Wood choices and considerations

[micguy]

The most convincing explanation Ive heard is that everything on a bass is subtractive, string vibration energy lost to one degree or another by the bass as a SYSTEM. Nothing is emphasized unless its artificially boosted by active electronics, so the tone is the sum total of what parts of the string energy are absorbed or otherwise lost.

A bass by itself is a subtractive system, but nobody can listen to you play that system in a live scenario without amplification. Put the bass on stage in a loud sound field, and the situation is not as simple. A hollow or semi hollow instrument at or near the onset of feedback is anything but subtractive. A solid bodied instrument can also get there, of course, just at a louder level.

 

[ctmullins]

Structural properties. That’s the paramount consideration, when the economies of supply are not a factor. The big manufacturers have to worry about economies of supply, so they sometimes make compromises, or limit themselves to what works well and is available/affordable. That’s why Leo used Ash and Alder, and that’s why Les used Honduras mahogany and maple. Then those choices became canon, and, well, canon breeds acolytes and makes heretics of the rest of us, and then we wind up with holy wars and economies of sentimentality…

Sorry, that became a bit of a rant.

Honestly, like many already stated, it’s hard to beat maple, walnut, and cherry, at least here in North America. They’re plentiful, they’re not endangered, they’re readily available, they machine quite well, they look terrific under a finish, they have solid structural properties that are amenable to instrument building. They can sometimes be heavy, but I like to mitigate that through chambering and/or reducing body thickness.

I love to eat pecans (it’s pronounced “p’kon”; anything else is flatly incorrect), but I’ve never built with pecan wood. I should remedy that.

My uncle, who renovates old homes in le Vieux Carré, brought me a baseboard out of one of them. After planing away the layers of toxic lead paint, I was treated to what I think was cypress - a golden wood with prominent straight grain and a slightly waxy feel. I got two fantastic necks out of it.

I also really like sapele. It’s not native here, but it’s also not endangered (as far as I know), and it machines well and looks fantastic.

The only wood that I have not enjoyed working with is basswood. It’s fine from a structural standpoint, if a wee bit soft; my issue is an inability to sand it to a point where the “fuzziness” disappears.

Re: “tonewood” - yes, of course the wood matters, but for an electric instrument its role is minor compared to the other variables in play.

 

[RichterScale]

There's only one way to settle this,......


Dance off!!!

 

[monkeyfinger]

How important do you consider hardness? I see a lot of bass bodies made of soft woods such as basswood and okoume these days. Should I be concerned about durability?

 

[Gilmourisgod]

One of my all time favorite basses is the Fender Aerodyne Jazz, a gorgeous thing and feather lite, but that basswood is SOFT. My nephew has one, and it dings if you breathe hard on it. Hard finish over soft wood = dings with cracked finish. I think chambering a harder wood is a better solution. I just went up to Readers Hardwood in Taunton MA, and they have a great selection, but prices are outrageous. Some of that is simple Covid related supply/demand, but how often do you see lumber prices drop, pandemic or no? That may be New Normal. Thats been true of the exotics for a while, but even walnut and rock maple are pricey, around $11-13 a board foot around here. Ouch! I just dropped $170 on two boards, a 8/4 x 7" x 8' flame maple and a 5/4 x 6-1/2" x 7' walnut, both rough sawn. Stil cheaper than mailorder, but painful. What are people paying in your area? I feel like I got hosed, but nobody closer selling it any cheaper.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Wood choices and considerations:

1) structural properties

2) price and availability

3) appearance

Unless clients request it, I try to stay away from the exotic stuff. I generally like maple, walnut, poplar, alder, etc. They are all great woods, they’re easy to source and they’re not critically endangered or anything. Lately, I’ve been dorking out on non-commercial fretboard woods like mesquite and Osage orange.

 

[Durham52]

I get that the OP is in the USA, so circumstances, wood availability etc. will be quite different to mine here in Australia, but I'll throw in some thoughts for what they're worth.

While I have used and still sometime do use, the "tonewood" standards like mahogany, maple, ash, alder, rosewood and so on, they are almost all imported, traveling thousands of miles to get here (so I tend to avoid using them these days)and I certainly can't comment on their availability, sustainability in America.

But when it comes to "tonewood", where you were on this planet, pre the age of air transport and motor powered ships, meant that people depended on what was growing locally. There are plenty of woods that make fine acoustic stringed instruments that are outside the half dozen or so old favorites.

Starting in the mid 1970's I began using native Australian woods, specifically Tasmanian woods, as that's where I was living at the time. The Maton and Noyce companies had been using Australian woods well before I began and a number of custom builders make classical guitars out of Australian timbers and they're played by world class musicians.

