What is your favorite tonewood?

[Silver Blues]

In general black korina is my favorite.

I tend to like swamp ash for guitars (my guitar is made of it and it sounds awwwwwwesome, nice and light too)

Paulownia is a great wood when you need your instrument to be DAMN light. It sounds nice but not as nice as some other woods.The compromise is worth it, IMO.

Bubinga is also a fantastic bass wood too. Has that simultaneously thick and aggressive tone that suits itself very well to the low end.

 

[Mystic Michael]

So what wood configurations do you guys find to be the most pleasing, and for what style?

For a modern neck-through bass guitar, I've found that the maple/walnut combination works very well. Good attack, good sustain. A smooth, articulate, yet powerful tone suitable for modern rock - or any of its variants.

For more of a "classic" or old school bolt-on bass guitar, a maple neck on a swamp ash body generally does the trick. Can't beat the punchiness, attack, and definition.

But overall, the maple/walnut neck-through with either walnut or maple body sides - and an ebony board - is my favorite thus far.

MM

 

[huckleberry1]

curly maple

 

[Duckwater]

Most of the basses I find myself liking have mahogany bodies with some sort of hard wood top and sometimes mahogany necks, I would attribute that sound to being percussive with a lot of bass and midrange that fill out every note, with a contoured upper frequency response that reacts well to my own style.

 

[Batmensch]

I don't have a favorite, just on what I need in that particular bass and the how the electronics and other features color the sound.

Same here, no preference, mainly because I'm one of those "unfortunates" that can't hear the differences.

 

[Systolic]

can't decide my favorite in these:

black korina/wenge/bubinga/ovangkol/ash

I spy with my little eye.....a Warwick fan!

As I've been recently really getting into Warwicks i'm starting to believe that there really might something to exotic tonewoods.

That being said, of the more standard tonewoods, i'll go with swamp ash and/or maple, but then again i like a tight, mid heavy tone.

 

[svt1233]

maple/maple maple/rosewood koa/rosewood/pau ferro

 

[topo morto]

Hornbeam with Snakewood facing.

 

[Emanuel Apascaritei]

That said, my walnut / ebony Fodera sounds significantly better to MY ear. It is just so personal that all I can say is follow your own ear! Cheers....

My Adamovic is walnut body/pau ferro top and ebony fingerboard. As you said in your previous post, it has that airy ping and deep and defined lows. But I also like how the mids sounds, maybe because the lows are so definied.

 

[Munjibunga]

I've been gravitating to mahogany body with ebony fretboard lately. I've got three of them.

Fodera Viceroy 5 bolt-on, mahogany body, koa top, maple neck, ebony 'board. Fodera/Duncan dual coils, Fodera/Pope preamp.

Sadowsky NYC Modern 5-24, mahogany body, koa top, maple neck, ebony 'board. Sadowsky preamp and pickups.

LeCompte VB-5, mahogany body, birdseye maple top, walnut tone plate, maple neck, macassar ebony 'board. Aguilar OBP-3 preamp, Nordstrand dual-coil pickups.

These basses meet my tone goals very nicely. Rich tone across the spectrum, articulate attack. That's not to say I don't like my other basses with bodies of ash, alder and etimoe.

 

[bassbenj]

I've been gravitating to mahogany body with ebony fretboard lately. I've got three of them.

These basses meet my tone goals very nicely. Rich tone across the spectrum, articulate attack. That's not to say I don't like my other basses with bodies of ash, alder and etimoe.

I have to admit that mahogany-ebony is probably my most favorite too. My Alembic is mahogany body and Ebony fingerboard and so is my Carvin. As woods go there is something I really like about that combo.

But not too far down is my solid maple Ken Smith with rosewood. Heavy but really nice. Ash and alder are my more or less "standard" choice and I prefer Ash because it's brighter. I have no basswood basses because I find it dull and "rolled off". I tried a basswood G&L Tribby once and hated it. My agathis Squier P-bass is OK, but I think it would be slightly better in Alder. On the other hand a bongo that has been tweaked for basswood seems fine. I could rock a Bongo though I don't own one.

But generally speaking I choose ash and if I'm going to spend more it's most likely going to be for mahogany-ebony.

