Slightly surprised by the current of this thread going against body tonewood being a significant factor in tone, as to me it’s always been very much apparent that it is.
Yes, an electric instrument may have little in common with an acoustic one, but it does have acoustic properties. A plucked string will transmit its vibrations to the body (and neck) on which it’s mounted, causing resonant vibrations within the wood, which will be transmitted back to the string as harmonics (causing the simple sound waveform generated by the vibrating string to become more complex) and also tending to dampen it (altering the attack / sustain / decay of the sound). So at one extreme a hollow-bodied bass will tend to have a harmonic-rich tone and relatively poor sustain, then going into solid bodies with resonant woods like mahogany or alder which will tend to have a “warmer” tone than denser woods like maple and ash, and at the other extreme very dense and homogeneous materials like stone (as the guitar posted earlier) or dense metal, which will have the tone closest to the pure vibration of the string. Being an inveterate bitsa builder I definitely notice the difference when swapping bodies and necks around the same hardware and pickups.
Plywood, just like solid wood, varies immensely; from dense void-free ply like marine ply, to cheesy stuff that’s more air and glue than wood. My only ply bass - a Columbus Jazz copy- was made of the latter, and undoubtedly the vilest bass I’ve ever owned (though probably more due to the feeble pickups than the body). As posted above; ply basses can be superb. No mention yet of MDF - one of my favourite basses was my very first; a mid-1960’s Kalamazoo KB1 which was Gibson’s first budget venture. They subcontracted the bodies to a manufacturer of toilet seats using dense compressed wood pulp composite (effectively MDF)
excuse rambling post.......
Cheers Paul, and welcome to BC! I’d love to see some pics of the basses and guitars you have that your Dad made - I’ve never seen another other than mine! They must be very special to you. Jonny P - apologies for slightly derailing your sale thread, although I think all the history helps enhance your lovely Goodfellow bass.......
