Whats the difference of woods?

[David Jayne]

Yep, it would sound EXACTLY like a concrete and steel bass........

So good for Rock AND Metal???

 

[peterpalmieri]

^ That.

The problem there is that it implies that you can take any old bass parts (neck and body made of basswood and an ebonal board) slap a Sadowsky, Ken Smith or Fodera preamp, pickups, a decent bridge and tuners and you get that sound.

It doesn't work that way. You make basses and people pay for them?

 

[Gard]

The problem there is that it implies that you can take any old bass parts (neck and body made of basswood and an ebonal board) slap a Sadowsky, Ken Smith or Fodera preamp, pickups, a decent bridge and tuners and you get that sound.

Our basic preamp & pickup combo is all Bartolini (we do offer a few different combinations, but that's the choice on over 80% of what we build). I really don't think our basses sound like anyone else's basses (and those guys you mention up there are pretty damn good too), and since that is such a basic, generic electronics setup in the "bass guitar world", why don't we all sound the same? All being Lakland, Elrick, Sukop, Modulus, Zon, and on and on all use basically the exact same set up we do!

There is more to it than JUST the wood...but the wood choices are absolutely a large part of what makes a bass sound as it does.

 

[mongo2]

There is more to it than JUST the wood...but the wood choices are absolutely a large part of what makes a bass sound as it does.

Bingo!

 

[WoodyG3]

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.

For the test we used the exact same neck, bridge, electronics (without desoldering), strings, nut, tuners, string tree, etc...EVERYTHING but the wood was the SAME. In fact, we went so far as to take measurements on the setup (including pickup distance from strings) so we could ensure that EVERYTHING was indeed the same, and that the ONLY variable was the body wood itself. This test was done over a 2-3 hour period indoors, so ears were fresh, temp was stable, and humidity didn't change.


Guess what ?

It was EASY to hear the differences

Well, Dark Horse, it's pretty clear that these basses all had the nut glued in place with a different type of glue. THAT was the key element in the difference in sound. Well, that and the variable electromagnetic flux fields induced by Romulan space craft in the area at the time of the test.

 

[bigbottomline]

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

I tend to agree with this. I believe that pre-conceptions can affect our senses greatly.

Similar tests have been done with "expert" wine tasters. None of them could tell that the red wine they raved about was actually white wine dyed red. But they sure loved the tannins.

 

[bigbottomline]

The problem there is that it implies that you can take any old bass parts (neck and body made of basswood and an ebonal board) slap a Sadowsky, Ken Smith or Fodera preamp, pickups, a decent bridge and tuners and you get that sound.

It doesn't work that way. You make basses and people pay for them?

Did he say bass construction doesn't affect tone?

 

[KingRazor]

I'll repeat what I said in another thread...


A few years back, a friend and I did a test. I got 4 P Bass bodies, all 5 lbs (+/- 1 ounce)....woods tested were mahogany, alder, ash, and maple capped ash.

For the test we used the exact same neck, bridge, electronics (without desoldering), strings, nut, tuners, string tree, etc...EVERYTHING but the wood was the SAME. In fact, we went so far as to take measurements on the setup (including pickup distance from strings) so we could ensure that EVERYTHING was indeed the same, and that the ONLY variable was the body wood itself. This test was done over a 2-3 hour period indoors, so ears were fresh, temp was stable, and humidity didn't change.


Guess what ?

It was EASY to hear the differences from one body wood to another. You didn't even have to "begin" to strain yourself. In fact, we preferred alder as the best tone, with mahogany as a "second choice", for it's big fat thump. Alder was certainly the most balanced sounding.

Remember, all these bodies were +/- 1 oz, so the largest possibly variation between bodies was 2 ounces. That's all. Of course those who believe that body wood doesn't matter, MUST, by definition, also believe that weight cannot possibly make a difference, so to some it is a moot point....but we wanted to make sure that we would eliminate as many variables as we could.

I wish I had the resources to do this. I'd love to be able to find exactly the wood I want on a bass without having to rely on what's at the music shop.

 

[bigbottomline]

If wood type affected tone as much as many people believe, where are the sound clips? Any double blind tests?

Everything else is heresay.

 

[peterpalmieri]

If wood type affected tone as much as many people believe, where are the sound clips? Any double blind tests?

Everything else is heresay.

Kjung has a nice collection of you tube clips you can check out.

