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Tonewood Experiment.

#61
michaelwayneharwood said:
I assume you mean the woods used for both fingerboard and the "core" of the neck, as well as neck reinforcement technologies (e.g. truss rods, carbon fiber, etc.). One thing I have noticed is that vibrations in the neck translate to the tone captured by magnetic pickups. As an example I built a neck where the truss rod was not properly glued in and it rattled during playing, and the rattling was readily apparent in the amplified sound.
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Yes. Especially with regards to rigidity. More in the rigidity and density than the actual "type" of materials used, though certainly you can generalize that a graphite neck will influence the sound in a different way than a maple/rosewood neck.

For me personally, as long as it has adequate rigidity and I don't need to make constant adjustments, I'm happy. I worry less about "rosewood vs maple" type debates and more about "am I gonna constantly have to mess with this green wood neck. :)

PS: rattling is bad. ;)
 
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#64
Matthew_84 said:
I can see why the modified signal would sound different than the unmodified signal, but do different blocks sound different?
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Dude..... That simple straight faced question was way more funny than his entire silly premise for that video! ...lol ;)
 
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#65
Dark Horse said:
PS: rattling is bad. ;)
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Not necessarily. In this case it was not what I desired, but it opened up new lines of thinking for me.

1. Obviously vibration of the neck affects the captured sound to *some* degree, so there is no way to completely ignore assertions of neck and fingerboard materials affecting tone.
2. What would a bass sound like that had a neck with small pockets in regularly spaced intervals that had materials placed in it meant to rattle (e.g. metal balls, bits of glass, etc.)?
 
#66
michaelwayneharwood said:
Not necessarily. In this case it was not what I desired, but it opened up new lines of thinking for me.

1. Obviously vibration of the neck affects the captured sound to *some* degree, so there is no way to completely ignore assertions of neck and fingerboard materials affecting tone.
2. What would a bass sound like that had a neck with small pockets in regularly spaced intervals that had materials placed in it meant to rattle (e.g. metal balls, bits of glass, etc.)?
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Like those cymbals with the rivets in them !..... Holy crap you're a genius!
 
#67
michaelwayneharwood said:
Not necessarily. In this case it was not what I desired, but it opened up new lines of thinking for me.

1. Obviously vibration of the neck affects the captured sound to *some* degree, so there is no way to completely ignore assertions of neck and fingerboard materials affecting tone.
2. What would a bass sound like that had a neck with small pockets in regularly spaced intervals that had materials placed in it meant to rattle (e.g. metal balls, bits of glass, etc.)?
Click to expand...


I'll let "you" play around with that one. :) Could be interesting....
 
#68
Rôckhewer said:
Like those cymbals with the rivets in them !..... Holy crap you're a genius!
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I certainly can't be the first person to think of this, but i can;t find anything like it anywhere....

Dark Horse said:
I'll let "you" play around with that one. :) Could be interesting....
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You can guarantee that I will. ;)
 
#70
michaelwayneharwood said:
You can guarantee that I will. ;)
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What's weird is my twisted mind immediately thought of the "Rat'L'Trap" fishing lures. At one time, it was something nobody had thought of...putting pellets in a chamber of a crankbait....and then Rat'L'Trap did it and it changed a lot of how people fished for bass.

I know, different "bass"....but the conversation just made me think of it.
 
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#71
I would have expected at least *some* difference.

I will say that it seems to be more generally accepted
that different neck woods make a noticable difference.
That is a different discussion, for a different experiment
on a different day.

Another variation on this theme is how much difference
different neck/body combinations make.
I've heard a lot of storys about folks that had two
Fender basses that were both, at best, so so.
Then they swapped necks and they both were
markedly better.
Maybe different fit in the neck pocket.
Maybe the wood in the bodys and necks
somehow complimented each other.
Maybe the owners just REALLY wanted to hear
a big improvement.

Dunno.
Just food for thought.
 
#74
MattZilla said:
This x1000
I've tried to love, or even find useful as a Bass Bass guitar, over twenty mahogany basses- some long scale, some sg/eb-3's. Testing them through one tube amp set just on the edge of grind, while a P or J will have even lengths of grindy attack from well below E up to about 17th fret c, if I set the amp to have that same grind on 12th fret g on a mahog bass, it will be impossible to get that attack grind below 10th fret D on E, likewise if I set the amp to grind on open E, everything above open g played anywhere on the board will full-on stonerdoom distort through/beyond halfway the total available note sustain. Probably useful for lead bassists. To get an even response out of the amp I had to be gentle on the higher notes and really dig in on the low ones.

I once cut four tele bodies out of the same huge slab of quilted maple and built them up with mim necks and identical hardware. Even with swapping the necks around, it was easy to pick a favorite body to play, but nearly impossible to tell a difference in direct-in recording without visually analyzing long rung notes.

What dictates what 99% of the audience hears according to this jackass poster (me):
80% Fingers
5% Speaker+cab
4% Amp
2% Pedals
1% Pickups
.8% Strings
.6% setup
.2% what clothes you're wearing
.1% Fingerboard material
.01% bridge
.001% neck material(s)
.0009% body material(s)
.0006% pots, caps and wires
.0005% Tuners
6.288% room and mood

Since your fingers are so huge a part of the tone, if there's a combo of woods and hardware makes them happy, the sound reaching ears will benefit. If a player is blessed with fingers that do not care, almost any bass will do.
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1% pups? I don't think so.
5% speaker and cabs? I don't think so.
.8% strings? I don't think so.
 
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#76
The average audience member misses a LOT of the subtleties of sound and music. That explains lots of successful bands. Doesn't mean the subleties aren't there. Change from flats to rounds (even stainless to nickel), a P to a J (and beyond), and an SVT to a Crate combo. Etc. Fingers change the tone, but not anywhere near 80%.
 
#78
My own unscientific experience produced alternate results. I transferred ALL the hardware, electronics, neck, tuners, and even the strings ( year old and fully broken in) from my Steinberger XP2 bass, which had a rock maple body and graphite neck, to a new mahogany body. The only variable is the wood. It sounds quite different, perhaps a slight decrease in sustain, but much warmer sounding. A friend heard it and reached the same conclusion on his own. I accept that tiny differences in the neck pocket dimensions could change the energy transfer from neck to body, but if that's irrelevant to electric pickups, it shouldn't matter. For the record, I used a micrometer to try to get the pocket identical to the original, and used the original neck bolts. The scientific debate continues, but based on direct experience, I still believe the wood is one of many factors contributing to tone. A fascinating and apparently endless debate until a fully controlled, vetted, and peer reviewed study is published by professionals with A track record for good science.

Edit:
FWIW, the original maple Steinberger body has a thick two.part epoxy paint finish, while the new body is Watco Danish Oil over mahogany. Again, if its just strings and pickups, that should be an irrelevant variable, but the sound difference remains unexplained, at least to me.
 
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#80
So along these same lines, I conducted an experiment about a month ago using the same simple short 30 second portion of a tune, same bass, amp, distance, to the recorder, etc. Same strings, same control settings, same body, passive bass.

Only one thing on the bass changed between these 2 recordings.

Listen with good quality headphones or speakers and see if anyone can guess:

1. What changed?
2. Specifically, what's the difference between the two?

Tone Test
 

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