The truth Wood resonance Build Ect.

[Jim C]

Let's look at guitars for a moment.

So, it is only really the electronics which make a difference?

Right . . .

Take an SG and a LP. As far as I'm aware, the pickup positions are the same in both. Now wire them identically, with identical pickups in each guitar & use the same type & brand of strings. And then compare them through one amp using an A/B box.

Electronically, they are the same. The pickups are in the sam relative positions. When it boils down to it, the only real difference is the wood in this instance, yes?

They won't sound anywhere near the same.

*As someone currently working on a PhD in physics*

Interesting thought; perhaps it's the amount and weight of the wood more so than the type of wood that supports your illustration.

The idea of multiple laminations reducing sustain makes sense.
I was part of an R&D effort years ago that studied building materials and sound attenuation. Multiply layers of plywood, especially with the grain crossed, offered comb filtering and I would think that the glue joints could not promote anything other than deadening sound transmission.

IMO wood densities and perhaps moisture content could effect sustain although I have nothing to prove this with.

Still believe that tone is MOST deteremined by the amp and player followed by the strings and pups; wood type and bolt on is insignificant in the equation IMO

 

[mongo2]

Let's look at guitars for a moment.

So, it is only really the electronics which make a difference?

Right . . .

Take an SG and a LP. As far as I'm aware, the pickup positions are the same in both. Now wire them identically, with identical pickups in each guitar & use the same type & brand of strings. And then compare them through one amp using an A/B box.

Electronically, they are the same. The pickups are in the sam relative positions. When it boils down to it, the only real difference is the wood in this instance, yes?

They won't sound anywhere near the same.

*As someone currently working on a PhD in physics*

IME, no two Les Pauls, or SGs, or Strats, or Teles, or Ps, or Js sound the same either.

 

[engedi1]

Pickups only represent one part of the overall tone, which is timbre-the literal coloration of the sound wave. The type of wood, neck through vs bolt on, finger board material, hollowbody or not, effect another area of tone-envelope. Envelope refers to the the attack, sustain, and decay of the tone. For example, I have found with graphite neck basses, that because the neck doesn't flex when plucked, picked or slapped, it has a longer sustain, slower decay, and slower attack. The envelope of a tone is a huge part of how we perceive it, and shouldn't be discounted. Neck through basses also offer more sustain, and less attack then a bolt on. You can't have both long sustain AND a sharp attack. If the sound wave spikes up hard in the beginning (attack) it can't sustain that energy forever. On the other hand, if the sound wave starts out lower, it can maintain that longer.
This logic is why I have mostly decided to play basses with bolt on necks, and why many super high companies like Sadowsky, lakland, Dingwall, and many others ONLY use bolt on necks. . That doesn't mean neck- through basses like MTD or Ken Smith aren't awesome because they are, but they are for someone who is playing music needing a different attack and more sustain.

So you can see that as important as electronics are, the design and wood choice effects a huge part of the tone.

 

[Steve]

I've just had a very interesting conversation with a Physicist

And these are some very interesting conclusions!


So essentially, when buying a Electric bass apart form comfort of feel, the things one should be looking at is preference of Pickup and Electrical cofig, as well a build quality, and how that is reflected on price. Obviously we are human and the look influences us as well, but that's an artistic issue, and I'm completely crap with visual art!

Well, I'm glad that's settled.

 

[mongo2]

Pickups only represent one part of the overall tone, which is timbre-the literal coloration of the sound wave. The type of wood, neck through vs bolt on, finger board material, hollowbody or not, effect another area of tone-envelope.

The wood also effects the timbre.

Pickups can only see what the strings are doing. What the strings are doing is effected by how the structure (wood and hardware) supports or attenuates certain frequencies.

Then the pickups can do their voodoo.

 

[Jim C]

I was hoping that this could have turned into some sort of exchange of imperical data and not just another post about opinions

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Interesting thought; perhaps it's the amount and weight of the wood more so than the type of wood that supports your illustration.

The idea of multiple laminations reducing sustain makes sense.
I was part of an R&D effort years ago that studied building materials and sound attenuation. Multiply layers of plywood, especially with the grain crossed, offered comb filtering and I would think that the glue joints could not promote anything other than deadening sound transmission.

IMO wood densities and perhaps moisture content could effect sustain although I have nothing to prove this with.

Still believe that tone is MOST deteremined by the amp and player followed by the strings and pups; wood type and bolt on is insignificant in the equation IMO

I'd hazard a guess at the density of the wood being the biggest contributer to the tone from the wood aswell.

And I would also agree that most of the tone comes from the electronics. Tho I wouldn't agree on it being insignificant.

Either way, I think we can all agree that it isn't "nothing" as the OP implied.

IME, no two Les Pauls, or SGs, or Strats, or Teles, or Ps, or Js sound the same either.

