Where the sound come from?

[Ramirogg10]

Hey everyone! I have been searching this kind of info, and there is a huge world out there!
can you share your opinion on this?
how you split the sound of your best bass in term of:

• woods used: body, neck, fretboard.
• construction.
• painting or finishing
• tunners.
• bridge
• pickups: location and construction:alnico/ ceramic/ neodymium.
• electronics.

Thanks.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

The Great Tonewood Debate. My personal opinion, which will convince nobody who believes otherwise: Everything matters. But some things matter a whole lot more. I think pups and electronics first, then construction type, finish a distant consideration. The stiffer the whole system, the less string energy absorbed by the bass neck and body, which is not always what you want. Where I get sceptical is when people make specific predictions on what a bass will sound like based on the materials used. Anything beyond broad generalization is BS IMHO.

 

[RichterScale]

Agreed.
I think the main factor is..... You and how you play. After that it's electronics/the kind of pups you have and their placement and I think the biggest physical contributor from the bass itself is stiffness. That can be attained from several different woods and construction techniques. Strings make a difference. After that, the factors start to have a smaller and smaller impact.
When I'm thinking about a solid body, fretted electric instrument and I hear things like "the rosewood board gives it a warmer sound than the maple",....I have to believe that's more in the mind of the listener than an actual measurable difference.
Without already knowing, there's not a member of this site that can listen to a bass (blind) and tell you what kind of wood it's made from, simply from the sound. If it had that much of an impact, everyone would be able to listen to a recording and instantly identify what a bass is made of.
I think those differences are created in the mind, after someone sees a bass, sees the wood, the colors, the shape, the feel, the finish, etc and then create sound associations in their mind.

 

[RichterScale]

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Just saying it is a thing.
Place more emphasis on your playing and making your bass make the sounds you want. Think of it as an extension of yourself and use it to speak and express.
I remember buying a $100 short scale from a pawn shop and learning every Rush song I could find on cassette and when I wasn't sleeping, I was learning and playing. I was so obsessed, I could play every note in perfect sync with whole 70s Rush A sides,..... with that crap little bass.
In my 20s I got a new 4003 Ric.
Guess what,....I was scared of that bass and sounded like a robot playing it. I didn't understand why it didn't sound anything like a RIc. The Ric didn't make me sound like Geddy. My playing did. Didn't matter what bass it was. Certainty didn't matter if the body was Ash or maple, or what the fingerboard was.
And by "sound like Geddy", that doesn't mean I am or was as good. Just a kid with an unhealthy obsession to imitate and a relentless work ethic. But that was then. I don't really play any more and probably couldn't play like that again even if I relearned the songs.
But hopefully my point made it through.

 

[C Stone]

I hear things like "the rosewood board gives it a warmer sound than the maple",....

Not tryin to pick a fight but rosewood typically sounds "warmer" than a maple board, and a maple board normally sounds "snapier" but there are real factors to consider and has a lot to do with two different types of wood, for example typically a rosewood board is glued to a maple neck so two different wood types and densities of wood combined, then if you were to take a typical scenarario a maple board glued to a maple neck there will be a difference in resonance.

Another factor that contributes is maple boards/neck are usually heavily coated in polyurethane as opposed to rosewood board that is typically unfinished or oiled so that is another factor to consider, just food for thought...

I happen to prefer Alder bodies can't tell you the specifics why I just notice, all things being equal,
(tonewood arguments aside) I gravitate towards Alder bodies for whatever reason. Cheers...

 

[Beej]

I'm a skeptic, so I'll just say, think like James Randi. Find a way to absolutely prove your idea or claim, because if you can't absolutely prove it, how valid is it? Think of the person who claimed they could see an "aura" around a person and that it came off their body visibly to a distance of say 4 inches (10cm). Randi said, sure, no problem, so then if I have a person here who's 5' 10" tall, and I place them behind a wall that is 5' 11" tall, you should be able to identify their location behind the wall based on the visible aura projecting off them to a distance of 4", right? Guess how successful they were at identifying location based on the person's aura?

Things must be connected causally to make a claim of causality, anything less is speculative. To my mind, given the systemic interplay of the parts of a musical instrument, especially an electrified one, at best we are making guessimates, clever though many of them are.

 

[Gary_M]

I'm a skeptic, so I'll just say, think like James Randi. Find a way to absolutely prove your idea or claim, because if you can't absolutely prove it, how valid is it? Think of the person who claimed they could see an "aura" around a person and that it came off their body visibly to a distance of say 4 inches (10cm). Randi said, sure, no problem, so then if I have a person here who's 5' 10" tall, and I place them behind a wall that is 5' 11" tall, you should be able to identify their location behind the wall based on the visible aura projecting off them to a distance of 4", right? Guess how successful they were at identifying location based on the person's aura?

