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Hey all, I am new here and excited to join the chat!! He is some of my family members!

I think it's safe to say that 95% of the talk about tonewoods is still nonsense... 😁

During the first half of a gig once I noticed my top strap button had worked loose in the last song. I finished the song by holding the neck up with my left to take the weight for fear of the strap button pulling out, and sending bass tumbling groundwards. In the break I tried to tighten it but the screw wouldn't tighten properly so I went to the bar and purchased a box of matches, pushed one into the screw hole and broke it off flush. The strap button screw now did up nice and tight, great stuff, now I can enjoy the second half worry free. How wrong was I? All the way through that second set I could hear that the wood composition had changed in that bass. Like an idiot I had not asked for tone matches. What a fool I felt.

Bloody hell! There's badassery of all kinds happening here. Respect! 🤘

My bass set up (excuse the guitar amp in shot). There’s also a Schroeder 1210 under the guitar amp too that needs a bit of TLC so it’s parked up at the moment. Would just like a chance to use some of it live soon really.

Proof that we are listened to; from Facebook

Can't disagree there. I must admit when I bought my first bass and when I first dipped into BassChat I thought all this talk about tonewoods was nonsense. I'm a scientist by training and how could the tiny amount of energy I put into the strings move something as massive as a bass body in such a way as to affect the movement of the strings in respect to the magnetic field of the pickups enough to be audible? Well it's pretty obvious the bass body does vibrate, I can feel it through my body and those little clip in tuners work pretty much on any part of the bass (with varying success). It's fairly obvious that a lot of this is down to resonances within the structure of the bass. Those resonances are then related to the physical dimensions of the vibrating body (the bass's not mine) its Young's modulus (stiffness) and it's mass. Wood is so variable, growth rates vary from year to year, the relative proportions of different cell types and their structures vary during the growth of the tree and in different parts of the tree. Trees grow differently even planted at the same time and only a couple of metres apart. The density and elasticity of woods varies and species overlap hugely. Every screw, machine head, routed cavity, the strings, pickups and even where you rest your hands are going to shift and change resonances. Can a tonewood change the sound of a bass? Obvously. Is this predictable enough that you can reliably say which timber was used or how a bass will sound from looking at a body blank? Well I'm sceptical.

Sorry for the delay folks, but she's here! I couldn't be happier. The most playable bass I've owned, and easily the best sounding. The closest I've had was an Aria Pro with a through neck back in about '84 (might have been an SB1000). Anyway...

Fingerboard blank made. Next is a scarf joint

Something for half time:

My BB604 & BB605 and I have a BB435 away in its case. I think I may well and truly have the Yamaha bug....

Some more stuff

It's new (old) amp day for me! Ashdown Mag 300 EBS Classic 112 Ampeg SVT 112 Going to strip them and re-cover them all, probably black but I am tempted by white... Good friend of mine sold these as a stonking deal!

Wow! They are women! They are in a band but they are women! They are playing their own instruments but they are women! They are playing metal but they are women! They are doing what men do but they are women! Whatever next? Maybe we'll have women driving buses, and possibly even women being politicians!

Hi Friends, attached my actual EVO-X5 in progress

I’ll take all the credit, I’m the one who brought it up here and on TB recently

How refreshing to not see anyone spouting any of the 'pick playing is not real bass playing' type of cr*p so prevalent on social media groups... Well done everyone!

Roger Waters in goal... he’s excellent at organising The Wall.

Nothing about how the ultra low emissions zone, congestion charge payable before and after 12am, and 24 hour parking charges in central London, will affect anyone who wants to go or play there.

