Vintage Bridge vs Hi Mass Bridge

[JoeEvans]

It seemed to me that in the clean sound comparison in that video, the ash guitar was actually a bit brighter than the mahogany... But impossible to judge properly whether I can tell without a string of properly set up double-blind tests. Does anyone know if such tests have ever been done?

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, JoeEvans said:

It seemed to me that in the clean sound comparison in that video, the ash guitar was actually a bit brighter than the mahogany... But impossible to judge properly whether I can tell without a string of properly set up double-blind tests. Does anyone know if such tests have ever been done?

 

No of course it hasn't. You'd need to do it with hundreds of instruments, and you still wouldn't have a definitive answer because every piece of wood is different, so there is no way of telling if it was actually the body wood that was making a difference and not some other variance in the construction.

 

Even if you did tests where you just swapped the body and kept everything else exactly the same, first you'd need to eliminate the possibility that simply disassembling and reassembling the instrument didn't result in changes in the sound. If you could get to the point where it was possible to consistently rebuild the instrument without changing the sound you would then need a scientifically valid number of bodies - say 25-50 of each type of wood. All the bodies would need to be exactly the same size and shape, and each made of a single piece of wood to eliminate any effect joining two pieces of wood together might have.

 

Until someone can go to this trouble and expense all you can say is that every instrument will sound slightly different to the others, and it is impossible to pin-point exactly which factors are causing those difference.

[BigRedX]

18 hours ago, chris_b said:

I think it is possible to know the ball-park tone of a bass from the wood it's made from. People know what Ash, Alder, Rosewood, Mahogany and Maple are going to sound like, and they know an Ash bass is not going to sound like an Alder bass.

 

Do they?

 

But there are over 40 different species of tree that are included in the "Ash" family. As far as the timber merchant is concerned they are all ash. But they are all biologically different so it follows that the timber they produce must have slightly different qualities. If the wood used on a solid electric instrument is important to its sound then manufacturers should be telling us exactly which species of Ash is being used. And where it comes from, because "ash" grows in a wide variety of climatic conditions all of which will have an impact on the way the layers of grain that go to make up the trunk of the tree and produced and in turn the timber that comes from it as a result.

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

But there are over 40 different species of tree that are included in the "Ash" family. As far as the timber merchant is concerned they are all ash. But they are all biologically different so it follows that the timber they produce must have slightly different qualities. If the wood used on a solid electric instrument is important to its sound then manufacturers should be telling us exactly which species of Ash is being used. And where it comes from, because "ash" grows in a wide variety of climatic conditions all of which will have an impact on the way the layers of grain that go to make up the trunk of the tree and produced and in turn the timber that comes from it as a result.

 

Don't forget the growth years that the cut of timber spans, as the density of each growth ring will vary year by year depending on weather.

[tauzero]

4 hours ago, JoeEvans said:

It seemed to me that in the clean sound comparison in that video, the ash guitar was actually a bit brighter than the mahogany... But impossible to judge properly whether I can tell without a string of properly set up double-blind tests. Does anyone know if such tests have ever been done?

 

Strangely, I thought that too, but I thought it for both the part where the sounds were swapped with their instruments and when they were with the correct instrument. I haven't been back to recheck though.

[chris_b]

Some of you guys obviously have a degree in the splitting of hairs and the picking of nits.  

[WHUFC BASS]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

No of course it hasn't. You'd need to do it with hundreds of instruments, and you still wouldn't have a definitive answer because every piece of wood is different, so there is no way of telling if it was actually the body wood that was making a difference and not some other variance in the construction.

 

So that kind of puts the onus on the advocates of tonewood to prove that what they're saying is actually true. Until there is definitive proof that wood makes a difference to the tone of a solid body electric guitar or bass,  it's nothing more than a meaningless statement. It appears to have become an accepted fact that's peddled by luthiers and guitar manufacturers when the reality is there's absolutely no proof to back up their statements.

[JoeEvans]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

No of course it hasn't. You'd need to do it with hundreds of instruments, and you still wouldn't have a definitive answer because every piece of wood is different, so there is no way of telling if it was actually the body wood that was making a difference and not some other variance in the construction.

 

Even if you did tests where you just swapped the body and kept everything else exactly the same, first you'd need to eliminate the possibility that simply disassembling and reassembling the instrument didn't result in changes in the sound. If you could get to the point where it was possible to consistently rebuild the instrument without changing the sound you would then need a scientifically valid number of bodies - say 25-50 of each type of wood. All the bodies would need to be exactly the same size and shape, and each made of a single piece of wood to eliminate any effect joining two pieces of wood together might have.

 

Until someone can go to this trouble and expense all you can say is that every instrument will sound slightly different to the others, and it is impossible to pin-point exactly which factors are causing those difference.

