Call me crazy but I can hear a great difference in the ash basses and basswood basses I’ve owned. Basswood has a distinctive honk and ash, particularly denser ash, has a much fatter tone. To my ears.
Honk If You Love Basswood Basses

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Call me crazy but I can hear a great difference in the ash basses and basswood basses I’ve owned. Basswood has a distinctive honk and ash, particularly denser ash, has a much fatter tone. To my ears.

Your Crazy, if you can't hear the difference.. Lol i joke i joke.. No Really thou!! Ash Sounds Better !!!k....you're crazy.![]()
When you buy a used Basswood bass that every screw is stripped on it, you know that piece of Basswood was too soft.Wood phobia seems to a thing on Talkbass. There must be name for those who suffer from this horrible disorder. Hmm...
"Wood" in the Greek: Can't read Greek, going with Latin.
"Wood" in Latin: lignum....Lignuphobia
"Lignuphobics". Yes, there are lignuphobics running around loose on TB.
Reported!
It's such a soft, easy to dent wood!
When you buy a used Basswood bass that every screw is stripped on it, you know that piece of Basswood was too soft.
When you have strap pins tear out, you know that piece wood is too soft. (fixed it for ya)
I guess Basswood should be chosen carefully.
Your Crazy, if you can't hear the difference.. Lol i joke i joke.. No Really thou!! Ash Sounds Better !!!![]()
I'm with you!It's such a soft, easy to dent wood!
With Ash, maple, poplar, mahogany and other good sounding, though often heavier (but not always) woods with which to build bass bodies.


I am turned off my many things on many basses, so I only buy the ones that suit me. Why does Baskin Robbins have 31 flavors?
You might want to ask the people at Music Man...they've already answered this.It's such a soft, easy to dent wood!
With Ash, maple, poplar, mahogany and other good sounding, though often heavier (but not always) woods with which to build bass bodies.
Cheap Guitars?I’ve had basswood guitars. They were cheap. It is typically used on lower quality instruments and it is noticeably more prone to dents and damage. I would never choose it on an instrument I was going to keep for any period of time.

In many posts it's been mentioned that basswood is light. If so I'm interested in some opinions as to why my Sterling SUB bass made in Indonesia with a walnut finish weighs in at 9 lbs 6 oz? Thankyou in advance for your replies.
the saddest thing now is that the Ernie Ball specifies "hardwood" as a bodywood. I don't buy poplar tbh.
Because the harder the wood the heavier it is. You want undentable? Ironwood is your buddy. It's heavier than water and is approximately 62 pounds per cubic foot. You might end up with a 20 lb bass.With CNC machines most woods are easily shaped, so why not produce a bass that can take a little punishment once it leaves the factory?
Bad karma? Other than that, I'm not sure.
In all seriousness, I think two things. 1) Wood is wood, meaning it isn't all the same. It may be that you have an outlier. 2) I didn't know that SUBs were basswood. When I bought mine, the website indicated that it was jabon, or something similar that I'd never heard of.
No idea. I'd never heard of jabon. I'm not even sure I'm remembering that right. I do know my SUB isn't over nine pounds, so I'd say you got a heavy one.Interesting reply. It may be Jabon, however it is soft. What characteristics can I look for? Thx.