Vibrating G String

At 0:53 the smaller of the 2 guitarists seems to be a fret or 2 off It looks like he flinches a bit. Other than that this song kills and has a great bass solo at 3:23, it's not the most technical thing in the world but it makes me all warm inside.

[quote name='Gwilym' post='730052' date='Jan 30 2010, 11:53 AM']i think that, in your own words, the same circuit in the same bass might "vary slightly". All I'm saying is that in my experience with my two basses, the tone between the two differ to an extent that I can only reasonably attribute that difference to the different woods used in the construction, rather than any slight dfferences due hardware and electronics, which are identical. Of course this is not a controlled scientific experiment, nevertheless it's my contention that tonewoods do have an effect on the sound of an instrument. Whether or not this effect is to a greater or lesser extent than the effect of electronics and pickups, I don't know, but it certainly makes a difference.[/quote] I don't disagree you hear a difference but I don't think wood is the only reasonable way to explain the difference. If you look into psychoacoustics a little bit you will see there are many other factors that could explain the difference. It is very easy to play one bass in a way people think it is more than one instrument being used. I can get a large variation in tone from just one bass, easily enough to outweigh any claims for the wood.

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='729741' date='Jan 30 2010, 07:07 AM']I didn't say it was linear amplification. But the string produces the harmonics - if it didn't then moving up and down the fret board wouldn't do much! I'm not arguing that pickups don't contribute to tone, they clearly do. But If you imagine a hypothetical 'flat' pickup, then could you not get a fairly reasonable rough approximation of a particular pickup's tone with EQ alone? What I was trying to say was that the way the string output across the different harmonics decays over time will be dominated by its interaction with the body/neck/bridge etc. Point taken regarding being in a magnetic field. But I would imagine (correct me if I'm wrong) that this doesn't have nearly as significant affect on the note decay as the mechanical factors in the body unless the pickup is too close to the string (when you get that 'sucking' effect. Also this factor would be a constant whether the bass is played plugged in or otherwise.[/quote] I do think wood is part of the equation, however were I tend to differ with most is that I don't think we can make any more than the most gross predictions based on woods. The infinitely slim promises we get from some builders strikes me as quite dishonest or at best severely delusional. However it is an easy thing to test and from all the proper or close to proper tests I've seen no one can identify a wood species or genus by listening to an instrument either acoustically or electrically. There isn't a single claim about a particular woods tone by an expert luthier that can't be countered with another experts contradictory claim. As for body having an effect on tone try this. Strap on your favorite bass and let it hang from your strap so it doesn't touch your belly and don't rest your arm on it. Hit a note and let it ring. Now let it rest on your belly and drape your forearm over the top basically adding a huge flesh mute to front and back of your bass, hit that same note again. What do you hear?

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='729596' date='Jan 30 2010, 04:37 AM']It strikes me as a bit weird to imagine that an obvious difference acoustically in one particular case is not largely responsible for the obvious difference plugged[/quote] I would agree that it suggests it could be responsible but I would not assume it is. The example of graphite guitars works here. An original Stenberger sounds like poo in a pillow unplugged but plugged in it's very aggressive and upfront. To my ears the 2 tones are unrelated. Once I know it's the same instrument my brain will present all the similarities to me while dismissing all the differences but my brain lies to me, often A P bass and a J bass cannot be differentiated from one another based on the acoustic tone, unless you can see them but they sounds worlds apart plugged in. This example alone should kill the acoustic tone theory for all but the faithful.

[quote name='leftybassman392' post='728095' date='Jan 28 2010, 12:47 PM']I'm sure VGS can speak for himself, but I've got a feeling that's not really what he means. The various components used in preamp circuits are made within certain tolerences, which means that different examples of the same circuit can vary slightly in their 'sound'. This makes it hard to call them identical to the point that you can eliminate them as a factor.[/quote]Yeah! What he said It's true, look at the Wal bass circuit for example since it's not encased in epoxy and uses full size components. You will see many parts rated + or - 5% or greater. That's a swing of 10% which in a single capacitor can change frequency range by nearly a half step. We only think electronics are identical because we can't see a difference without learning how to read resistor stripes and stuff like that. If you get into boutique effects building you will see builders who measure all their parts to pick the ones that are within their specs and to match them to the other parts. No mass produced preamps do that as it's very expensive. Vintage pickups are famous for varying greatly from one example to another and strings also vary from set to set. So the assumption of "identical" doesn't hold up and can easily be demonstrated false by popping down to the latest Fender dealer and find 2 "identical" guitars and see if an audiophile will say they can't hear the difference between 2 things with the same woods and specs. Funny how guitars can vary so much but a McDonalds cheeseburger on the other side of the world tastes the same

