Wood effects tone

You'll find this is quite a divded forum when it comes to this.

 

Can you say....TROLL

 

I say its a bit of both. Ive changed bodies and left everything else the same and the instrument drastically changes. My friend had a stage brand. A plywood bass. Sounded decent at best (with upgraded pickups ceramic p dimarzios, a badass II and a newly shielded cavities and pbass harness with high end parts). I made a one piece brazilian oak body (one piece) and the instrument changed its timbre (I think Im using the right words) and sound... This wood sounds much more acoustic with mids and lows. almost like an upright this bass turned out to be. Also worth noting is when we changed all the stock parts when the bass still had the plywood what most improved on the bass was clarity and with the new pots, id say the amount of tone shaping the tone knob gives us.

SO TO ME... as far as experience tells me its not one thing. Its a mix. Can a crappy wood bass sound decent or even superb, probably given the right hardware t can be made to sound to someones liking or dream instrument... Every ear has its taste. Can superb woods with crappy electronics and hardware give wonderful tone and someone's dream tone, probably but i think it'd be much harder and probably have some setbacks such as hiss or what not.

ITS A COMBINATION OF BOTH. its not just the raw ingredients its how you cook them.

 

hey, we haven't done one of these threads for at least five or six days. let's play this game again

NOT!

BB - Welcome to TB. I see you're new here, so let's say you haven't had opportunity yet to learn about the Search function. Log in as your user account, and then search for this topic here in the Luthier forum. You'll find this topic has yet to cause anything but division and very heated arguments ... and the result is that, given the very nature of the materials we use to build instruments, there is not a -factual, proven, undisputable answer- to this question.

you should also be aware that trolling is not tolerated here. I'm not accusing you of trolling, but if you are your actions will soon be revealed.


p.s. interesting to read your into - never built a bass before, but tackling a neck-thru as your first building project outside of one Warmoth assembly. you definitely need to make use of that Search function and start reading up on the nuances of building a neck-thru. there's quite a few excellent discussion on this style of bass build

all the best,

R

 

Keep these threads coming, trolling whatever you like, till the topic is covered in the FAQ.

In the meantime, you can read some of the greatest BS responses to these types of questions by searching.

There are ofcourse excellent posts on the topic, but you need to shovel manure to get there...

 

Here's my problem with this thread: you're not asking for people's opinions, you're specifically asking for people to take sides in characterizing this forum. It's polarizing and unnecessary.

As said before, you can use the search function to read dozens of threads worth of people pontificating on the effect of wood type on bass tone.