A big part of that is to do with the tolerances of the electronics. But even with truely identical electronics & whatnot, the differences will still persist.

 

[WoodyG3]

I was hoping that this could have turned into some sort of exchange of imperical data and not just another post about opinions

Empirical data? I don't know that there have been scientific studies of tone on electric basses. There are plenty of people around who have played dozens of basses built with a variety of woods, hardware, and pickups. I think those are the people who have the best available data.

 

[newbold]

jebuz.

when you play a neck through, you're playing a bass neck with some wood wings. it has to be rigid and sturdy and it will react entirely differently than a neck on a big hunk of wood.

Alder, Ash, Mahogany...these are all very different than the neck...

Are you playing a neck or a neck on a body?

 

[darkstorm]

Take a BC Rich NJ bolt on and a BC rich nj neck thru which are identical except for bolted or neck thru and you'll hear the differences for yourself if you listen. There are advantages to each sound wise depending on personal pref.

 

[Old school]

An observation: I own two basses with exactly the same electronics and pickups (Barts). Each bass has TI strings. Pick up configurations as measured from the bridge are essentially equal.
One bass has a walnut body and set neck with a rosewood finger board. The other bass has a bolt on neck with a purple heart fingerboard and a laminated body with burled murtyl top and bottom caps.
With controls set equally on both basses, the sound is completely different between these two basses. Carry on....................

 

[M0ses]

I can't wait until I have a pro bass shop set up, and I have the money available to build test basses that are identical to each other except for one factor, and I can build a machine that plucks them the same every time, and an oscilloscope to precisely measure what the waveform is doing, and I can once and for all answer whether anything makes any difference whatsoever. Then I'll put every tiny detail of my tests on the internet, and we can all laugh about the stupid arguments we had.

 

[nic salsus]

I had a Wendler ElectroCoustic bass with a sculpted western red cedar body and a Ric neck position p.up. that sounded NOTHING like a Ric running just the neck position p.up.
The wood makes a huge difference especially if the player has played acoustic instruments a lot or is simply adept at drawing the sound out of the wood in a slab. The p.up captures the vibration of the string and to a large degree the wood dictates how the string vibrates. If the wood didn't make a difference every Pre from the same manufacturing run would sound the same. I worked in a store that had an extremely high turnover of Fenders and I can tell ya they don't all sound the same.

 

[Brad Johnson]

I will see what I can do to set up a test I will try to get hold of equipment record it and then post them, then all you have to tell, is which is which.

Simple heh?

Yes. Too. No offense.

I know guys who can make just about any bass, regardless of composition or electronics, sound like crap. That only proves that some guys can make anything sound like crap. It's a gift.

My point is that recordings of anyone playing almost identical basses have a huge variable attached... that player. That not only includes their skill level but also their psyche. Seriously. Personal preferences can affect how people sound on a particular instrument.


So you'll need a robot to play each bass. Jeff Peterson might be available.

It'll probably be much easier and far simpler to just assume you're right. That's what most of us do anyway.

 

[Beej]

Oh yeesh. Here we go again with the tonewoods bull. Go and read the luthiers corner on this topic. Read my posts on setting up an experiment. I'll save you the time, wood type and construction type make little discernable difference when genuine controls are introduced. What you're testing is the power of suggestion...

 

[johnk_10]

these threads always make me laugh.

being a luthier since 1974, and building/restoring/repairing thousand upon thousand of basses, i can give a good example that i'm very familiar with, as far as a the pickups being responsible for a bass' sound.

back in the 70's a few bassists that liked the way that their rickenbacker 4001's played, wanted them to sound more like a fender jazz bass. each of them asked me to install a genuine fender jazz bass pickup in the bridge position, since it didn't require any routing and would be completely reversible. on the first two occasions, i did the modification for them, mounting the j bass pickup onto its own plastic piece and mounted it in the same manner as the original pickup (i.e. using the original chrome frame/bezel). well guess what? it didn't sound anything like a jazz bass when comparing using just the bridge pickup on both a jazz or a rick bass. it did change the tonal properties a little, but still sounded like a rickenbacker 4001. ever since the first couple of them that i did, i told every subsequent guy that requested it, that if you want a jazz bass sound out of a rick, its not going to happen, and i will always stand by that observation of the results.

IMO, the way that a bass is built (neck thru, bolt-on, and type of woods used) are far more responsible for a bass's (or a guitar's) tone, sustain and response.

another 'pickup' example is that you can place a Neuman U87 on a martin D28 and then use one on a plywood imported acoustic guitar, and no amount of eq or quality of microphone (in this case, the 'pickup') will make an inferior guitar sound like the D-28, and the same goes for the human voice, or a bass.

