Tone wood

[Oobly]

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.

There are three things that happen at any interface between two materials where one is vibrating: Reflection, absorption and transfer. Transfered frequencies can be transfered back again over time, causing reinforcement. Absorbed frequencies are lost, usually converted into heat. Reflected frequencies remain on the initial vibrating body. This occurs at all interfaces where there are different materials. What gives an instrument it's acoustic "tone" and "character" is the combined effect of all interfaces and the resulting reflection, absorption and transfer of various frequencies over time between all the components of the instrument, from string to hardware to wood and back again.

This is what makes luthiery such a fascinating discipline, balancing all of these interactions sometimes seems more akin to art than science, since they can become quite complex.

 

[chadds]

if these weren't 'too pricey' i'd get a fretless version for myself...and play some metal!

note the tonewoods:

Great & looking sounding. Don’t know how I know but tune sounds like some late night Skinamax.

It does sound like it doesn’t have a wood body or neck. A preference for some.

 

[fhm555]

Don’t know a lot about tone woods but here’s a thin lacquer satin black finish with some play wear in it. I had to mess with the body shot to bring out the parts of the body where my arm lays on it are starting to shine. The upper rear bout forward to the base of the forward bout. It’s very subtle but once you see it, it kinda sorta shows up in the long shot.

 

[FugaziBomb]

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...

They do?

Most people are able to tell the difference in the real world, from my experience.

Having played a bolt on EBMM Ray back to back with a neck through EBMM Ray, Ive gotta say that the two basses sounded identical

The physics supports the differences heard, too.

This seems like a dubious claim without an oscilloscope and a controlled environment.

Everything makes a difference, to varying degrees.

Maybe, but with such small diminishing returns that it would be impossible to hear in a mix with other instruments

Throwing a humbucker in a Strat won't make it sound exactly like a Les Paul and vice versa.

Both my Strat and LP have Dimarzio Distortions in the bridge position and sound remarkably similar. Having swapped both pick-ups back and forth, I can tell via my DAW one pick-up is metering hotter than the other, so the majority of the variation in tone is likely between the two "identical" pick-ups. Also, the actual resistance between all the 500k pots that I use have a pretty substantial variance (seriously, if you've got a meter, check some of the resistances that get called "500k" - it's pretty wild what they actually read as) so I am sure that is causing all kinds of effects on the upper harmonics as well.

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.

Even if the wood of the body makes an audible difference, it's impossible to attribute a single characteristic to a specific species of wood. The density in the grain varies SO MUCH that you could have a piece of alder be more porous than ash, while both being denser than a cut of mahogany.

Ash, by the way, is such a huge lie. Lumber mills will tag all kinds of wood as "ash" despite there being 100s of distinct species with distinct grain patterns. I was a purchaser for a mill, and I saw some seriously ridiculous claims from lumber suppliers.

At the end of the day, I'd say choose a wood species for a specific grain patter, color, weight and durability, but if you're looking for that "alder sound" you are likely going to spend a lot of time chasing windmills.

 

[JohnArnson]

This seems like a dubious claim without an oscilloscope and a controlled environment.

Likewise could be said about your opposite claims.

Also it's a scientifically proven fact that how the specific construction of a bass resonate with the strings, depending on the design and the materials used, will change the vibrations of the strings, which is what the pickups pick up.

Weather then that is an audible change I won't dare making claims of, but the change and difference is a scientific fact weather you'd like it or not.

And this of course doesn't go just for basses, It is how vibrations essentially works.

 

[Koshchei]

Adam nolly of periphery, marisuz duda of Riverside , Justin chanceller of tool

It doesn't matter what wood it's made out of, if those are who you listen to: your signal chain is going to be 100% of your tone. Just go with whatever you like the look of and inspires you to play well. Your primary concerns are going to be playability and ergonomics, not substrate.

 

[FugaziBomb]

Likewise could be said about your opposite claims.

All my claims were anecdotal.

Also it's a scientifically proven fact that how the specific construction of a bass resonate with the strings will change the vibrations of the strings, which is what the pickups pick up, depending on the design and the materials used.

This is something you can cite?

 

[gumbynotpokey]

Pickups, strings, and hands. You can't necessarily change the hands as easily, so it turns out those are what need the most work. Trying different strings and pickups is by comparison much more doable.

Have a nice day.

Carry on.

PS: tort pickguard, P bass, flats, carrots, and all that jazz (pun on "jazz" of course - sorry, couldn't help it).

 

[JohnArnson]

All my claims were anecdotal.



This is something you can cite?

It is how the science of vibrations works quite essentially, you would know if you had paid any attention to the physics classes you had in school.

It is not just a fact with basses or sound but a fact whenever vibrations are involved.

Try looking up resonance and vibrations in Google and I am sure you will find countless of articles confirming what I said.

 

[Koshchei]

It is how the science of vibrations works quite essentially, you would know if you paid any attention to the physics classes you had in school.

It is not just a fact with basses or sound but a fact whenever vibrations are involved.

Did you actually take Physics? Please be honest: Your teacher's credibility is at stake.