[quote name='leftybassman392' post='727461' date='Jan 28 2010, 04:11 AM']Don't luthiers tap wood to check for defects? A flawless piece of wood will have a strong resonance, whereas internal and/or invisible cracks will inhibit the resonance. Same principle as you use with porcelain. In fact isn't it the quality of the wood stock that you pay for (at least in part)?[/quote] As a bass builder and NAMM member since the late '80's I can't remember a luthier tapping lumber looking for defects. I'm sure there are some that do but tapping for defects should not be extrapolated into the often told tale of tapping for better tone. Small cracks won't change the tone and big ones are clearly visible. Most of the wood in a board becomes scrap and isn't in the final product any ways. The only legit use of tapping wood, in my opinion of course, is in determining when to stop carving a softwood top used on a viol family instrument. A crack has to be huge and rather visible to be heard IME. Something to keep in mind is that some of the most expensive basses in the world (Fodera) use top woods that are riddled with cracks and rot and filled with crazy glue. If we applied these wood myths consistently Fodera would be making some rather lame sounding basses. Ironically those that favor the aged wood stories found in the vintage world claim the better tone comes from the wood breaking down allow it to resonate more freely (don't all great wood theories increase resonance?} causing reanimation and respiration in the instrument. The 2 ideals seem contradictory

I think tapping on raw lumber is a big misunderstand of the use of tap tones. Historically at least tapping was used to decide when to stop carving a top, not to "taste" the quality of wood. I feel this is just an example of a cool sounding term becoming part of the purchasing ritual. Something to consider, some instruments can be made from s single piece of wood that can play a scale of tones by tapping in different locations. So then that raises the question of what qualities they are looking for in a tapping of raw lumber. That question should not be answered with hypotheticals conceived after the question was asked.

[quote name='Gwilym' post='726983' date='Jan 27 2010, 02:18 PM']my 2 cents. tonewoods (or just woods) make a distinct difference. I've 2 identical basses, apart from woods. both strung with nickel strings. One ash/maple, the other poplar/wenge Tonally, they sound very different. Whilst I don't dispute that hardwear and electronics are all part of the equation (to a greater or lesser extent), but to my ears woods make a difference.[/quote] Have you swapped electronics between the two to see what happens? One problem with most of these anecdotes is people often assume electronics are identical and that's far from the truth. It's easy to see wood is different but electronics look the same so we assume they are identical. Another way to test this is find 2 basses with the same woods and notice they don't sound identical. If the wood was responsible for the tone that would not be true.

I just went through the same search for my friends 6 year old kid. I ended up buying a super cheap 25 1/2" scale Strat copy on eBay. With some drilling of the bridge to swap in some bass saddles, plugging and redrilling the headstock to accept full sized bass tuners, a new nut and a serious fret level he now has a micro mini bass which is also super light. I strung it up with a BEAD set of strings which when you look at a normal 34" scale bass are actually EADG at the fifth fret which is 25 1/2 inches. So in effect it sounds like a normal 5 string capoed at the 5th fret minus the G string. It's not great but I took it to a practice and it's gigable and darn cute. If any one wants to give it a try I can share the details of what I've learned so far. [attachment=41242:minibass.jpg]

[quote name='tarcher' post='722671' date='Jan 23 2010, 02:20 PM']Wonder what difference if any woods would make to a Lightwave bass.[/quote] I would expect in a Lightwave wood would make about the same difference it does on a bass with magnetic pickups as both get their tonal info solely from the vibrating string and don't produce useable sound acoustically. Any one else notice musicians rarely say they can't hear a difference? It's usually something like "the difference is barely noticeable".

[quote name='whimsy23' post='724703' date='Jan 25 2010, 03:13 PM']Not one G string joke yet? Poor form.[/quote] I'm working on it.

Hi Lawrence, I've heard the decent wood, select wood offered many times as an explanation for certain tones. I've never gotten anyone to define how you select decent wood and what luthiers actually do that. What do you mean by decent and do you think if wood doesn't meet those standards it will sound bad? Any one else who wants to give that a shot jump in. I've seen too many great sounding instruments made out of plywood, old doors and workbenches and other things to think the wood is important at all. Of course it's hard to charge $4000 for a Jazz bass copy made from MDF.