Things must be connected causally to make a claim of causality, anything less is speculative. To my mind, given the systemic interplay of the parts of a musical instrument, especially an electrified one, at best we are making guessimates, clever though many of them are.

Well said, Beej. Good to see a fellow skeptic/critical thinker in LC.

 

[dreamadream99]

In order of the extent to which they are responsible for the resulting sound, my opinion is:

1. Strings
2. Pick ups
3. Electronics

 

[Gilmourisgod]

The "Maple boards are snappier than Rosewood" is the trope I hear most often, but in all the blind tests I've seen, damned if I can hear it. I love Alembic basses, but if you really want to drink the Coolaide on Tonewood, check out the poetic descriptions on their website, which sound like articles from a Fine Wine magazine, with amusing notes of ebony and hints of cocobolo adding a smooth body and fruity finish. Superb marketing and the purest BS. Making a bass out of beautiful materials is a worthy goal in itself, if it sounds great too, all the better.

Alembic - Fine handcrafted basses and guitars

 

[dwizum]

I do think wood can contribute, but not in the ways most people describe it, or for the reasons they think. The vibrating strings don't care what species of wood you use. The difference comes from changes in mass and stiffness of the structure, which change how the structure damps certain frequency ranges. Wood choice can influence these properties, but lots of other things can too, so there isn't a consistent relationship between wood choice and the end result. You could easily make a very stiff neck using materials that are normally associated with "warm" tones and end up with "bright" tones instead. It would be much better if we focused on talking about differences in stiffness and weight and other physical properties that wood can contribute to, and how design factors AND wood can influence those properties, but that seems uninteresting to most musicians.

At the end of the day, it's the kind of thing that's really fit for fueling internet discussions, since it's suited for vague qualitative language and it's focused on minute details that don't matter when you're standing on a stage playing in a loud band. It quickly becomes the sort of thing where people are able to claim "well I hear a difference, and you can't tell me I don't." It becomes based on feelings, and not on facts. And once it reaches that point, I don't really see any reason to talk about it any more. But of course that doesn't stop the tonewood debate from eating up pages of discussion, at the expense of losing the focus on things that are much bigger pieces of the equation (playing style, pickup type, pickup location, active or passive controls, etc).

 

[RichterScale]

I tend to see these topics from the physics/engineering perspective as well. But I would also like to extend an olive branch to the other side of the conversation. I also believe that whether or not there is a measurable/discernible difference in things like one fingerboard wood to another,.... If the player perceives it and it affects playing in a positive manner, I have no objection or motivation to change their mind.

 

[dwizum]

If the player perceives it and it affects playing in a positive manner, I have no objection or motivation to change their mind

I agree with that 100%. I have no objection to people holding beliefs about what makes them feel good or what they like in terms of playing music, or expressing that they have preferences when it comes to instruments. That's kind of the whole point of music, right? We do this because it feels good, on some level. That's all good with me, no objection there.

But I do sometimes silently roll my eyes when people take those feelings and beliefs and try to construct "scientific" explanations for why they're true. We should all be okay liking certain thing about basses and talking about liking them. We should all be open to learning about how and why instruments work the way they do. But it becomes difficult to try to mix those two, IME. I even catch myself doing this sometimes.

 

[RichterScale]

I've yet to participate in one of the infamous "tonewood debate" threads.
I take it, they usually get fiesty. Do they typically start up in other sections of the site, or are most of them in LC?

 

[Beej]

They used to be pretty common but I haven’t seen one take off in a while. Usually they hit the front page of TB then all manner of folks come offering their thoughts and opinions on it and it snowballs. There are still some good ones that get going in Basses from time to time. They often centre around the idea that Fenders are some kind of standard, which is doubly entertaining

 

[smeet]

I tend to believe that wood species has a subtle and probably unpredictable effect on tone. But all the great luthiers disagree with that. Michael Tobias in particular seems to have a wood-species-based system for building an instrument to get a specified tone.

Are all these expert builders just fooling themselves?

 

[Gustopher]

In my very humble personal opinion... I find the things that affect tone are the following in this order;

1. player
2. strings
3. pickups/preamp
4. solid or semihollow/hollow

I don't believe neck or fretboard material makes much, if any, difference as I have played nigh identical instruments from the same line with the only difference being the neck and couldn't hear a lick of difference at all. The string does't make contact with the wood anywhere on the bass, the frets are more important to me.

