Whats the difference of woods?

[mulchor]

Does this mean you're on my side?

Same page, at least

 

[ddnidd1]

The bridge and the nut are where the strings come into contact with the guitar. What type of glue was used to hold the nut on? What metal is the bridge? How humid is it? Is it cold outside (ie. below freezing). These things effect how the strings vibrate. The wood plays no noticeable difference.

You might want to perform a public service and email Mike Tobias, Roger Sadowsky, Keith Roscoe, etc. and set these poor deluded saps straight.

 

[johnk_10]

You might want to perform a public service and email Mike Tobias, Roger Sadowsky, Keith Roscoe, etc. and set these poor deluded saps straight.

you'd have about as good a chance at that as resurrecting and convincing Leo Fender too.

 

[mikeyswood]

In a solidbody eletric instrument the electronics and strings are a mere 95% of the signal. Even "the best" ears can be fooled.

 

[johnk_10]

i completely disagee, but thanks for your expertise. i've only been building guitars and basses since '73, so what do i know?

 

[M.R. Ogle]

Oh, no...not THIS again....

"The more a man knows the more liberal he is; the less a man knows the bigoted he is.The less a man knows the more certain he is that he knows it, and the more a man knows the better satisfied he is that he is entirely ignorant."
-Robert Green Ingersoll

 

[dougjwray]

I feel like I'm in that old "Twilight Zone" episode where the Wild West gunfighter finally figures out he's in hell because every time he wakes up, he's got a hour to go before he has to go out into the street to be shot and killed again, for all eternity.

(I can't help myself. I'll probably regret it but... okay, here goes):
THE WOOD HAS A BIG EFFECT ON THE TONE.

 

[mikeyswood]

i completely disagee, but thanks for your expertise. i've only been building guitars and basses since '73, so what do i know?

And I have only been building since '93, so I can only hope to change my scientific foundation in the next 20 years.

I feel like I'm in that old "Twilight Zone" episode where the Wild West gunfighter finally figures out he's in hell because every time he wakes up, he's got a hour to go before he has to go out into the street to be shot and killed again, for all eternity.

(I can't help myself. I'll probably regret it but... okay, here goes):
THE WOOD HAS A BIG EFFECT ON THE TONE.

And I greatly appreciate customers like you. You give me way too much money for that "right" piece of wood.

 

[johnk_10]

And I have only been building since '93, so I can only hope to change my scientific foundation in the next 20 years.

don't worry. hang in there- you'll learn.

 

[johnk_10]

The sound comes from the strings/pickups. Screw some strings into a concrete floor, tie them to a metal railing, hold a pickup in the right position and it sounds like a bass.

 

[peterpalmieri]

I've lost count of how many times I have tried to convince others that wood effects the tone of an electric bass. While we can debate to what degree and what is most important in defining tone, it's wasted time trying to convince those that don't get it.

I say move on, these types are obviously not well educated on the subject, ignore them and move on!

 

[Gard]

You might want to perform a public service and email Mike Tobias, Roger Sadowsky, Keith Roscoe, etc. and set these poor deluded saps straight.

Hey now, I have to work with Keith every day, and he may be a bit sappy sometimes (Spanish cedar can be that way, y'see ), but he is anything but deluded.



I'm pretty good at this stuff too. I get to hear a LOT of wood combinations, all with the same (or very similar) pickups, preamps, cables, amplifier, etc etc. I also get to hear a lot of the same wood combinations with DIFFERENT preamps/pickups etc....

Anyone that wants to totally discount the effect wood choices have on the sound of a solid body bass guitar, or a solid body guitar, is either a) deaf, or b) speaking from opinion, not from experience and experiment.

Yes, everything in the signal chain matters, some things more than others, and that signal chain is pretty long:

Player's head/mind/ears
Player's hands
Strings
Fretted or fretless
Fingerboard wood
Neck wood or woods
Body and/or top woods (which will vary depending on species and relative thicknesses, as well as individual aspects of different pieces of wood from the same species - heck even from the same LOG)
Pickups
Preamp or passive tone controls
Cable
Effects, if any
Preamplifier and settings
Amplifier
Cable AGAIN
Speaker cabinet
Speakers
Room you're in when playing
Ears of people listening (player, bandmates and audience if any)

Any and all of these factors MATTER, saying any one of them does not means you either are predisposed to a certain viewpoint, or you have a tin ear.

You also have to keep in mind that people's ability to discern these variations can vary radically as well. I met Eric Johnson's guitar tech one night, we were talking about him a bit - I'm a fan - and he was telling me some pretty amazing (and admittedly anecdotal) tales of Eric not only hearing that an alkaline battery had been used in one of his effects pedals, but WHICH ONE IT WAS IN. Then there's the whole brass versus chrome plug thing. And the fact that he once rewired an entire studio from the breaker box to the furthermost electrical outlet so it was all in phase, because the out of phase electric current was driving him nuts. Heck, if I could hear stuff like that, I'd probably off myself! There are also people that can't tell the difference between a violin and a bass viol if they're blindfolded. Most of us fall on a spectrum somewhere in the middle, probably favoring the Eric Johnson side of the middle.

Can you give absolute answers to the question "how does (wood "X" ) sound?" ? Nope. However, you can get pretty darn close, and do so with a great deal of consistency. I do it every day, and am pretty confident that I can give accurate recommendations with an accuracy of well above 90% for wood choices. We have quite a few customers that will agree.

