I am guessing that whether a lighter or heavier bass sounds better or the same might depend on the species of wood.
Maybe certain configurations (pickup configuration, scale length) sound better with certain species of wood.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool P player, and I love alder, because the P is all about grunt, and alder offers the clarity demanded to get good grunt, plus it is a warm, vocal sounding wood that has a lot of tonal nuance. The sound is satisfyingly complex. It sounds like a human voice, which is very complex, and I think that's essential to grabbing the listener's attention at all levels.
I have found that the lighter the alder, the louder, clearer, and more vocal the bass will speak. I don't know whether that has to do with proper drying, what minerals are in the soil, the rain cycle, or what. I just know what my ears tell me.
This seems counter-intuitive. I read an article about how the density of wood has decreased since America started cutting out hardwoods. The article was based on woods that had been retrieved from log jams that were a century old. The growth rings were more densely packed in that old wood. The theory is that the trees were so tightly packed together that they inhibited each other's rapid growth, contributing to density. This would seem to be better, right? But all I know is what I hear.
There are a few common lightweight woods that I find lacking.
I had a poplar J body for years and it drove me nuts. Every neck I tried on it had dead spots that I couldn't live with. Turns out it was the wood. Well, it sucked anyhow, the basic sound of the body, very one-dimensional, but I was just too dirt broke to experiment with bodies. I had to get that dead spot problem fixed first, not knowing the problem wasn't the neck.
I tried basswood. Lots of people say they get good results. I didn't. It had clarity, yeah, power, too, but it just wasn't a vocal sounding wood. It was too simple. I wish there were another way to describe this, but all I can say is it was unsatisfying.
Agathis. I had a couple of fairly light basses made of that. It sounded semi-dark but not rich, and a bit lacking in clarity.
So I always come back to alder. I had a couple of light AVRI Ps, very good, the lightest was the best, and for the past 10 years, I've had a super-light SQ-series P. That's the best bass I've ever played. Incredibly loud, clear, rich, vocal. Unplugged, it's as loud or louder with flats than most other basses I've owned with rounds.
Some people like hard ash. I don't know if heavier or lighter hard ash has the same dramatic tonal difference, and if so, which sounds better. An ash fan would have to report on that.
I don't know anything about swamp ash, either. Hoping someone will have something to say about that, too.
I agree with everything everyone is saying about hanging the bass off the shoulder.
I once bought a Steinberger L-2 to alleviate shoulder problems. I needed it for a while.
Good body design is needed to keep a light bass from neck-diving. Strap button placement is also influential. I tried a neck dive fix on that old poplar J body that worked. I moved the horn strap button to the rear surface of the horn, and I moved the end strap button down along the curve of the body toward the floor a couple of inches.
I have a set of Hipshot Ultralites I bought, but on second thought, I'm not going to put them on this bass because I don't know if they will create a dead spot where there is none now. That's another concern. If they were true drop-in replacements, I'd try them, but from experience with another bass, I found I had to ream the holes out.
I bought a Neotech neoprene strap that really spreads out the weight, plus it sticks to the shoulder and won't slide around. Best strap I ever owned. I don't know what model it is. They now have more specialized products, including a Mega Bass Strap.
. Currently rocking a 12lb bass that I hope I NEVER have to sell simply because it weighs too much for me to bear.
