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Why does wood affect bass tone?
- Thread starter (b)Assman
- Start date
It just changes the tone.
Maple=bright
Rosewood=warm.
Maple is a tough, hard, tight-grained wood that is not very porous.
Hopefully that helps.
Maple=bright
Rosewood=warm.
Maple is a tough, hard, tight-grained wood that is not very porous.
Hopefully that helps.
My question was "Why" does wood change the tone? If the pickups convert the magnetic vibrations then how does wood correlate?
This is like asking why does different strings made of different materials sound different when they're all made out of metals? 
No, really, different wood vibrate differently, and that affects the sound
On acoustic instrument, tone is more likely to be affected by wood, but still, on electric instrument, since it vibrates when you pluck the strings, different wood would sound different even if the same pick ups were used
No, really, different wood vibrate differently, and that affects the sound
On acoustic instrument, tone is more likely to be affected by wood, but still, on electric instrument, since it vibrates when you pluck the strings, different wood would sound different even if the same pick ups were used
Agree with above - The strings vibrate the wood, the wood resonates and affects the strings. Human hearing is very sensitive to sound variations, so even the effect of the wood that is holding the strings is very audible to us.
Press your ear onto the body of your bass and pluck a string - if you can hear it, the wood is transmitting and affecting the sound.
Press your ear onto the body of your bass and pluck a string - if you can hear it, the wood is transmitting and affecting the sound.
you can hear a bass if you don't plug it in because the wood and the string vibrates. Press the upper horn against your sternum and play. Can you feel that? Well you can hear it too.
Different pieces of wood vibrate differently. Look at trees. No 2 are alike, and their wood is not alike either.
Trees are life and no 2 lives are the same... if you had 2 basses made of the same batch of metal they would probably sound exactly the same if they are made the exact same way. Not so with basses made from trees
Different pieces of wood vibrate differently. Look at trees. No 2 are alike, and their wood is not alike either.
Trees are life and no 2 lives are the same... if you had 2 basses made of the same batch of metal they would probably sound exactly the same if they are made the exact same way. Not so with basses made from trees
This is like asking why does different strings made of different materials sound different when they're all made out of metals?
No, really, different wood vibrate differently, and that affects the sound
On acoustic instrument, tone is more likely to be affected by wood, but still, on electric instrument, since it vibrates when you pluck the strings, different wood would sound different even if the same pick ups were used
Ya different woods vibrate, but unless that vibration is carried into the strings, it makes no difference.
Aye, that's what I was looking for.
Ya but the wood vibrating doesn't effect the magnets at all, so it'd have to change the way the strings sound.
The pickups are just little generators. The strings vibrate and move a magnetic field through a coil of wire creating electric current. Plucking the strings is the primary source of the vibration. A secondary source of vibration is resonance from the body, where the pickup is vibrated relative to the strings.
In direct answer to your question, the body wood resonates with the vibrations from the strings. This resonant vibration is the above-mentioned secondary source of vibration that the pickup(s) "hear". Different wood species have different resonant characteristics, and each will have a different effect on the overall tone of the instrument. Note that harder wood does not necessarily equal better or greater resonance transmission compared to softer wood. It just means different resonance transmission.
Hope this helps.
Ken...
it doesn't effect it that much... people just give it so much importance in what wood and all that crap... i say if you use good straight grained wood the results will be good, but different every time... cuz wood is not metal its not plastic its a living thing and it changes all the time... you can get two basses from the same tree or log and they will sound different!!!
i find it funny that all this importance that some give to wood and then use massive brass nut and massive brass bridge witch isolates the vibrating strings from dampening effect of wood... the most known basses to isolate the strings like that are alembics... these basses don't sound that interesting when plucked with out being plugged in... but when you plug them in you know why they do what they do... and they use the most fancy and different woods around and have almost no effect from it to their sound... and they never claimed for wood to give any other important factor in electric instruments other than looks...
on the other hand fender has a lot of visible impact from woods... the dead spots on most fender necks prove that
and you can hear the amount of damping of sustain that is dependent on wood combination
but all that said... i have noticed that the only noticeable difference that wood has is the neck and fingerboard wood!!! here it has a impact cuz we press our strings against them... but even here the difference is very small
i find it funny that all this importance that some give to wood and then use massive brass nut and massive brass bridge witch isolates the vibrating strings from dampening effect of wood... the most known basses to isolate the strings like that are alembics... these basses don't sound that interesting when plucked with out being plugged in... but when you plug them in you know why they do what they do... and they use the most fancy and different woods around and have almost no effect from it to their sound... and they never claimed for wood to give any other important factor in electric instruments other than looks...
on the other hand fender has a lot of visible impact from woods... the dead spots on most fender necks prove that
and you can hear the amount of damping of sustain that is dependent on wood combination
but all that said... i have noticed that the only noticeable difference that wood has is the neck and fingerboard wood!!! here it has a impact cuz we press our strings against them... but even here the difference is very small
Different woods (even in the same species) have different densities and grain configurations. These different configuration allow some of the vibrations to be dampened and others to resonate more freely. It is (very loosely) analogous to the colors we see. The light spectrum hits and object and some of the frequencies are absorbed and some are reflected.
a good thing you pointed out!!! light, sound are very similar... like all things in life once you look at it from the big view!!! sound is just a couple of octaves lower than light as far as vibrating and wave lengths go...
that is exactly why a specific wood is not important!!!
its important to use GOOD WOOD!!!! straight grain, dried the good old fashioned way that takes like a few years and cut down at the right time... if you consider just these simple factors you should get good results but will be different every time!!!
its important to use GOOD WOOD!!!! straight grain, dried the good old fashioned way that takes like a few years and cut down at the right time... if you consider just these simple factors you should get good results but will be different every time!!!
I'm no physics expert, but i have always looked at an electric guitar and bass and overall musical instruments as kinetic energy systems where all the instrument affects how string vibrates.
Ive always assumed its all about the energy and absorption and distribution of energy across the body . some woods are harder and stiffer while others are softer, and this affects how wood absorbs energy from the string, its not about the pickups absorbing the vibrations of the wood, but the wood absorbing energy from the string so that the energy in the system stays constant, and this energy loss in the string will change the way it vibrates and the pickups will pick up this resultant vibration in the strings and tone may vary. Also that could explain why some people say that certain woods give better sustain. and why there is a difference in sound between wooden necked instruments and carbon necked instruments. (because carbon absorbs energy in a different way than wood does)
Of course i might be wrong because this is based solely on intuition and bachelor grade education.
Ive always assumed its all about the energy and absorption and distribution of energy across the body . some woods are harder and stiffer while others are softer, and this affects how wood absorbs energy from the string, its not about the pickups absorbing the vibrations of the wood, but the wood absorbing energy from the string so that the energy in the system stays constant, and this energy loss in the string will change the way it vibrates and the pickups will pick up this resultant vibration in the strings and tone may vary. Also that could explain why some people say that certain woods give better sustain. and why there is a difference in sound between wooden necked instruments and carbon necked instruments. (because carbon absorbs energy in a different way than wood does)
Of course i might be wrong because this is based solely on intuition and bachelor grade education.
no, it would transfer to the strings, affecting the vibration of the strings and then the pickups would pick up the vibrations directly from the strings.
