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Weight vs. Tone
- Thread starter LBS-bass
- Start date
I like these kind of hypothetical values questions.
I value tone highly but if I'm honest my tone is not particularly remarkable. There are allot of basses that would achieve a pleasingly acceptable 90% of the tone I have in my head.
Weight however dramatically affects my personal comfort and thus my enjoyment of playing music.
You can give me the finest sounding bass in the world but if it makes me sore for 3 sets you can take it back.
I value tone highly but if I'm honest my tone is not particularly remarkable. There are allot of basses that would achieve a pleasingly acceptable 90% of the tone I have in my head.
Weight however dramatically affects my personal comfort and thus my enjoyment of playing music.
You can give me the finest sounding bass in the world but if it makes me sore for 3 sets you can take it back.
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In answer to the second part of the OP's question. I've found plenty of instruments that meet my requirements which go beyond tone and weight. With the exception of my T40 (which I use for recording) all the instruments in my profile are representative of this. If they aren't comfortably giggable they go out.
I wouldn't waste my time. It's kind of messy in thereNext time I'll try to read your mind.
I guess for me it's a false "prioritization" as I'm a builder and before that modded the crap out of instruments. I've been able to find the weight I want in an instrument and just reconfigure it for tonal goals. Later, I just designed and built them to be lower weight and better ergonomics and then choose the electronics, pickup positioning and hardware to suit the tone I want to have. So far so good! I don't envy those who want a specific tonal goal in a specific aesthetic package and find that the two don't exist together. You can always go custom, but it's more of a crapshoot. 
This is true, but any bass build is a crap shoot. I bat about .900 with my goals, but sometimes even though the weight is good, the tone just won't come around. And this is true no matter the weight of the bass. I will say this: the source of the wood seems to matter. My basses built from USACG parts seem to sound better than those from Warmoth. Also, Warmoth parts are just plain HEAVY.
When I talk here about prioritization and choice, the choice I'm thinking about mainly is the choice to turn away from my existing arsenal of instruments, which I prize for their tone to look for something lighter. I'm wondering myself at what point my priorities will shift to a degree that I walk away from what I already own.I guess for me it's a false "prioritization" as I'm a builder and before that modded the crap out of instruments. I've been able to find the weight I want in an instrument and just reconfigure it for tonal goals. Later, I just designed and built them to be lower weight and better ergonomics and then choose the electronics, pickup positioning and hardware to suit the tone I want to have. So far so good! I don't envy those who want a specific tonal goal in a specific aesthetic package and find that the two don't exist together. You can always go custom, but it's more of a crapshoot.
For a lot of people here, that's not relevant. For a builder, especially, that's probably not relevant. But in a practical sense, for me, and I imagine for others who haven't yet considered weight to be an issue, it's very relevant.
I resonate with this. One instrument I didn't mention above was that part of paring back my collection was shedding heavy instruments. It wasn't the only reason, but weight was part of why the T-45 is no longer in my collection.
Weight is not the only factor and I think there may be other, or a collection of factors that result in a turnover of a significant portion of one's collection. For myself it was a combination of general cutting back, weight preferences and settling on 35", 4 strings with P-bass necks that caused me to shed most of my instruments and replace several of the remaining instruments with new ones that better fit me.
The current field of instruments and makers makes me feel that there's little reason to keep instruments that don't fit all your preferences. I would recommend practicing prudence and replacing one at a time as you find "better" versions but there's no reason an arsenal should remain static or permanent.
Back on the topic of weight...
Weight became such an issue that I parted out and sold my beloved Decade-style, dual darkstar Frankenbass. It had a great neck and sounded amazing but was too heavy. I kept the pups and liked it so much that I'm currently having a Telebass-style instrument built just to house those two dark star pickups.
I have a longstanding love of my T-40 (and my example is particularly nice), and it's a great recording bass. However, the new Darkstar Telebass turns out as good as I hope there is a small chance I may also sell off the T-40 too!
The Truth for me is that I can manage a 10 lb instrument, I just don't want to. The first time I played a lighter bass onstage I realized how much fun I was having, as opposed to having to add bass weight management into the performance. So yeah, there's a big fun factor involved in having lighter weight basses, easily as important as getting a great sound.
I can build a decent tone from most basses regardless of weight, so my priority is sustaining enjoyable playability throughout 4-hour gigs, four nights a week, sometimes more.
I get the feeling a fair number of folks here feel that weight isn’t an issue. I would agree that sitting in one’s bedroom with a 12-pounder for a half-hour or so at a time is no problem.
And for those road dogs that play routinely and can swing a wrecking ball throughout, I commend you. Wish I could do that.
I get the feeling a fair number of folks here feel that weight isn’t an issue. I would agree that sitting in one’s bedroom with a 12-pounder for a half-hour or so at a time is no problem.
And for those road dogs that play routinely and can swing a wrecking ball throughout, I commend you. Wish I could do that.
This OP is definitely not computing. Weight and Tone are two separate, but perhaps related qualities of basses. I mean, what’s the assumption here; that lighter basses have bad tone? That is absurdly uninformed.
Lighter and heavier instruments have different tonal responses to the player. Lighter instruments tend to be more acoustically resonant; heavier instruments tend to have a more solid hit. Neither of those two poles defines any kind of systeme internationale (SI) standard. In fact, what is interesting is the magic and individual nuances that play out in the middle, with different players having different prefs between the extremes.
Mainly, it’s a matter of understanding what a given instrument does well, or not so well.
Oh, and then there’s the thing that the pickups and preamp have a big effect on the net result.
Lighter and heavier instruments have different tonal responses to the player. Lighter instruments tend to be more acoustically resonant; heavier instruments tend to have a more solid hit. Neither of those two poles defines any kind of systeme internationale (SI) standard. In fact, what is interesting is the magic and individual nuances that play out in the middle, with different players having different prefs between the extremes.
Mainly, it’s a matter of understanding what a given instrument does well, or not so well.
Oh, and then there’s the thing that the pickups and preamp have a big effect on the net result.
I think the op is in regards the wives' tale that the heavier the bass, the better the sound. I've seen that on TB at least as many times as a P bass is no good unless it has flats and tort.
Uh, no. I don't think that. I'm sure there are many who still believe it but that was a popular misconception back in the 80's and it resulted in a lot of boat anchors being built back in the day.