 

[nic salsus]

Oh yeesh. Here we go again with the tonewoods bull. Go and read the luthiers corner on this topic. Read my posts on setting up an experiment. I'll save you the time, wood type and construction type make little discernable difference when genuine controls are introduced. What you're testing is the power of suggestion...

Then explain why some Fender Precision Basses sound different from other Fender Precision Basses. Of course the differences will be incredibly subtle but as musicians and artists we trade heavily in subtleties...they tend to mean the difference between good and great in many regards. But hey, if you don't wanna believe in wood nymphs then wood nymphs won't exist for you. Maybe I'm nuts but I want to make music on a magic instrument.

Even if a bass is just a tool we're talking about a tool for making art and if I can hear the difference the difference exists...if I don't trust my ears then what's the point? I dunno what "controls" you're talking about or how you'd "prove" your position but if I can't hear the difference between some lab rat mp3 recordings on my laptop speakers I wouldn't be at all surprised.

 

[theNoseBleedKid]

back in the 70's a few bassists that liked the way that their rickenbacker 4001's played, wanted them to sound more like a fender jazz bass. each of them asked me to install a genuine fender jazz bass pickup in the bridge position, since it didn't require any routing and would be completely reversible. on the first two occasions, i did the modification for them, mounting the j bass pickup onto its own plastic piece and mounted it in the same manner as the original pickup (i.e. using the original chrome frame/bezel). well guess what? it didn't sound anything like a jazz bass when comparing using just the bridge pickup on both a jazz or a rick bass. it did change the tonal properties a little, but still sounded like a rickenbacker 4001. ever since the first couple of them that i did, i told every subsequent guy that requested it, that if you want a jazz bass sound out of a rick, its not going to happen, and i will always stand by that observation of the results.

A single example of 2 basses with incredible variables (and we've not even got onto setup yet!) is hardly a 'winning' argument here. Additionally there's no way to say, without a doubt, any number of things needed to justify your point.

Saying that the electronics are the most important component of making a sound is so far from 'wood doesn't matter' (which the OP didn't imply, or state) that it's not funny.

IMO, the way that a bass is built (neck thru, bolt-on, and type of woods used) are far more responsible for a bass's (or a guitar's) tone, sustain and response.

Any bass with decent strings, setup and hot pickups will have 'sustain'.

another 'pickup' example is that you can place a Neuman U87 on a martin D28 and then use one on a plywood imported acoustic guitar, and no amount of eq or quality of microphone (in this case, the 'pickup') will make an inferior guitar sound like the D-28, and the same goes for the human voice, or a bass.

A microphone is not a pickup - this argument is incredibly flawed. You can't compare a microphone and a pickup - they do entirely different things in different situations it's like comparing a car stereo with a Guitar Amplifier.

 

[theNoseBleedKid]

Then explain why some Fender Precision Basses sound different from other Fender Precision Basses. Of course the differences will be incredibly subtle but as musicians and artists we trade heavily in subtleties...they tend to mean the difference between good and great in many regards. But hey, if you don't wanna believe in wood nymphs then wood nymphs won't exist for you. Maybe I'm nuts but I want to make music on a magic instrument.

Setup, player, strings, amplification, difference in pickups all contribute to a 'difference in sound'. Yeah, sure, wood might play a role, it might not - the outcome of that argument is hardly relevant though - but there's some seriously odd arguments coming out of this thread.

 

[theNoseBleedKid]

I had a Wendler ElectroCoustic bass with a sculpted western red cedar body and a Ric neck position p.up. that sounded NOTHING like a Ric running just the neck position p.up.
The wood makes a huge difference especially if the player has played acoustic instruments a lot or is simply adept at drawing the sound out of the wood in a slab. The p.up captures the vibration of the string and to a large degree the wood dictates how the string vibrates. If the wood didn't make a difference every Pre from the same manufacturing run would sound the same. I worked in a store that had an extremely high turnover of Fenders and I can tell ya they don't all sound the same.

******** - you can't replicate a sound with pickups alone, because the positioning of the pickups is different and the electronics (volume/tone caps and values) are probably different as well.

Acoustic instruments are different beasts. But we aren't talking about acoustic instruments.

People are claiming that the body made of hardwood, covered by finish somehow makes the bass resonate differently enough that the strings (which have their own sonic character, attached to the neck and fingerboard that change the sound further) can be sympathetic with that information and then that is changed by the pickups (which really do all of the work) and then the pre-amp/tone controls and amp all combine to make 1 sound.

Yeah, wood's definitely going to play a HUGE role in that equation.

Fenders won't sound the same for any number of reasons - the wood probably isn't the culprit for the majority of circumstances IMO. Not all pre-amps are made the same, many makers and builders change the frequency the pre-amp manipulates upon installation.

I'll give you a counter example. Ever play a bass with Pope Pre-amp and EMG pickups - sounds like Wooten, doesn't it?