 

[FugaziBomb]

It is how the science of vibrations works quite essentially, you would know if you paid any attention to the physics classes you had in school.

Oh if you only knew me, we could both laugh at this statement.

It is not just a fact with basses or sound but a fact whenever vibrations is involved.

Blanket statements like this are so unwieldy, it's hard to even choose how to begin to dispute them.

 

[JohnArnson]

Did you actually take Physics? Please be honest: Your teacher's credibility is at stake.

I don't think you know what this is about honestly.

If you had read the post in question I refrained quite deliberately in that from any claims of audible changes, I simply stated that how the strings resonate with the rest of the bass will influence on the way the strings vibrate, it is in the actual sense of the word resonance, and resonance happens to be a real physical phenomena too, and how that specific resonance is will depend on the design and materials used for the bass in question, which is true according to science and physics.

Everything doesn't resonate equally, that goes for density, mass, structure and properly a lot of other factors too that I forgot, as well of course obviously the actual vibrations causing the resonance to happen in the first place.

Oh if you only knew me, we could both laugh at this statement.



Blanket statements like this are so unwieldy, it's hard to even choose how to begin to dispute them.

Try looking up resonance and vibrations in Google and I am sure you will find countless of articles confirming what I said..

 

[40Hz]

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.

That topic (along with “tonewoods” and high mass bridges) has been done to death here a few times already. I provided links in those earlier threads. I invite you to use the search function.

FWIW I own and have owned basses that use all three neck attachment methods: neck-through, set neck, and ‘bolt’ on. So my contention isn’t just based on reading and watching videos. I only mention that because, like you, I once strongly believed neck-through was sonically preferable to set neck, which in turn was better than bolt on. But after close to 50 years of playing a number of different basses, I one day realized that (even as a rule of thumb) it just wasn’t true.

Regarding your qualification that everything has an effect to varying degrees, that isn’t saying anything anybody doesn’t already know. Because all that is saying is that no two basses will ever be the same.

However, your statement that neck-through has a “profound” effect on ‘tone’ (and by that perhaps you mean timbre?) is highly questionable at best.

Point being if something does not provide a consistently repeatable, predictable, and measurable effect on something every single time, then you can’t claim there's a cause and effect correlation between the two. And I’ll leave it at that.

 

[Koshchei]

I don't think you know what this is about honestly.

If you had read the post in question I refrained quite deliberately in that from any claims of audible changes

Really? Because I thought you wrote:

Also it's a scientifically proven fact that how the specific construction of a bass resonate with the strings, depending on the design and the materials used, will change the vibrations of the strings, which is what the pickups pick up.

Which seems like the exact opposite of that.

 

[FugaziBomb]

Point being if something does not provide a consistently repeatable, predictable, and measurable effect on something every single time, then you can’t claim there's a cause and effect correlation between the two. And I’ll leave it at that.

 

[pappabass]

My guess is the paint color will make a bigger difference.

No one seems to think that 1/8" paint on a body has any affect on the vibration or resonance.

 

[Oobly]

Right... So we should advise this guy to do whatever, none of it matters except for looks?

Or could you possibly accept that advising someone to use the construction method, hardware, woods, etc that have the best chance to attain the desired tone could actually be helping out? That's what he's asking for.

It doesn't matter to anyone else if you can't hear the difference between any of these things, especially in isolation. It doesn't mean nobody can and it doesn't mean there isn't a difference. Simple common sense and basic principles of physics are enough to show that there must be some difference. Whether it's significant enough to matter in the individual case is more subjective, but that's not really what's being argued here, is it?

Anyhow, I've had my say. I respect everyone's opinion, but really just want to help the guy out. As I said, make some popcorn, sharpen your pitchforks, I'll post a more comprehensive thread on this topic another day.

 

[Koshchei]

No one seems to think that 1/8" paint on a body has any affect on the vibration or resonance.

That's a LOT of paint.

 

[JohnArnson]

Really? Because I thought you wrote:

Which seems like the exact opposite of that.

No it's not at all the same thing, not even remotely, and honestly I think you are trolling now, since that is exactly what I wrote in the sentence that comes just after the one you quoted me for.

Likewise could be said about your opposite claims.

Also it's a scientifically proven fact that how the specific construction of a bass resonate with the strings, depending on the design and the materials used, will change the vibrations of the strings, which is what the pickups pick up.

Weather then that is an audible change I won't dare making claims of, but the change and difference is a scientific fact weather you'd like it or not.

And this of course doesn't go just for basses, It is how vibrations essentially works.

That the strings vibrate in a different way is not the same as to say you can actually hear that difference, it doesn't mean that you can't hear it either, it just means that there is a difference, regardless of weather you can hear it or not.

I don't know how you can even in all seriousness couple those things together as the same thing, it's just absolutely ridiculous.

I was discussing weather there is any science behind the claims of wood having an influence on the sound of a bass, not if it is actually human possibly to pick up those differences.

Sound here in the scientific sense of pressure waves in the air, not in the sense of being able to hear something.

All I was saying is that there is science behind the claims, it's a fact.

 

[pappabass]

That's a LOT of paint.

Ever chipped a fender guitar to the wood? Its thick!