Anyway, I work with timbers that most closely match the weights, densities, hardness, etc. of classic stringed instrument timbers, Tasmanian Blackwood, (an acacia close to Koa) Tasmanian Myrtle, Sassafras, Silver Wattle, Mountain Ash, (a eucalypt) Celery Top and King Billy Pines. Plus Queensland Maple (not a true maple more like a blonde mahogany) an a few others. While some of the names might sound familiar, that's just because early settlers often named plants, animals, birds, etc. after species that looked the same from back home. Tasmanian Myrtle, Sassafras, Ash, Celery Top and King Billy pines are unique ancient species. (Tasmanian 'Pines' match the finest spruces as acoustic soundboards)

The point is that there are many woods from all over the planet that will provide the same, or very similar properties to the 'old favorites' even for constructing world class classical guitars and violins, so they'll certainly work for solid body guitars and basses. Some of them can look pretty good too.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

For some really impressive Tonewood Hyperbole, NOBODY beats Alembic. Apparently those slivers of ebony and cocobolo can be "tuned" to yield amusing notes of coriander and sage, with a fruity afterglow. Gorgeous basses, but they tend to sound pretty much the same IME, very crisp hi-fi tone in no need of the extra marketing piffle. The electronics are pretty sophisticated, allowing you to dial in just about anything. Its a fun read though, and the photos alone are worth drooling over.
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[micguy]

Sorry, that became a bit of a rant.

It was one paragraph, and not a long one at that. Around these parts, that hardly qualifies as a rant.

 

[micguy]

Re: “tonewood” - yes, of course the wood matters, but for an electric instrument its role is minor compared to the other variables in play.

The differences in sonics between A Squier and Fender's Custom Shop instruments I would consider "minor" as well, in the grand scheme of things. Most of what we talk about here nobody in the audience will ever notice. We're an online society of nit pickers, when you get right down to it.

 

[mrperkolator]

Also, do you say it "pee can" or "p'kon"?

"p'kon"

If you can get a piece of Mesquite big enough for a 2 or even 3 piece top there’s no reason not to make a pecan body and chamber it and install a Mesquite top. I believe pecan would be strong enough to work pretty well. I have seen some pretty neat looking Mesquite but typically more in a fretboard size.

Well I saw that rosewood is usually around 2200 to 2400 on hardness. Honey Mesquite (what grows here) is around 2340 lbs on janka skale (wood-database.com). maple.... has too many options for me to compare. Regardless, Mesquite should prove to be a good fretboard material. Not quite to Ebony, but slightly harder than average rosewood. I was thinking fretboard because I'd bet mesquite wood big enough to do a top on a body may also be expensive, but I could be wrong

I get that the OP is in the USA, so circumstances, wood availability etc. will be quite different to mine here in Australia, but I'll throw in some thoughts for what they're worth.

This is where I was hoping this would end up. I only mentioned Pecan and Mesquite because it's what grows here. If I go up into Oklahoma, I could add Osage orange to that list. Which could be an interesting discussion by itself. Osage Orange was highly regarded by native Americans for making bows. Stiff but flexible. Not sure how that would translate to guitars. I'm fascinated by various woods and their uses.

Mostly, I was hoping to get good discussion for woods used in guitars, common or not. Y'all have done that, so thanks!

Personally, If I ever pay over what I would consider "intermediate" level bass prices, I'd want to do a full custom using woods that are not typical - for the sake of being different! For me in Texas that means Pecan, Mesquite. I'd love to read about what different areas may be using as well, even if I cannot get it here. If I can figure out how, I'd love to get down to the valley (Tx-mexico border area) and find some Texas Ebony. Even if it's a live tree to replant.....

Again, thanks all for getting this in the right direction. I cant be the only one wondering, "I wonder what making a bass out of (insert local/different wood here) would be like?"

 

[Slidlow]

Not local but I've built with Teak (neck through and body wings)

Ipe (neck through with Sipo body wings)

And with mostly native (Maple neck with black walnut body wings)

There are a lot of woods that work. Right now I am over the top with an ebony neck through six string.

 

[RichterScale]

It's much worse than just wondering about different woods.
I see a possible bass in everything I look at.
The deck, cabinet doors, table tops,....
It's like a curse.

 

[Slidlow]

It's much worse than just wondering about different woods.
I see a possible bass in everything I look at.
The deck, cabinet doors, table tops,....
It's like a curse.

Yes my wife has noticed how I look at all things wooden (including trees) with a calculating stare.

