when Roger Sadowsky (or Mike Tobias, or Rob Allen or any of the other great luthiers out ther) give an opinion it has weight and validity. It's not that they are never wrong (gasp!) but they their depth of knowledge in their field is extensive. If their opinion differs from yours, you really need to ask yourself why; if you study long enough, you may indeed find you are correct (and unappreciated) but I suspect the probability of that will be quite low.
 
#104
westland said:
+1 ... when Roger Sadowsky (or Mike Tobias, or Rob Allen or any of the other great luthiers out ther) give an opinion it has weight and validity. It's not that they are never wrong (gasp!) but they their depth of knowledge in their field is extensive. If their opinion differs from yours, you really need to ask yourself why; if you study long enough, you may indeed find you are correct (and unappreciated) but I suspect the probability of that will be quite low.
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+5
 
#105
westland said:
+1 ... when Roger Sadowsky (or Mike Tobias, or Rob Allen or any of the other great luthiers out ther) give an opinion it has weight and validity. It's not that they are never wrong (gasp!) but they their depth of knowledge in their field is extensive. If their opinion differs from yours, you really need to ask yourself why; if you study long enough, you may indeed find you are correct (and unappreciated) but I suspect the probability of that will be quite low.
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+10
 
#106
Believe what you want to believe, folks. Some of the logic displayed here is entertaining to say the least.

Last week at a local music store I played a few basses... a Fender Jazz, a Dean fretless and a 9 string custom. I can away with this undeniable conclusion...



Red basses are better for slap.
:hyper: :bassist:

Seriously, sometimes the differences are nuanced, while other times it's pretty dramatic. If you've never noticed basses sounding different, that's you, not the instrument. It happens quite frequently.

Sorry.
 
#108
Moo said:
So ebony and wenge are tone killers?

Those are two different things.
No disrespect to the builders but being a luthier does not give anyone special hearing abilities. It's so easy to demonstrate the fact that our beliefs in what something will sound like will have a major influence on what we decide it sounds like that no amount of saying you hear something while knowing what the wood is before hearing it, has any scientific value. It does however have great marketing value which is actually a strike against a builders opinion for testing purposes. The fact they will so often contradict each other also shows a flaw in this assumption.

The only way to tell if we can really hear the difference is to be able to detect the difference without looking at the answer first. Looking at the bass first and then listening is simply asking ourselves if we're as smart as we think we are. Answer yes or no. We usually pick yes :)
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I doubt very many of you could distinguish an 10" speaker from a 12" or a 15" in a blind taste test. Or tell whether it was miked with a 57 or an 88. Or whether it was preamped thru an API or a Neve. But these pieces of gear undeniably sound different. hearing is very complicated and like taste, a large component of hearing is in the mind. Thats what we call psychoacoustics. (Its not about charlie mansons music career!) It is how the mind influences what we think we hear. Ever turn a knob on a disconnected piece of gear and hear a change? Most of us engineers have. The mind can be fooled into perceiving sound emanating from locations where no sound source is present, its called stereo!(or 5.1)
About a maple and rosewood sounding atypically bright or dark, well most bass amps come with eqs, and bassists abuse them 5 ways til tuesday. Heck my rosewood "Faux-bias" is generally too dark for me so I just crank the treble on it till it gets close to my ebony boarded Ovation. Many bassists just get a bass that plays good, then twiddle their amps until it sounds like what they want. ever see an amp set to flat? URB notwithstanding?
But honestly if you maintain that maple and rosewood have no apreciable difference, regardless of what a well respected builder says. Then I have no help for you. Would you disregard Leo Fender if he was alive? He had said before in interviews, that the materials and contruction of his intruments was no magic formula born out of genius, but what was cost effective at the time. This is why fenders are made out of alder, ash rosewood and maple. Not mahogany and ebony like the more expensive Gibsons. Bolt on vs set neck etc.
 
#109
I agree with you many can't distinguished a 10" from a 12" or 15", or even worse, a dynamic mic from a condenser before any effects.
But if bringing EQ into the topic of wood characteristics, any maple or ebony can sound "almost" like any other wood then.

I think the idea here is to debate the natural tone of the wood and thru an ideal system or amp which is flat. Then we are talking fairness.
The best person to hear it from IMHO is still from the luthiers or from someone who has his hands on a good number of basses played for a decent while... a couple of months maybe?
Also dun forget, wood also needs time to be broken in. It will undeniably open up after some good time playing it.
 
#111
But can any one tell me which is brighter between a single truss rod and a duel action truss rod in a fingerboardless Bass?
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What about Truss rod materials? you could have steel, Stainless steel, Brass, Aluminium. Different diameters and length deffinatly vibrate differently. Sollid? Hollow? round/square?

I don't think anyone on here has mentioned bolt-on versus through necks versus glue on. Its scary. Just stirring the pot.

A couple of weeks ago I took a handfull of different mics into a rehersal for one of our the singers to try. The included an SM86 condenser cardioid (£140) and a Sennheiser Dynamic Supercardioid (£70). Very different construction, but in truth we couldn't tell ( the Shure was louder). She liked "the black one"

Our keyboard player once knew a sound guy who insisted of using phanton power even for his dynamic mics - He swore it sounded better! I guess, if you WANT to hear it, you CAN hear it!
 
#115
JAUQO III-X said:
If a Bass player can't distinguish the difference between a 10,12 or 15 then he/she needs to be shot.
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Ok, but when you become dictator, make sure the secret police have some kind of blind a/b testing setup, so people can't just lie about being able to hear the difference.

If there's anything worse than an indiscriminate bass player, it's an indiscriminate, lying bass player. Be firm but fair. Make sure you cleanse all the scum from the gene pool.

All hail the new regime!
 
#116
paulraphael said:
Ok, but when you become dictator, make sure the secret police have some kind of blind a/b testing setup, so people can't just lie about being able to hear the difference.

If there's anything worse than an indiscriminate bass player, it's an indiscriminate, lying bass player. Be firm but fair. Make sure you cleanse all the scum from the gene pool.

All hail the new regime!
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You're definitely some one that doesn't know me :)

I offer no apologies for my statement.
 
#119
This is so much fun. I have to jump back in... My friend Chris (RIP) used to say, anyone can go out and do something, but it takes someone very special to sit idally (sp?) by and criticize.

After Roger chimed in, I already figured my opinion was worthless, but many thanks to those of you who felt it necessary to point it out.

I'm standing by my guns now. I have played many basses, side by side with same "everything but fingerboards" and there is no appreciable difference.

The very fact that this thread is still alive indicates that the point is still up for debate.

I don't care if Stradavarius himself comes back from the dead and says he made the a one off double bass out of a taxidemied Clydesdale pony, pulled cheese curd and pixie dust.

You still won't be able to tell the difference between a maple and a rosewood saddle.

Regards.
 

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