Did he make a side-by-side comparison of Coleman vs Sterno?
I've always found Sterno to be a tad warmer.
Good info, btw.
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Why does wood affect bass tone?
- Thread starter (b)Assman
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Did he make a side-by-side comparison of Coleman vs Sterno?
I've always found Sterno to be a tad warmer.
Good info, btw.
As was mentioned before, pickup location is important. Also, the tonal difference of different woods can often be compensated for by tone controls. There's a video on Youtube where a Lakland 55-02 (or 55-94, I don't remember which) is compared to a P bass, Jazz, and a Musicman. The Lakland cops all 3 basses tones authentically.
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
You state what I have said from the beginning. Yes wood will make a difference in tone. I have 3 Jazz basses and all 3 have different body woods and all 3 have maple necks. When they all had the same strings, they did sound different, but only slightly. Now that there are different strings and different pickups, each has it's own character. But IMHO, the strings made the big difference.
One of my Jazz basses was purchased with an Alder body and a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. The bass sounded great. The Jazz bass tone. However, with the maple blocked neck, it sounded different. Very different to my ear and I can hear the difference in the amp. Better? Worse? I dunno. I love the way it sounds now more than when it was all original. More growl, more clank, brighter, zingy are all fair descriptions.
I still believe that once you amplify a bass in a band setting, it is really hard to claim wood resonance makes a difference, especially to the average listener.
Yes the bass brand, construction, electronics, strings and so on do make a difference. But then so does the player, the amp, the hall and on and on....
But, if I were to record a song with my black jazz and then play live with my Squier jazz, who would know they were different basses?
This is the perfect example of the butterfly FX at a reduced scale.
Im no electronics expert but i have some knowledge about mechanics and vibrations.
I believe that even though the vibration of the bass does make the pickups vibrate the extent of this, or more precisely, the amount of movement of the magnetic field compared to the amount of movement of the vibrating string can be considered as despicable.
Its been said before wood has a feedback effect on the string and that modifies the way the string vibrates. There are lots of specific characteristics like hardness, mechanical resonation frequencies and even the shape of the cut wood that have part in the resonating output but one of the most important IMO is the gradient of density, this determines the amount of density variation between one spot and another of the same piece of wood. Ever wondered why isnt there anyone able to replicate the stradivarius tone?
Im no electronics expert but i have some knowledge about mechanics and vibrations.
I believe that even though the vibration of the bass does make the pickups vibrate the extent of this, or more precisely, the amount of movement of the magnetic field compared to the amount of movement of the vibrating string can be considered as despicable.
Its been said before wood has a feedback effect on the string and that modifies the way the string vibrates. There are lots of specific characteristics like hardness, mechanical resonation frequencies and even the shape of the cut wood that have part in the resonating output but one of the most important IMO is the gradient of density, this determines the amount of density variation between one spot and another of the same piece of wood. Ever wondered why isnt there anyone able to replicate the stradivarius tone?
There are a lot of good points made here - great thread guys!
Having worked with different woods - I think it's all about the physics of resonation in regards to different wood types.
The variables I would think are the mass of the body including the neck, the density, the grain, and maybe the shape of the body.
But like the Physicist said:
Having worked with different woods - I think it's all about the physics of resonation in regards to different wood types.
The variables I would think are the mass of the body including the neck, the density, the grain, and maybe the shape of the body.
But like the Physicist said:
i love doing that, especially when u play that string with perfect resonation. simply amazing
Take the same two, put duncans in one and EMG's in the other
Actually, two of my guitars have the exact same bridge pickup. Exact same, both are Duncan Distortions. Same scale length, as well.
I use the same strings and even tuners on them.
They sound very very different from each other. They are also made from different woods (no, I don't know what kinds, just that one is obviously a dense hardwood and the other is a more porous softwood). One is very bright sounding, while the other isn't.