Good points Lefty, our ears are very inconsistent. It seems foolish to argue that we can discern differences in a jam room beyond what our ears can distinguish in a lab setting. But admitting we can't hear something that someone else says they can is very hard to do and I think that explains a lot of the quasi religious claims that I hear. Personally I find my hearing can change from day to day. I've played through a bass and amp and loved it one day but not liked the exact same setup on another day.

[quote name='leftybassman392' post='711838' date='Jan 13 2010, 11:52 AM']I loved my Wal, but the preamp design makes it extremely difficult to identify the actual 'sound' of the instrument IMHO. Actually, I would suggest that most active circuits would do essentially the same.[/quote] To carry that thought a bit further. An onboard preamp is often credited with having huge tone shaping abilities. The EQ section of an onboard pre is just a battery powered version of the EQ in a bass amp. Since all basses go through EQ and preamps on at least one side of the cable that should make passive basses just as unidentifiable. And as long as this soapbox continues to hold my weight... preamps are seen as being identical from one instance to another but electrical components are specced with large tolerances sometimes up to + or - 10%. We accept that wood varies and should think of electronics in the same "organic" way.

[quote name='bubinga5' post='709505' date='Jan 11 2010, 02:26 PM']I have always thought that the natural reverbaration and acoustic qualities come from the bass unplugged...the selection of woods is where the core tone come from....if a pickup is chosen, that does not color the bass in any way, the sound you get is coming from the choice of woods....Different body woods can definately change the tone of an instrument...This is where the tone starts from... its all about the way the wood vibrates...All pickups are doing are amplifying these vibrations....i would say they ae both important to bringing out a good tone.. The sound of Wood.. A passive instrument with ash or alder (lets say) is going to sound better(or different) than a passive bass made of plywood..this is a simplification but you get my point...Pickups and preamps should not and is not really where the core tone is coming from..[/quote]I would argue the other way. Consider a bass with 2 pickups. Imagine each of those 2 pickups soloed as 2 different basses with identical woods and hardware and strings but different pickups in different locations. Do each of the pickups sound the same as dictated by the identical woods or do they sound very different as dictated by the differing pickups? In my opinion all woods in a bass could be replaced by a different genus without giving any identifying audio clues to which particular wood was used. For example make a dozen jazz basses. Half with alder bodies, half with Pacific soft maple. Paint the basses a solid color and no one will ever hear the difference until they are told which is which.

Maybe you could find someone with a fretless one who wants to swap necks for your fretted? Less cost and history and resale value are preserved.

I've got one. It's in these pictures next to my Fernandes jazz which is the best Fender style bass I've ever owned. [attachment=40527:Agave.jpg][attachment=40526:Agave2.jpg]

Back in 1985 when I was making my living as a juggler I opened for a band called the Fents which featured bassist/juggler Laurence Cottle and he let me balance his Wal bass on my toe. Fortunately it worked. Ahh, memories... Fents fans can hear some of their music at [url="http://www.myspace.com/thefents"]http://www.myspace.com/thefents[/url]

Quinton Berry has a few tricks [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzMVeS7mpuE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzMVeS7mpuE[/url]

My friends single pickup version sounded very much like a Fender P. Also he offers 17.5mm or 19mm bridge spacing on the 5's so keep that in mind if you're going for a low B. For me they are a high quality improvement on the classic Fender design. I rank them up there with the Sadowskys and Lulls but more than just a copy.

When I was at BIT in 1985 Fender left one at the school and we all got to play with it. The general consensus was it looked funny, had a nice small neck and sounded very good.

[quote name='Timface' post='6854' date='May 25 2007, 02:12 PM']intresting.... Does this explain party why really old basses are worth loads of cash? apart from them being orinigals or "special" coz that kinda different[/quote] Very few basses from the '60's & '70's are worth much with the glorious exception of Fender and a few others. I'm of the opinion that even the really expensive ones are only worth a few hundred if judged solely on tone and playability. People talk about the magic of the aged woods but if you take a '64 jazz bass, refret it, change electronics and sand the Fender decal off the value of that aged wood plummets even though it is unchanged in tone and playability. Draw your own conclusions I understand the fun & nostalgia of old basses and see why that can skyrocket a price but I don't understand what seems to be a need to then rationalize the high price by claiming the tone or playability is superior to a newer bass made to higher standards. That said when I see a pre CBS J bass in a custom color and matching headstock I do tend to drool. But it's more about my history and taste than superior quality.