 

[capcom]

Alder tonewood/body with maple neck recently.

 

[Rockin Mike]

There are so many factors yadda yadda and yes that's true wood is only one of them, and certainly not the biggest one. I've found that with whatever electronics, pickup placement, pickguard color etc. I can get the sound 90% there with any wood, but whenever I hear 100% gasm tone it's a bass made of a few favorite woods.

Having said that many of my favorite sounding basses have had maple bodies. A Peavey T-40 and various Rickenbackers. Spector Euro also sounds great, it has an Alder/Walnut body (with whatever top wood) and a rock maple neck.

What do all these have in common? A really dense hard wood that won't soak up the vibrations like a sponge. Maple, and Walnut. I surmise that the highs and high mids get soaked up more easily by softer woods. This is also borne out if you listen to some Aluminum basses. They are very present (too present?) in the high-mids and highs.

I read a post earlier in the thread saying Fodera luthier in the early days would hang body & neck blanks and ping them with a marimba hammer. If they didn't ring for 15 seconds he wouldn't use them. Well, when it rings that means it isn't soaking up the vibrations. So I think the idea about soft woods losing tone definition (or sounding "warmer", if you prefer that tone goal) is somewhat evidenced.

So what do I like about them, tone-goal wise? Tight strong low mids between 150-250Hz, a little scoop around 400-500Hz, and a tough high-mid "nose" to carry the dirt around 600-1000Hz. Anything above that just emphasizes fret noise and how much my technique sucks Does the "nose" get lost behind the guitars? Yes, most of the time. That's why the tight low-mids are necessary to provide balls most of the time. When there's space for a fill or a little solo, the dirty nose gets heard. Actually even when the high-mids get lost behind the guitar the dirt on them implements some band-specific compression that helps things sound smoother and fatter in a non-obvious way so it's all good.

What I've found is I can EQ for this all day long but the maple basses respond to it like a sportscar, and the mahogany/agathis/so-called "warm" sounding woods respond like a school bus. They don't quite get all the way there no matter how hard I try.

Mahogany is great, it works very well for softer music, but when I want the audience to fear my bass, I keep coming back to the hardwoods.

 

[TonyP-]

My body wood tastes have a changed a bit since my first reply a few years ago and I would say I prefer Ash in most instances now.

 

[Munjibunga]

I have to admit that mahogany-ebony is probably my most favorite too.

There's no shame in that.

 

[Phendyr_Loon]

For me it usually depends on the electronics, that is active or passive, and more importantly pickup configuration.
Now without opening a huge can 'o worms, my OPINION is that you can't go wrong with ash/maple/rosewood for a traditional passive bass.

 

[RockNRollAl]

I like the sound of the wood that the truss rods are made out of...

 

[Rockin Mike]

What is the best metal for truss rods?

 

[Webtroll]

mahogany

 

[Fuzzbass]

So what wood configurations do you guys find to be the most pleasing, and for what style?

I personally play fingerpicking style mostly, like a cello if you will. Lots of treble required, no mudd. I need a nice "airy" tone with deep resonance. Ash does this well, at least i think my bass is ash (peavey foundation 83')

As mentioned, wood is definitely NOT the most important factor in determining the tone of the bass. Also, the tone of wood is variable, even within the same species: two "identical" basses can sound noticeably different.

But to answer your question: my favorite tonewood these days is alder. Ash is a prettier wood, and can be lighter in weight, but the last three ash basses I've owned did not please my ears as much as alder, so I've decided it's not coincidence. To me, fretboard wood matters much less than body wood (on a fretted bass, anyway), but maple tends to be my favorite. That said, I have alder/ebony and alder/rosewood in addition to alder/maple, and don't notice a huge difference between the three.

I play many styles of music, but prefer alder because it gives me harmonic richness in the low treble, nice punch to the gut (low mids), with no shortage of low end.

To me, "swamp ash" (lightweight ash) seems to sing in the high mids. There's also heavy ash, which has a very different tone IMO, but while it was common on 70's Fenders, it's rare these days.

Of course there are many other tonewoods, but those I've tried still haven't pleased me as much as alder, so I just stick with alder.