Ignorance is not a suitable substitute for experience, experiment, or knowledge.

 

[Gard]

And I greatly appreciate customers like you. You give me way too much money for that "right" piece of wood.

If you are saying that choosing one species over another in a global sense is obtuse, you are...well...obtuse.

If you are saying that two different cuts of the SAME species will have such similar characteristics that choosing one of them over the other will have an absolute difference, then you have a point - swamp ash tends to sound like swamp ash: mind you that doesn't mean every piece sounds identical, but within a certain "target area" tonally, yeah, it sounds like swamp ash, but not anything like mahogany or alder.

By the way, you have made a statement, quoted above, that is pretty dismissive toward your (potential) customers, you might want to re-think that?

 

[M.R. Ogle]

I have figured out in my own little head that there is a "sliding scale" of every factor in the makeup and construction of a bass resulting in the eventual sound. It's a multi-level, interdependent thing that's not really possible to 100% quantify. One thing changes (like string gauge / tension) and it slides all the other factors around.

But there are some noted "trends" we take and use as constants to try to make sense of things. Harder woods= brighter, softer woods= warmer, fuller sound.

Is that 100% the predictable result all the time? No, sometimes other factors override that. But in general, we take heed from those (like Johnk) with years of real-world experience in these things, and start from there.

But I'm really tired of hearing that the pickups are all where it's at. They're dumb... they're just microphones. Switch microphones (or pickups) and you get either more or less of the available frequencies of the "singer"... but you don't get sounds that aren't there in the first place.

(One thing I kept thinking about as I was riding around cutting the grass last night: We probably need to qualify the discussions as to "who" is perceiving the differences in the wood/construction of the basses. If I'm playing it, I can feel the distinct resonances (and dead spots) that make the "character" of a particular instrument. I have both the audio and the physical feedback... if I'm listening to a recording of that instrument, I could probably detect that, too, but not as easily. If I were out in the audience of a concert, I may NOT be able to tell the difference between two different basses, post EQ, compression, Marshall stacks and soundboard.

But If I've got my hands on it, I can DEFINITELY percieve the differences.)

 

[peterpalmieri]

In a solidbody eletric instrument the electronics and strings are a mere 95% of the signal. Even "the best" ears can be fooled.

A very interesting article.......that is not relevant to either solid body, electric instruments, electronics or strings.

 

[mulchor]

Confession: Wood porn gives me gas.

For the proponents:
How much of the difference in tonewoods do you think is measurable, i.e. is tensile strength, elasticity, cross-grain compression, etc.?

What I mean to ask is the difference in tonewoods something artistic and spiritual, or could a technician at a bench track it down to density or moisture content?

Myself, to clarify what I posted above, I have no doubts there are differences in woods. I think the differences are the same sorts of things that make one wood better than another for joists, veneers, making model airplanes, burning, etc.

But I also think, for me, the choice of wood is more feel and look than sound, and if I want it to sound better I'll get more value by spending more $$ on hardware than spending it on wood pillaged from a distant tropical forest.

 

[mikeyswood]

But I also think, for me, the choice of wood is more feel and look than sound, and if I want it to sound better I'll get more value by spending more $$ on hardware than spending it on wood pillaged from a distant tropical forest.

^ That.

 

[mongo2]

those that say that the strings and pickups are the only thing that determines the sound (tone) of a bass is just another load of pure misinformation that continues to propagate itself on the web by people that don't know any better.

Yup.

i completely disagee, but thanks for your expertise. i've only been building guitars and basses since '73, so what do i know?

Cool, I cobbled my first in 1970. I tried to make one in '63 but I was only 10 and didn't know enough.

 

[Muaguana]

I have figured out in my own little head that there is a "sliding scale" of every factor in the makeup and construction of a bass resulting in the eventual sound. It's a multi-level, interdependent thing that's not really possible to 100% quantify.

Amen to that.

But I'm really tired of hearing that the pickups are all where it's at. They're dumb... they're just microphones. Switch microphones (or pickups) and you get either more or less of the available frequencies of the "singer"... but you don't get sounds that aren't there in the first place.

The thing is about microphones is that they can make a world of difference in relaying the sonic information to a recording interface or to a person's ear. But that's the key word: relay. Transducers are messengers only. Some have their own EQ biases, some are more transparent. A certain mic on a kick drum, for example, could make it sound like it does naturally when amplified or recorded. A mic with a heavily biased frequency response like an Audix D6 (awesome mic for kick, by the way) will make it sound much different, but it'll still retain the sonic characteristics of the instrument itself. Because, although the mic is different and has its own unique interpretation of the frequency spectrum, it's still a translator for the same acoustic sound.

Now I'm no expert on guitar electronics, nor bass building, but I would assume that magnetic pickups, which are simply a different kind of transducer, operate in a similar manner. Feel free to correct me, though.

 

[mongo2]

Wow, I'm surprised to an extent, because as i said, have one alder body guitar and one maple and the alder sounds drastically brighter, amp or no amp, so its not just the electrics.
But I'm only comparing two so it must just be a strange exception.

That's why I said "in the widest of generalities" it's "reputed" to be so. There is a lot of crossover and since wood is such a variable material by it's very nature, it's not really possible to predict precisely what the end result will be.