Killerfridge

[quote name='Vibrating G String' post='1328175' date='Aug 5 2011, 02:21 AM']I'll bet you can't, mainly because none of these gifted golden ears even specifically defines what the difference they are hearing is. It's always some vague easily modified touchy feely nebulous term like rounder or more friendly to cats. I would dare anyone who feels they can perform auditory taxonomy (and that has to be true, just look at the size of those words and how confidently they were written) to put their neck out and give anything of a scientific definition to these wondrous things they can hear. Like a frequency response that would identify a species, or genus as most don't even know what a species is.[/quote] Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the differences would be predictable in the sense that they are currently used. Just that if you attached 1 string to a length of plywood, with a nut/fret/bridge at each end, with a pickup in a determined position, and plucked it with a mechanical finger providing a designated amount of force - you would potentially see a difference in the recorded wavelength to one attached to a board made of ebony. Whether or not that would be significant enough to hear, or to even bother to take into account once to add the squishy unreliability of humans playing, or tone shaping etc is up for discussion. I personally don't think it does (see previous post about susceptibility to auditory illusions). I think that people who claim to be able to 'hear' things that science cannot detect are suffering from standard auditory illusions (like how a healthy human brain should), but refuse to accept that they can be fooled by such illusions. If you want a great example of this, please go and read the TB ESP Power Cord thread.

[quote name='Vibrating G String' post='1328177' date='Aug 5 2011, 02:25 AM']Thank you for sharing your understanding of the scientific method Thank god for the internet huh?[/quote] I'm amazed that you're even attempting to reason with the people who say "I played these two different things, and ignoring the fact that I knew the differences between them, I also totally heard the difference...and it was me playing". I really didn't want to get into this with those who don't understand the scientific method, years arguing with homeopaths has made me a little weary of it. Basically, of course they sounded different - you were playing them and thought that they were going to be different. Ignoring the obvious question of the strings etc. you also have to take into account the problem of you playing it differently. This is exactly the same point that came up with people testing the ESP Power Cable - when the players knew which cable was which, they could totally hear the difference, and so could independent observers - they were unconsciously playing differently. When someone changes the cable, and doesn't tell either which one it is, suddenly they lose this uncanny ability to hear the differences. The problem with the TB experiment was [i]not[/i] that they were relying on players 'hearing' rather than 'playing'. It is necessary that the people being tested are blind to them, so that they can't be influenced on anything other than the sound. This experiment didn't prove anything, but it was interesting.

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1327675' date='Aug 4 2011, 07:38 PM']How is it faulty though? I have never said 'alder sounds mellower' because I think it's likely to be more idiosyncratic than that. In fact I have explicitly said that I think often the tones will be very similar in the real-world. I only stepped in because people appear to be over-extrapolating this to claim that wood has no effect on tonal output of a bass, which would defy the laws of physics. By the way the resonant chamber acoustic is actually in some ways a far more complex model to examine the effect of wood type, because the chamber size, shape and construction will have a really big effect on its properties - a solid body is in that sense much simpler.[/quote] I can agree with that. [quote name='LawrenceH']There are lots of cases where the basic tone of the instrument is so buried under electronics that of course you can barely even hear what instrument is being played - but a clean tone into a reasonably flat, low distortion system, well it would be astonishing if a change in something that contributes significantly to the vibrational decay characteristics of the string wasn't audible when looking at the extremes of variation in what constitutes 'normal' wood. Whether it's important to you is another matter - a bridge pickup will nearly always sound like a bridge pickup because it has a characteristic comb filter property that is dependent on it's position relative to the string. It can only pick up what the string actually outputs though (which means obviously that strings are very important).[/quote] I am pretty confident you could pick up the differences out between different pieces of wood with scientific equipment - I just question how audible it would be when you take into account the pickup placement, windings etc (not even getting into tone shaping with amps and preamps). I accept that with extreme wood variations, there should be an audible difference (say, between ebony and pine - I could be wrong though, my knowledge of wood is a bit poor). [quote name='LawrenceH']Why is the simple example of a dead-spot shifting with altered neck mass not enough to demonstrate that the properties of the thing the string is mounted to make a significant contribution to the sound? I was pleased with that example because I thought it was so straightforward! [/quote] I'm not saying this to be difficult, I've just never really experienced the problem of deadspots! I'll have to take your word for that. [quote name='LawrenceH']The £50,000 figure for initial studies: a typical post-doc researcher wage is over £30,000. You will need a budget for materials, test equipment and an appropriate space to do it in, which would involve among other things an acoustically treated listening room. Then at the end you have publication costs of several thousand (yes, even though the journals are expensive to buy, scientists have to pay to publish their data). Basically, most of the money would just get eaten up by overheads and set-up costs. You could do it for a lot less if you already had a university department or similar to do the work in, and just gave it to a hapless PhD student! But I honestly can't see anyone supporting this because the data on wood properties is undoubtedly out there commercially and the rest is reinventing the wheel. It's too much of a school 'science project'[/quote] That sounds reasonable - when doing my mini calculations I didn't think to include the salary of the researcher. I was going from an assumption of myself having access to university equipment. Thinking about it, I clearly didn't think it very far through! [quote name='LawrenceH']A final point - why are people so focused on the contribution or not of the body wood (eg in that talkbass video) when the neck makes up such a notable proportion of the total vibrating length?[/quote] Because necks aren't as pretty, and it goes counter to peoples view of the biggest bit of something makes the most difference? I honestly don't know. I would have thought the fretwire would have a fair impact on the sound, but most people don't seem to care at all about it. They would rather worry about what power cable is powering their amp, and whether it makes them sound 'fatter' (this is something at least that is demonstrably false). TBH, I think we have fairly similar views, that are potentially polarised by the sides of the fence that we land on! I can agree that the wood probably has some effect on the string vibration, but if I gave someone an Alder Jazz bass, and told them that it was Ash, I am sure that they would 'hear' the Ash rather than the Alder (if that makes any sense, I have a feeling I am not being very clear). I would also like to add that I am just a very sceptical person. The amount of crap people try to sell me on a day to day basis, has sort of bred in a "don't believe you until you can show me a study" mentality! There is a very real chance I am just being over sceptical.