 

[dwizum]

Some have happened here. I remember seeing graphs posted in one a year or two ago.

But at the sake of digressing too much into a meta discussion, I'll take my own stab at answering the OP's question.

Hey everyone! I have been searching this kind of info, and there is a huge world out there!
can you share your opinion on this?
how you split the sound of your best bass in term of:

• woods used: body, neck, fretboard.
• construction.
• painting or finishing
• tunners.
• bridge
• pickups: location and construction:alnico/ ceramic/ neodymium.
• electronics.

Thanks.

I'll order you list of bullets in terms of what my experience tells me about how much they impact tone. I'm going to add one or two factors. I'll even assign a value on a scale of 1-10 in terms of how important I think the factor is. Just to really get the argument going.

- Playing technique: 10. This one is so obvious that it gets left off the list. But I feel like it needs to be included for the sake of compelteness. Finger style up by the neck vs picked by the bridge vs slap vs tapping vs etc etc. Pretty clearly, the biggest impact on tone. I think people ignore this because they can't buy an upgrade.
- Pickup location and construction: 7. Location determines roll off of lower frequencies - really a factor of how strings vibrate, since lower frequencies will naturally have lower amplitude closer to the bridge. Construction determines the shape of the function that translates the available "signal" in the string into an electrical signal - shape of the coil (short and fat, tall and skinny, etc) and structure (fender style coil wound on rod magnets vs steel slugs with a bar magnet on the bottom vs blade magnet vs steel blade with bar magnet on the bottom, etc), and wiring configuration (parallel coils, series coils) much more so than magnet type.
- Electronics: 6. Active vs passive. Type of active preamp, and/or values and configuration of passive controls.
- String choice: 5. Tapewounds vs flats vs roundwounds. Pretty obvious difference!
- Construction and wood choice: 5. I'm combining these because they both play a role in determining what's actually important: the stiffness and weight of the structure that's supporting the vibrating string. A hollow body with a softer neck sounds much different from a neckthrough made from stiff materials.
-Bridge: 1. A minor impact on the stiffness/weight factor.
-Tuners, paint, finish - 0. Or, at least, maybe .0001 rounded down to zero.

 

[Beej]

I tend to believe that wood species has a subtle and probably unpredictable effect on tone. But all the great luthiers disagree with that. Michael Tobias in particular seems to have a wood-species-based system for building an instrument to get a specified tone.

Are all these expert builders just fooling themselves?

First off, not sure that there is a wide consensus among "expert" builders around tonewood. Certainly there is marketing involved. It's also worth considering that what makes one an expert in one area does not necessarily transfer over to other areas or fields of study. There are many talented builders who have incredible making skills, but can't explain the science behind musical sound, or have an understanding of the psychology behind perception of sound or the influence of cognitive bias for example (massive foreshadowing for where this topic usually goes ).

 

[dwizum]

I tend to believe that wood species has a subtle and probably unpredictable effect on tone. But all the great luthiers disagree with that. Michael Tobias in particular seems to have a wood-species-based system for building an instrument to get a specified tone.

Are all these expert builders just fooling themselves?

No, they're just adjusting a single variable in an otherwise controlled design.

If you have a fixed design for a bass, and you change the neck from maple to cherry, it would sound slightly different. The difference would likely be very small, but sometimes you want very small differences. That doesn't mean that cherry has any certain magical properties. You could use another species that has similar stiffness and weight as cherry and get the exact same difference. And, importantly, that doesn't mean that every bass with cherry in the neck will sound like that bass.

If you have a well-understood and well-controlled design, small tweaks are the way you tune it for specific purposes. Micheal clearly knows what he's doing. Swapping wood choices on specific components is a legitimate way to alter the structure and impact the tone. You could get similar results from making other small tweaks - changing the amount of carbon reinforcement in the neck, or hollowing a portion of the body, etc. Tonewoods are visible and easy to market, so they're a popular way to tweak designs.

A big part of engineering is knowing what matters, and which variables to focus on. This discussion isn't as simple as "tonewood matters" or "NO IT DOESN'T!!!" Basses are fairly complex mechanisms. It's easy to blindly make changes and get a different result, or try to compare apples and oranges, but it takes a lot of effort and dedication to systemically understand what variables matter and which ones can help you achieve a desired result.

 

[Beej]

Well said, Beej. Good to see a fellow skeptic/critical thinker in LC.

I do tend to annoy the living bejeesus out of my wife.