That's not enough. It has to be THE SAME PICKUP (in the same spot), not two that are supposed to be the same. And the same pots and caps, etc., everything except the body or neck (whatever you're trying to isolate). Just because stuff looks alike doesn't mean it is.
I'm not saying the wood has zero effect, but it isn't much IMO, especially body woods. I had an Epi MIJ ET-270 and no matter what pickups or bodies I used with that neck the results were so-so at best. I believe if the neck is a dud just about anything you do is a lost cause.
The instruments in question are guitars.... they're both bridge humbuckers on a 24.75 inch scale. So yeah, they're in the exact same spot. And both guitars are wired the same.
I'm not saying that the pickups don't play a huge part in an instrument's sound. They do, otherwise I wouldn't have replaced the stock pickups on those two guitars, and wouldn't be be tearing into my Peavey P-bass copy to put in a Rickenbacker pickup and Stingray pickup. But I think the wood matters a lot more than you seem to think it does. Otherwise it wouldn't matter if we made all instrument bodies out of plywood or particleboard.
I've found that with many basses, if I play unplugged with my ear pressed up against the body, it sounds basically the same as what the bass sounds like plugged in, given decent pickups.
Exactly. I've found that the neck is the single most important structural element in determining the tone of a solidbody instrument.
I'll chalk that one up to English being your second language....
Doesn't seem like you're quite seeing the point. Even on two guitars of the same scale, pickups can be in different spots. And two pickups that are supposed to be the same are rarely exactly the same thing; they can be pretty inconsistent, IME. So to test things accurately all the electronics from one must be swapped into the other guitar (pups, pots, jacks and all).
And I'll say this in general about 'acoustic' tone vs. plugged in: as rich as my PJ may sound unplugged, it sounds very little like that when I crank the jazz pup and open up the tone a little.
When I'm instrument shopping, I look for wood that doesn't ding when you look at it and won't break my back. Looks come next. Then, maybe, I worry about wood tonality. But probably not.
I'll chalk that one up to English being your second language....
Sorry, my tech english isnt good enough so sometimes i make grammar abortions.
Doesn't seem like you're quite seeing the point. Even on two guitars of the same scale, pickups can be in different spots. And two pickups that are supposed to be the same are rarely exactly the same thing; they can be pretty inconsistent, IME. So to test things accurately all the electronics from one must be swapped into the other guitar (pups, pots, jacks and all).
And I'll say this in general about 'acoustic' tone vs. plugged in: as rich as my PJ may sound unplugged, it sounds very little like that when I crank the jazz pup and open up the tone a little.
When I'm instrument shopping, I look for wood that doesn't ding when you look at it and won't break my back. Looks come next. Then, maybe, I worry about wood tonality. But probably not.
The pickups aren't in different spots, they're both right next to the bridge.
I would hope that a well known company like Seymour Duncan would have some consistency to their pickups.
As it is, I'm not doing surgery on my instruments and whipping out the soldering iron just to argue with some guy on the internet. I really doubt that Duncan makes pickups of the same model that are so inconsistent as to deliver tones that drastically different.
Rickenbackers I've played sound much the same plugged in with all the controls wide open as they do unplugged. My Ibanez Ric copy is the same way. So is my old EB-3 like bass. My Peavey P copy sounds not exactly the same but quite similar unplugged as it does plugged in. So does my friend's entry level Ibanez bass, even, despite its sub-par pickups. The Jazz bass I borrowed from a friend was also like this.
I agree. A good neck on a plywood body with decent strings and pickup/s will sound fine, maybe a little better with a nicer body.
Back to that Epi neck, it was 3-piece maple with a boxed truss rod. I don't think the wood was the culprit, but believe the 1/2" x 1/2" square channel routed out of the center of the neck ruined any chance of resonance. It was like a flat tire. I've played a couple of similar hollow body basses with single coils and they sounded pretty good (not great), but on a guitar that big void seemed to suck the life out of it.