 

[giacomini]

Wonder if someone's got one of those Yamaha RBX A2 to chime in... those basses' bodies ain't made of wood. How would that compare to a wooden RBX?

 

[johnk_10]

I tend to agree with this. I believe that pre-conceptions can affect our senses greatly.

sorry, but it has nothing to do at all with 'pre-conceptions'. it has to do with resonant frequencies.

 

[Dark Horse]

Funny how Ned Steinberger, Modulus, Ibanez, Yamaha, Curbow, etc have all offered basses in alternative materials, simply to get away from the "inconsistencies" of a wood bodied instrument.

Seems to me that if a wood body didn't affect the tone, people wouldn't need to be looking for alternative materials, except for conservation reasons....and a lot of these guys started doing it long before the majority of people started worrying about trees.

 

[mongo2]

If wood type affected tone as much as many people believe, where are the sound clips? Any double blind tests?

Everything else is heresay.

Do you need a double blind test to tell you one bass sounds different from another in a store?

 

[M.R. Ogle]

Muaguana has some excellent observations there. Microphones and pickups are pretty much the same "part" of the equation, IMO.

"I don't like the singer. I think we need to change out microphones."

 

[mongo2]

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.

They're similar in that they are transducers, but pickups transduce the tonal effects of the body/neck/hardware indirectly through the influences those components have on the vibrating string. Unless, of course, the pickups are also microphonic then they can also transduce vibrations directly from the body/mounting.

 

[M.R. Ogle]

Now, here's a test I'd like to see, and it would be pretty easy:

Record and compare the sound of a bass pickup mounted in the bass, then unbolt it from the body, slide it out from under the strings and hand-hold it OVER the top of the strings, (the same distance away) and compare the sounds.

With the pickups totally de-coupled from the body, I wonder what the differences might be, if any? The STRINGS are still subject to the resonances of the wood....so it might not do squat, but I still wonder. After all, some basses (and guitars) pickups bolt directly to the wood body, some are suspended in pickguards or pickup rings.

Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Aspidites]

If you take any given beer, wine, Scotch etc and put it in 10 different shaped glasses you effectively get 10 completely different beers, wines or Scotches. The glasses do not alter the beverage in any way but they do alter your perception of it.

When I judge I often mention a characteristic that is not even in what I am judging just to see how many people will be influenced by my comment to believe that they pick it up also.

If you take a beer recipe and give that recipe to 10 different brewers that use the exact same ingredients from the exact same batches and the exact same supplier you will come out with 10 completely different beers.

The point is that we as Homo sapiens are an easily influenced bunch that rely more on conjecture than actual evidence.

 

[GBassNorth]

Our basic preamp & pickup combo is all Bartolini (we do offer a few different combinations, but that's the choice on over 80% of what we build). I really don't think our basses sound like anyone else's basses (and those guys you mention up there are pretty damn good too), and since that is such a basic, generic electronics setup in the "bass guitar world", why don't we all sound the same? All being Lakland, Elrick, Sukop, Modulus, Zon, and on and on all use basically the exact same set up we do!

There is more to it than JUST the wood...but the wood choices are absolutely a large part of what makes a bass sound as it does.

+1
I'm not a professional bass builder but I've built a number of them and in a couple of cases with identical parts and woods. In my experience everything you do to a bass when building effects how it will sound as a finished product. Some things will be nearly un-noticable and others drastic, but at the end of the day every bass is the sum of its parts and craftsmanship. Those differences may be easily overcome or hidden or magnified by playing style or amplification or recording methods but different basses will have different sounds regardless of the woods used.
The biggest issue I've run into is predicting with complete certainty how a specific wood will sound. There's a lot of variation in woods, even from the same lot. One can talk in generalities and in a large percentage of the cases the generalities will hold true, but not all the time. There's plenty of web sites that will till you how bright or dark sounding a specific wood is, but no one is going to tell you that a specific wood only resonates at a specific frequency.
Wood selection is 1 part art, 1 part science and 1 part crap shoot. So unless someone has invented some magic mojo juice that locks an exact trait into a piece of wood, it's not an exact science.
BTW - if the concrete has a higher than normal ratio of sand to agregate and the steel has been case hardened I suspect you'll get a different sound in the "Bass-ment" example that was given earlier.

 

[PJRL]

In my experience, wood is the tone. I've had guitars that were absolutely wonderful sounding no matter what pups I put in them, others that I just couldn’t get right no matter what I did.
I know it ain’t just me………..