Nice bit of ply...😉😉

The problem is not Spotify. It's the fact that the record labels take a massive proportion of the royalties that a Spotify play produces, and they sold the streaming rights for (relatively) next to nothing. Looking at what my songs earn from a Spotify play, if I had 1,000,000 streams I'd be doing quite nicely. Not enough to give up the day job, but certainly enough to finance the next round of recordings and videos for one of my bands - in other words a great deal more than £33. That's because I haven't signed a crap deal with a rip-off record company. On the other hand I don't have a 1,000,000 streams because very few people have heard of either of the bands I play with, so if a record label came along and could guarantee getting my music the sort of publicity that would generate millions of streams I might at least take a second look at that deal. The other problem is that streaming doesn't really pay anyone. None of the major players actually make any money off providing streaming services, even when they are paying peanuts for the privilege. They are either being propped up by the profitable parts of their parent companies, or gullible investors who still haven't seen any return on what they have put in. SoundCloud did manage to turn a profit for a while but that's because they weren't paying any royalties at all! Since that was discovered they have been in financial difficulties.

That's one of the things you pay Ken Smith prices for. It doesn't alter the fact that any half decent instrument (maybe not outright El Cheapos, as I pointed out) will be made from reliable materials. Talk of leaving instrument timber for years for the "grain to align" or exposing it to vibration to "make it resonate properly" is all part of the sales pitch (some may even say snake oil) we're fed by those eager for us to spend our money on their wares. Aren't I the cynic?

Hi all - I've not posted on here for a LONG time but things are changing round a lot for me currently so hoping to be WAY more active again moving forwards... Speaking of which, I've just finished uploading my first ever solo release video... The video for "Trust In Me" is now finished and LIVE. It's a song of hope - about letting go of worry and hanging on to trust, faith and belief (in whatever form that takes). The tune features regular AND piccolo bass throughout along with some incredible guest musicians. The track will appear on the forthcoming EP and Vinyl Single. All the "guitar" parts are played on Piccolo Bass which may be mildly interesting to some...?! Here's the video - hope you enjoy it.

Only when Malcolm wasn’t looking!

As the making of musical instruments long predates the invention of electricity is it possible that certain woods were selected for their suitability for this purpose. These woods are now collectively known as Tonewoods. Specific factors such as density will affect the tone produced by the wood. These woods all have varying acoustic as well as aesthetic qualities. These may diminish when used to make a solid bodied instrument but the wood remains a Tonewood.

Using the term TONE wood almost implies that the wood imparts certain frequencies to the timbre, but it's the opposite. Certain woods remove frequencies of a certain range, such as Ash is supposedly scooped. It's not reinforcing the highs & lows, it's removing the mids. Paul Reed Smith did a Ted-Talk where he discusses how ALL of the system of a stringed-instrument is subtractive, there are no additions. Of course he's commenting on 100% passive instruments. It's not a process of ADDing anything, it's a process of substracting the least possible.

And Bobby if you can get past Scott!

Are we heading for agreement on - Red guitars are louder conclusion to this topic

mostly pick, purple tortex maybe 1.14mm usually Roto's RS66 (La bella on the hofner) Usually Fender P ( a choice of several)but a good chance to post my favourite from 1973 could be Ibanez Musician MC940 fretless, Hofner violin bass, Rickenfakers x 2, (depends on the gig) Cable, Whirlwind maybe, there's certainly one in my case amp (currently Ashdown RM500 Evo 2) cab (currently mark bass club 1x15 and 2x10) Nothing else, clip on tuner or the tuner on my phone

Two tuner apps I've used are Pitch Lab and the Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner. Both work well for me. (The TU-3 is my current tuner app).

It is exotic plywood 😆

what would you call all the woods that bass makers reject? and have learnt to not use because they sound bad, (non tone woods) ? logic says hundreds of years of musical instrument making, using wood has led to some favorite woods now known as tone woods

A bit power metal for my tastes, I prefer these ladies

I haven't used a pick in such a long time but the HD DAVA ones are pretty good bits of kit. Dave

Some great pictures here of Bunny Wailer https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2021/mar/03/reggae-legend-bunny-wailer-a-life-in-pictures

My heavy duty DAVA control power grips arrived today and they're very different to Jim Dunlops. Just look at how much thicker they are compared to a JD 0.88mm. They feel really secure in use and unsurprisingly give a slightly meatier less toppy tone than the JD. I might order some of the standard versions to compare.

