Why does wood affect bass tone?

[Korladis]

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.

That sucks. I hate it when instruments are disappointing.

 

[SwamiRob]

sometimes i make grammar abortions.

Not in this state you don't!

 

[Gopherbassist]

The strings vibrate the wood, wood feeds back into the strings and so on until friction stops the movement.

 

[NOVAX]

Alchemy-wood,metal,string,magnet + amplification= Gold
I like alder and maple

 

[David Jayne]

The strings vibrate the wood, wood feeds back into the strings and so on until friction stops the movement.

....an excellent description of a 'dead spot' - when the frequency of a plucked note closely matches the resonant frequency of the bass.

 

[pringlw]

The strings vibrate the wood, wood feeds back into the strings and so on until friction stops the movement.

Yep, except if a note dies prematurely its not friction that caused it, its the overlapping wave pattern between the resonate frequency of the bass and the string vibration.

 

[fuNKmaster83]

While I personally tend to believe that wood affects the tone of an electric bass or guitar, there are those who do not. I know a man named Chip Todd(google him) who lives near me. He worked for Peavey & the Fender Custom Shop making basses & guitars, for many years. Most, if not all of the PV T-40's were made in his shop. Anyway, he's always bringing different axes to my gig for us to try. One night he came in with a guitar that used a Coleman fuel can for the body. He said " This is my answer to the whole "tone wood" theory." My guitarist plugged it in & it sounded just like a Les Paul(no kidding). I do know that the wood affects the tone when the instrument is unplugged or is an acoustic. How that translates across magnetic pups I'm not sure. Chip Todd, with over 30yrs experience in making basses & guitars for two of the giants in the industry, says it's all BS.

this could have happened even with two basses made from the same wood that came from the same tree... that is what i am trying to say... to base your tone philosophy on wood alone is nonsense!!! cuz it changes so much... no one can say ash is going to make it sound more punchy and that maple is going to be bright... it might be or not... it all depends...

 

[BassyBill]

There are some good points made in this thread. Just to look at it from a physics point of view, first of all playing an unamplified bass...

The complex vibration of a string, made up of lots of different frequencies, can be considered as a combination of different single frequencies at dfferent amplitudes (this is true of any complex vibration, btw).

When some of the energy from the string is transmitted into the body (mainly through the bridge), the body/neck will dissipate energy at different frequencies to different degrees, dependent on its own resonant properties. This results in different frequencies being extracted from the original note to different extents and therefore changes the timbre of the vibration. Note that the body/neck cannot add to the energy of the vibrating string overall, only subtract from it.

When playing a loud amplified instrument, then the situation becomes a bit more complex as there is the possibility of the amplified sound being absorbed by the instrument and feeding back positively into the vibrating string. But the long and short of it is that the characteristics of the body can affect the way the strings vibrate and therefore affect the signal generated by the pickup. But how much of an effect this has is difficult to quantify, as there's a lot of factors affecting tone and separating out the influence of each one is difficult - too many variables to control with any precision (no pun intended).

 

[vene-nemesis]

The complex vibration of a string, made up of lots of different frequencies, can be considered as a combination of different single frequencies at dfferent amplitudes (this is true of any complex vibration, btw).

Fourier FTW!

When playing a loud amplified instrument, then the situation becomes a bit more complex as there is the possibility of the amplified sound being absorbed by the instrument and feeding back positively into the vibrating string. But the long and short of it is that the characteristics of the body can affect the way the strings vibrate and therefore affect the signal generated by the pickup. But how much of an effect this has is difficult to quantify, as there's a lot of factors affecting tone and spearating out the influence of each one is difficult - too many variables to control with any precision (no pun intended)

The funny thing with phisics is that the way they work can be explained by a simple joke: A farmer whos hens wouldnt lay eggs talked to a phisicist friend of him who decided to help him solve his problem, one week later the phisicist tells the farmer he has found the answer to his problem but that it will only work for spherical hens in the void.

 

[WarriorJoe7]

We can say that things are likely though. Ash is likely to be more punchy and maple is likely to be brighter. I know this is ambiguous, but it's LIKELY to be helpful lol

this could have happened even with two basses made from the same wood that came from the same tree... that is what i am trying to say... to base your tone philosophy on wood alone is nonsense!!! cuz it changes so much... no one can say ash is going to make it sound more punchy and that maple is going to be bright... it might be or not... it all depends...

 

[GlennW]

That sucks. I hate it when instruments are disappointing.

They're often the ones you can learn something from.

 

[wsmerwin@hotmai]

I don't recall anyone mentioning stiffness, especially of the neck. Wood affects the sound but stiffness affects the response of the instrument. A dead neck is one that vibrates at a frequency that cancels the desired pitch. Stiffness prevents these unwanted vibrations. I previously asked

Can somebody explain to me what makes a low B string sound musical ?

Here's what Sheldon Dingwall had to say about all the stuff that makes your bass sound the way it does.

Neck stiffness affects the string feel and tone. Floppy necks make the strings feel looser. Stiffer necks add clarity and focus to the B. You can make a neck stiffer with carbon fiber, stiffer woods, thicker dimensions etc.

Scale length to my ears affects harmonics. Shorter scales make it more difficult for the string to flex easily in the upper harmonics, damping them. This also results in the upper harmonics being further and further out of tune, with more energy dumped into the lower harmonics resulting in a warmer, thicker, denser tone. The attack is faster and with lighter strings the pitch rises more on the attack.

Longer scales allow more room for the upper harmonics to develop, they'll be more in tune, which is very noticeable when plugged into a tuner. The tone to my ears is more full-range, open and transparent. The attack is a little slower with less pitch rise. In general, you can play further up the neck without the notes warbling.

To be fair we've spent over a decade dialing in our strings for the 37" B, so they are pretty dialed in. However I have to assume that all the other string manufacturers have spent a good amount of time tweaking their strings for a 35" B so our comparisons are as accurate as I think you can get at this point.

To sum up: scale length is important, string design is important, neck construction is important, pickups are important, setup is important, body woods are important.

You can tweak one ingredient to compensate for the other and get good results, but in the end, why not tweak all of the ingredients to the max?

So there are lots of things to consider (wood among them) when building an instrument.

 

[mongo2]

I don't recall anyone mentioning stiffness, especially of the neck. Wood affects the sound but stiffness affects the response of the instrument. A dead neck is one that vibrates at a frequency that cancels the desired pitch. Stiffness prevents these unwanted vibrations. I previously askedHere's what Sheldon Dingwall had to say about all the stuff that makes your bass sound the way it does.So there are lots of things to consider (wood among them) when building an instrument.

I agree, I consider the neck to be the most important structural contributor to tone in a wood necked solidbody bass with neck stiffness more important than neck wood type.