RichterScale;
You still seem to be missing the concept here. Over the years, I've built my Scroll Basses using different wood species for the bodies. Same basic design and dimensions, although I've varied the configuration and amount of internal chambering to adjust the resulting sound. I've used woods of varying hardness: maple, walnut, ash, honduras mahogany, Phillipine mahogany, koa, and ...poplar.
These basses, with different body woods, have distinctly different sounds or tones. And I mean sound out through the pickup and out the amp. It's not an enormous difference in sound, like you'd get from changing the type of pickup, or the type of strings, or inserting preamps. But there's a definite difference that anyone can hear. If I blindfolded you and handed you different basses to try, you might guess wrong which wood was which. But you would absolutely notice that there was a difference in tone between them. It's not something that you have to hear with a microscope (I like that expression!).
But...My Scroll Basses are deliberately built so that their necks and bodies are softer, and they flex in response to the vibration of the strings. Which affects the vibration on the strings, and changes the tone that goes out through the amp, etc. The bass is designed so that the body wood participates in shaping the sound. In my Scroll Bass, the poplar is being a Tone Wood. It can't help it. That's how it's being used.
In contrast, most mass produced basses, like Fenders, are designed to minimize the ability of the body wood to be Tone Wood. Leo made the body thick enough and solid to minimize the flexing. He wanted to minimize the frame's effect on the sound, or at least control it to something consistent. Leo intended for the sound of his basses to mostly be controlled by the design of his pickups. He didn't want some to sound "better" than others because of the piece of wood chosen for the body. Leo was all about consistency by the millions. If he wanted a bass to sound different, he would make it different with different pickups, different shape, etc.
And it mostly worked. The majority of Fender P-basses sound close to the same, regardless of the body wood. And so the masses march around carrying banners saying "See, Body Wood Doesn't Matter, And Has Nothing To Do With The Sound!". This proves that electric basses are just pickups and strings on a slab of wood. Yup.
But then....Some Fenders slipped by that had Substandard bodies made from softer wood.....which allowed them to flex a little more beyond the design specs. And Fender connoisseurs noticed that some P-basses with bodies of some woods sounded a little different. Maybe a little better? This can't be! Oh No!
The secret knowledge got out and the subculture grew. Boutique Luthiers started building Boutique Fenders using different body woods and demonstrating that, OMG, they did indeed sound better. Or at least different. Under pressure from customers, Fender even started offering some basses with different body woods and even promoting the idea that it affected the sound in a subtle way (gasp!).
Meanwhile the Fender Faithful lined up a row of Fenders that sounded exactly the same and chanted Wood Doesn't Matter! Tone Wood Is A Myth! And point to basses made of plastic and concrete and colored pencils as proof!
And they aren't completely wrong. You certainly can build a bass with a body made from..almost anything..that will sound almost like a Fender. IF you make it similar in stiffness to the Fenders, where the wood isn't being allowed to function as Tone Wood.
That's where the argument stands these days.
So, is poplar a Tone Wood? It's not inherently a Tone Wood as a permanent physical characteristic. Nor is any wood. It depends how the wood is used. In one of my Scroll Basses, the poplar is being used to shape the final tone. A different sound than if it were another species. It is a Tone Wood.
But you can also build a bass with a poplar body, which is stiff enough that the poplar doesn't move with the string's vibration. In that case, the poplar is not a Tone Wood. You could build that bass design using different body woods, and they would sound the same. None of them would be Tone Woods.
That's the center of all these misunderstandings about electric bass bodies and Tone Wood. The choice of wood species can affect the sound of the bass, but only if the bass is built to allow it. You cannot say that a poplar body will always sound like this. And you also cannot say that a poplar body will never affect the sound. It depends on how the poplar is used.
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) by the pickup. The second pulse is vibrations that go from the bridge through the body and back through the neck nut etc. They are transmitted back to the string and influence it's vibration. This is delayed but is at great speed. This effect on the string is tone. It imparts character to the vibrating string. You may like it you may not.