Yup. A friend let me hear them a few years ago (along with Aparat & Moderat). They’re fantastic.

AC/DC songs?

It's a custom built instrument, the Gildaxe SuperSonic. Based on the Fender Performer bass. https://www.bestbassgear.com/ebass/bass-of-the-week/bass-of-the-week-supersonic-bass.html The headstock reminds me of a Watkins/WEM Rapier bass, but in a more extreme form.

Isn’t tonewood just a generic catch-all term for a raft of different woods used to make musical instruments? If you are interested in grain then yes the choice matters. I would think that a luthier’s choice of tonewood would be less to do with the tone of the wood and more to do with the type and appearance of the instrument they are making. In terms of my own mucking about at home the different necks on different instruments make a subtle change in tone. Would this be noticeable in a live venue? I doubt it. Would it sound different played on the toilet? All changes to an instrument IMO may influence the sound it makes, how significant that change is will be open to debate. Edit: The use of luthier implies small, bespoke builds. Large manufacturers will be more concerned with supply, costs and consistency amongst other things when selecting tonewood.

There does seem to be an obsession with what is the ‘major’ influence, and thus discounting various other bits Its like one gentleman said about it being a recipe, it’s a combination, that little tweak of lime juice at the end of a dish, or the fact you caramelised the onions as opposed to normal frying them could be the thing to give it a lift

Those sorts of terrible is what my OP was about. One time I went to a fools on stools after work and the guitar player was retuning his standard tuning for every song. W T H! He would chang chang on the new root chord and it would be ''out of tune'' so he would 'retune' sorta, to sorta suit the new chords. My poor ears. Of course his saddles were all over the place. At the break I made him borrow a screwdriver from the barman and we fixed it. He was very grateful! Side note, every used bass I have gotten has needed intonating. I deduce far less bass players than ideal are aware.

Interesting article on R4 earlier about streaming, trading of music as product and investment (see The Price of Song - BBC Sounds). Thoughtful, sensible comments from Abba's Björn Ulvaeus, and others including Paul McCartney. Björn: "I want my money to go to the people whose recordings I play; but at the moment most of it goes to the mega-artists who have billions of clicks". "But you're one of those mega-artists!". "Yes, but it's completely unfair". Agreed, Bjorn

And this - a 1000MA in tobacco burst over flame maple...never seen one before

See, that's what I'd do now: Bung in a nice set of DiMarzio Model Ps for £50 or £60 and stick the '70s Fender unit on Ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FENDER-PRECISION-BASS-1974-USED-PICKUPS-11-5-k-EXCELLENT-WORKING-CONDITION-/164632533665 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1977-Precision-Bass-Pickup-1976-Pots-Cup-and-Jack-Complete-Set-/224265520692 Free Antoria, free DiMarzio & enough change for a few pints and a pie.

I'd say one at a time and only a very little at a time. You always want to be able to get back to where you started. That's a lot easier with one variable.

My band have made it into ‘The Doom Charts’ with our new album. One spot behind Cult of Luna so I will take that, though we are admittedly not very doomy. https://doomcharts.com/2021/03/01/doom-charts-february-2021/

If we've learnt anything at the numerous tests at Bass bashes is that even bass players/owners struggle to tell the differences. I think the closest we've come to any agreement is that Rosewood fretboards tend to be "warmer" than Maple boards. Personally, I agree with @Doctor J, that looks make a difference. If I like the looks of a bass then this will influence whether I fall in love with the tones. If all of this is only a placebo effect then great...if others don't agree, so what...

The Acoustic 371 system was my dream rig in my teen years. I had a catalog pic of the on my wall like amp porn. I purchased the 301 cab new in 1973. I was 11th grade. All original. It has a single Cerwin Vega 18” rear facing speaker. 4 ohms. The head I got a few years ago. I refurbished the head case with Duratex. It’s a 1974. It can use two cabs and will do 365 watts at 2 ohms.