On top of that, in the case of our friend (Progressive Metal), his wine will be mixed with beer, barbecue sauce, apple juice and mushroom gravy. Good luck to find the subtle taste of oak barrels!
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Tone wood
- Thread starter doomprophet8
- Start date
Yes . But that flamed maple top has no cost so I think I will have it . And how about the wenge/padouk neck ? I like its color . Is it good for the sound I like?
The tone you describe is already available on production basses such as the Spector ReBop which you can demo before spending money.
Are there reasons beyond the tone you’re after that’s making you want to go through the trouble and expense of commissioning a custom instrument?
Are there reasons beyond the tone you’re after that’s making you want to go through the trouble and expense of commissioning a custom instrument?
It is not all about the sound . I always wanted to have a custome bass and also this bass will be cheaper than a Spector bass
I have a small herd of basses - most are ash or alder (we'll leave the Korina one out of this discussion). If you rank the bodies I have by weight (I'm a bit anal about the weight of my basses, so I know this stuff), the heaviest ones are the alder bodies, the lightest are the ash ones. Yes, ash can be heavy - multiple species, different trees, etc, but true "swamp ash" - wood low on the tree from certain species is generally lighter than alder.
I put ash in two camps when talking bass, southern and northern. Due to climate, the northern variation grows dense. It’s what is supposed to give it a lot of sustain, bite and attack. The punch factor seemed pretty light, though. Swamp Ash, the southern variation, is less dense, and I’ve easily jacked up screw holes in the past. SA is darker.
Alder is the right choice. It may not be as bright or have the bite like NA....or sustain....but it has more punch.
As for comparing ash and alder of the same weight and density (that’d be a needle in a haystack) you’d probably find they sound a lot alike with everything else being equal. I think it’s density that has the biggest impact. Like some guy posted, it’s the end points. A strong bridge to wood connection is more probable with denser materials.
Really? Last I looked Spector Euro ReBops (what I have) could be had for around $1500. But if your dream is a custom bass then by all means go for it. YOLO, right?
for fretboard, I would choose kingwood over ebony. I have it one of my bass and it's like ebony. But I THINK, it's a little less piercing than ebony in a very good way.
I said I think because I only have 5 guitars with ebony and one with kingwood. It's all about perception and I could be wrong. It is more expensive but at the same time, your bass will surely be more exclusive. I believe Fodera uses it on some of their higher end stuff.
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I said I think because I only have 5 guitars with ebony and one with kingwood. It's all about perception and I could be wrong. It is more expensive but at the same time, your bass will surely be more exclusive. I believe Fodera uses it on some of their higher end stuff.
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One thing that's being ignored here is construction method. Is it a neck-through, set-neck or bolt-on. Those have a profound effect on the tone and will help to narrow down which neck woods will be better for your tonal goals.
As a reference, you mentioned Nolly. His most-used bass for recording has an alder body, 5-piece maple neck (bolt-on), maple fretboard and medium to low mass individual bridge pieces, thin fret wire. So an alder body, maple neck, ebony fretboard in either bolt-on or set neck will be close, especially if you also use low mass fret wire and bridge. With a set-neck, adding the maple top will actually help get it even closer. A lot of his tone comes from the pickup type and configuration, though, much more than the wood choices, IMO.
As a reference, you mentioned Nolly. His most-used bass for recording has an alder body, 5-piece maple neck (bolt-on), maple fretboard and medium to low mass individual bridge pieces, thin fret wire. So an alder body, maple neck, ebony fretboard in either bolt-on or set neck will be close, especially if you also use low mass fret wire and bridge. With a set-neck, adding the maple top will actually help get it even closer. A lot of his tone comes from the pickup type and configuration, though, much more than the wood choices, IMO.
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Um, no.
Actual real world testing doesn’t support that contention. But if the neck attachment method is something that’s important to the OP, then by all means that’s something else he’ll need to consider.
Just to throw some kindling on the building bonfire - body wood is almost the least important thing IME. If you want it transparent, get a cool grain. Otherwise, get as light a wood as you can find. Invest/research more in the electronics & neck.
I think what you were planning on using for wood choices can give you exactly what you’re after with the right pickups, etc. Solid Alder is a fine choice for the body. Don’t bother with a top wood over the alder for tonal purposes. A multi-piece maple/wenge neck with an ebony fretboard should be great, as that stiff shaft with a dense/hard fretboard. You could probably put that neck on a pine body with the right electronics and still get a bright, punchy, aggressive tone. Best of luck with the custom build. Post pics and let us know how it turns out when it’s done!
Devil's Advocate hat on:
Materials which do not resonate with the strings are not the same thing as materials which do not absorb vibrations. Arguably -- or at least semantically -- materials which do resonate with the strings are by definition not absorbing vibrations, they're reinforcing vibrations.
Punchy, sharp and aggressive? Never mind the wood. A good quality bass with single coil pickups is what you need!
Interesting. Supporting evidence? Link to a real-world test, perhaps? Most people are able to tell the difference in the real world, from my experience. The physics supports the differences heard, too. I guess I really do have to create a thread dealing with all of this as I am getting quite tired of people pooh-poohing design choices in guitars and saying they make no difference. Everything makes a difference, to varying degrees. Some may be tiny, but they all add up. You can alter the tone significantly with string and pickup choices, but if frequencies that are important to the tone you're after are not present any more in adequate amounts, you can't add them back in. Throwing a humbucker in a Strat won't make it sound exactly like a Les Paul and vice versa.
Set-neck is actually the one that involves the body wood the most. With both neck-throughs and bolt-ons the neck wood plays a greater part in the equation (although neck wood choice is still more important in a set neck than body wood). Bolt-ons tend to be more "snappy", on neck-throughs notes tend to exhibit more "bloom". Stay tuned and make some popcorn while I put my notes together for that flame-war starting thread one of these days. As a side-note, "sustain" is not significantly different between them, depending on how you define it, but the shape of the note decay is.
Doesn't sound neither punchy, sharp or aggressive to me, on the contrary it sounds like a wet fart to me, but maybe we have different definitions of what makes a tone with those qualities.
A lot of clank too though, but not in the good way in my opinion either, sounds like too floppy strings rather than an aggressive attack in these examples.
Also to OP, playing with a pick instead of your fingers will help you get to how I would define the kind of tone you describe.
For the sound the OP is describing I would be thinking northern ash, maple neck and an ebony, wenge or pau ferro board. Here’s the thing though: following the theory of what a particular wood is “supposed” to provide sonically doesn’t guarantee that your bass will sound the way you hope it will. I’ve had several custom basses made and none of them sounded exactly like what I was hoping for. But that’s the risk you take when paying for a bass before actually trying it.