[quote name='bremen' post='1326992' date='Aug 4 2011, 02:10 PM']Someone on Talkbass did just that - the pine was literally just a lump of scrap timber, no attempt made to make it 'guitar-shaped' and posted sound samples. Result: some folk couldn't tell the difference, some could, but those that could guessed wrong 50% of the time.[/quote] That's basically what happened, but I would disagree with the analysis. 50% of people said that they couldn't hear the difference, and of the remaining 50% that said they could, over 2/3 got it wrong. This amounts to the same percentage you would get if everyone just chose an answer at random. Unfortunately, people are proud of their ability to be right, and everyone else wrong, so the ones who happened to guess correctly claimed that this was because [i]only[/i] they could really hear the difference, and the ones that believed they could but guessed wrong must just be worse at hearing. Saying that, the test itself was flawed, and can't really be claimed to be of any real scientific standard. It was a fun experiment to see how people's preconceptions affected how they posted. [quote name='"LawrenceH"']Not exactly, because this is not new science in that sense...it is an applied model where all the science that describes the system is already defined and tested and there is an awful lot of direct measurement data on vibration analysis as applied to wood. So in this case Occam's razor applies. You expect the model to behave as predicted by it's component parts.[/quote] No-one is claiming that the strings do not vibrate the wood; one could reasonably assume that this would in turn affect the string. The problem is when people start making claims that this difference is audible (alder sounds mellower, ash sounds snappier etc) when put up against the plethora of different electronics and hardware that are involved in shaping the sound of an electric instrument. I understand that acoustic instruments have resonating chambers, and that this has a real effect on the sound of the instrument. What I feel (IMO) you are doing is over-extrapolating from this, and coming to a faulty conclusion. And as a side note of interest, could you explain how you got to the figure of £50,000 for a pilot study? (not doubting you, I would just like to know where figure came from).

We must not also forget the null hypothesis - until someone provides data to show that tone-woods have an audible effect on the sound of an electric instrument, we should assume they do not. The burden of proof is on those making the positive claim, not those who don't believe it. We don't believe in ghosts just because nobody has categorically shown that they don't exist. And I have to agree with G-string - you can't just assert your way into a conclusion. That's exactly how pseudoscience works (see water fondlers and spine wizards - if you follow what they say to their conclusions, they must be correct, but actual scientific evidence points to the contrary)

Right, I am going to stick my oar in here. I own a MusicMan Stingray that has a Status Graphite neck. I would be incredibly surprised if [b][i]anyone[/i][/b] could tell the difference between this, and a Stingray with a wooden neck. I got the carbon fibre neck so I could change between fretted (Status) and fretless (original) if I wanted, and because the Status necks are well made. Sound-wise (other than being fretless) they are essentially identical. So yeah, using the incredibly unscientific method of my ears (as proposed earlier) I cannot 'hear' the difference between Carbon Fibre and Wood. And also, I am so proud of my fellow musical sceptics - I am so surprised at how many are willing to implement critical thinking (compared to the rest of the world!)

Excellent stuff Mike, I always enjoy using your transcriptions

I don't mean to just add a +1 to this, but so far there has only been one selection of basses that I have preferred to my Stingray and Thumb, and they have all been Overwater Jazz basses. Standard Fenders don't really do it for me, and I am unsure as to whether my Shuker will be able to fulfil that lust either (I don't currently know, because when I got it (second hand) the front pickup wasn't working, and the neck was poorly set-up). But even when I know how much I love those basses, I still get a proper smile when I pick up either of my basses, because they sound beautiful!

I think the bass tone is fantastic (P-bass yes?) Not too keen on the song though, but I guess that is just down to personal taste

Hi guys, just thought some of you might want to see this [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U132BU6qUUI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U132BU6qUUI[/url]

I don't know, only that I wasn't actually able to sell mine after replacing it with a status!

I am currently running a Sansamp VT Deluxe into a QSC RMX 1450 into an Accugroove Tri12. Sounds sexy as anything