 

[bassdude51]

Wood choices and considerations:

1) structural properties

2) price and availability

3) appearance

Unless clients request it, I try to stay away from the exotic stuff. I generally like maple, walnut, poplar, alder, etc. They are all great woods, they’re easy to source and they’re not critically endangered or anything. Lately, I’ve been dorking out on non-commercial fretboard woods like mesquite and Osage orange.

Very well stated! The 3 things you mentioned summarize perfectly wood choices!

I have an 100% Koa J body by Warmoth with Fender J pickup and with a 100% rosewood neck and yes, it is a warm sounding bass like you would expect. But then I have a 100% Koa body and neck by Carvin LB90 with an ebony fret board and it is very traditional J Bass sounding.

I used to have an ash body G&L 1000 and a mahogany body G&L 1000 and which one was brighter? The mahogany!

Woods can not be stereo typed to sound. Wood will sound however it wants to sound.

So, the 3 choices like Freekmagnet mentioned or a combination of the 3. Is the goal in making/building a bass. (Many times, exotic woods = heavy bass.)

Side note. I've never figured out why walnut is not used for fret boards???!!! We have a set of Chicago Cutlery knives with walnut handles. They are over 40 years old and have be exposed to every kind of food and tons of water and soap and the walnut is indestructible! Why not walnut fret boards? Please tell me.

 

[Jack Butler]

I was going to respond to the OP, but I couldn't articulate my own thoughts any better than this. It's like you knew what I was thinking.

My priorities are mechanical fitness, good looks, and availability/sustainability.

By mechanical fitness I mean wood that meets these criteria:

1) free from defects (knots, twist, runout, etc) unless used in a purely cosmetic manner.
2) doesn't possess any seriously bad characteristics (extremely oily, extremely unstable dimensionally with respect to moisture content, etc)
3) is stiff enough for the desired application
4) is light enough that the bass won't be unbalanced or too heavy

The vast majority of hardwoods and some softwoods meet those criteria.

After that, the next most important thing is that it looks good. Sometimes you want a plain wood to offset another piece of the instrument made from something more fantastic, or to make for a clean design. Other times you want lots of figure or color. Choice must match, i.e. maple, walnut, and cherry look awesome together but bubinga, padauk, and purpleheart clash with each other.

Finally, sustainability and availability. The more I build, the more I try to think carefully about where the wood lived when it was a tree, and how it got to me. I like buying wood from "the slab guy" I met on facebook, since his lumber is all reclaimed local stuff so there's essentially no impact to living trees. Whether this is legitimate or not is up for debate I suppose, but I feel better about that than about buying a piece of something exotic from a rando ebay supplier where you have no idea how it was harvested. When I do buy exotics, I try to at least buy them from vendors who have a reputation on the line.

"Tonewood" is not a thing for me. Any impact that wood selection has on tone is covered under mechanical properties, as far as I'm concerned. Build with wood that has the right properties and you'll get a good result. There's no need to buy wood that has traditionally been used for instruments, versus similar wood that hasn't.

Regarding your question about wood choices working well with each other. The way that can bite you is if you choose species that have vastly different expansion properties. Most hardwoods are fairly similar but if you end up with something that moves a lot glued to something that doesn't move much, you'll be more likely to have problems than if all your wood behaves similarly. Grain orientation among laminated parts makes a big difference there since most species have more movement in one dimension vs others. You can look a lot of these properties up online if you're curious.

 

[dwizum]

I've never figured out why walnut is not used for fret boards???!!!

It is, sometimes. Ovation did a lot of walnut fretboards on guitars and I'm sure there are other commercial examples. I've used it a few times and I know other LC regulars have. It'll take and hold frets fine if you're careful, but it is right on the border in terms of durability and stiffness - basically a step down from hard maple in those respects.

 

[micguy]

Why not walnut fret boards? Please tell me.

Doesn't hold frets as well as some of the really hard stuff.

 

[Joshua]

Moderator note: cleaned up a few posts. This isn't about tonewoods, and even if it were, we all know how those discussions go. Now let's all grab a cup o' joe and continue on in a respectful manner. Thanks.

 

[Slidlow]

I'll add to this conversation an observation I have made with all the instruments I have built. Offered as totally subjective as I have not kept any record or documented anything. Every instrument I have built has had a change in sound as it has aged. All had a tight defined sound when first finished but as they have aged they have opened up and become much more resonant and full in sound. I know this is all listener based but honestly the best sounding bass I have was built in 1985. Maple neck walnut body. The next best sounding was completed recently but was mostly built in 1986 and is teak. I finished a five string with an ebony neck in 2013 that was initially dull and muted but has recently begun to open up and sound more resonant. That's three different neck woods that have displayed the same phenomena.