It wouldn't need to be that complicated. Make three bodies of woods with very different qualities (eg pine, maple, mahogany) and fit with electronics etc as close to identical as possible. Record the same musician playing the same piece on each, then swap all non-body components and repeat. Then play a number of people the recordings and ask them to describe them in whatever way seems appropriate. If each wood had a distinct character that would jump out of the data. 

[BigRedX]

11 minutes ago, JoeEvans said:

It wouldn't need to be that complicated. Make three bodies of woods with very different qualities (eg pine, maple, mahogany) and fit with electronics etc as close to identical as possible. Record the same musician playing the same piece on each, then swap all non-body components and repeat. Then play a number of people the recordings and ask them to describe them in whatever way seems appropriate. If each wood had a distinct character that would jump out of the data. 

 

Unfortunately for scientific methodology "as identical as possible" is not close enough. It has to be EXACTLY the same otherwise you can't rule out construction as the reason for the difference is sound. And even having the same musician playing the instruments isn't good enough. I'm a very average player, but I know that I unconsciously adjust my playing technique to match the sound of the instrument I am playing. Plus a sample of one of each three different bodies is statistically meaningless. The whole point of the "tone wood myth" for solid instruments is that tonal qualities can absolutely be attributed to a single type of wood used in the construction of an instrument. As we can see and hear it is very easy to make instruments that sound different, what we need to be able to do is make instruments made from the same woods sound consistently the same (while sounding obviously different from otherwise identical instruments made from different wood) over hundreds of examples.

[msb]

I’ve never had two that sound the same.

[JoeEvans]

@BigRedX yes, my proposal wouldn't give an exhaustive list of the qualities of each timber. But if, say, 65% of listeners chose the adjective 'bright' from a list of options to describe the maple body and only 35% chose it for the pine body, regardless of how the other components were swapped around, that would pretty definitively end the 'it makes no difference which wood you use' line. 

I guess I'm looking for easy-ish steps away from pure opinion and towards actual evidence.

[Beedster]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Unfortunately for scientific methodology "as identical as possible" is not close enough. It has to be EXACTLY the same otherwise you can't rule out construction as the reason for the difference is sound. And even having the same musician playing the instruments isn't good enough. I'm a very average player, but I know that I unconsciously adjust my playing technique to match the sound of the instrument I am playing. Plus a sample of one of each three different bodies is statistically meaningless. The whole point of the "tone wood myth" for solid instruments is that tonal qualities can absolutely be attributed to a single type of wood used in the construction of an instrument. As we can see and hear it is very easy to make instruments that sound different, what we need to be able to do is make instruments made from the same woods sound consistently the same (while sounding obviously different from otherwise identical instruments made from different wood) over hundreds of examples.

 

Yep this is an area in which empirical (as opposed to theoretical*) science won't help, if only because the sheer numbers of data samples required would render the costs of the whole process far far far greater than any benefits. Precisions generally sound more like other Precisions than do Jazzes, which tend to sound mode like other Jazzes than they do Precisions. That's good enough for me 👍 

 

* The theoretical science is pretty clear; there is ALWAYS going to be a difference. The question is how small a difference are we looking for? I listen to some audio clips online in which sound engineers respond with 'Wow, did you hear that compressor kick in?" to which my answer is nearly always "Um, no, I don't think I did" Expert ears hear more than inexpert ears, and technology can 'hear' more than the most expert ears can hear. But what's the minimum worthwhile effect here, no one actually knows. But it's probably way way bigger than would satisfy a purist in a lab and way smaller than would ever matter to an audience member or audio consumer, and probably even most players.   

[BigRedX]

And that leads to the question: what makes a particular type of bass that bass? 

 

A Precision Bass is generally thought to be something with a single split humbucker in a particular position with regard to the scale length of the strings, but the original Precision bass had a single coil pickup in a slightly different position. Does that make it any less of a Precision Bass? Similarly with the Jazz Bass, Fender moved the position of the bridge pickup. And then what about the Thunderbird - that seems be almost entirely down to the (rough) body shape as all sorts of constructions and pickups appear to be permissible and the bass still be considered a Thunderbird.

 

Ultimately once the bass has been compressed and EQ'd to fit into the arrangement/mix of the recording (which is how the vast majority of our audience will hear it) unless some very noticeable audio processing has been applied to the sound, they will all end up sounding pretty much the same.

[Beedster]

1 minute ago, BigRedX said:

And that leads to the question: what makes a particular type of bass that bass? 

 

A Precision Bass is generally thought to be something with a single split humbucker in a particular position with regard to the scale length of the strings, but the original Precision bass had a single coil pickup in a slightly different position. Does that make it any less of a Precision Bass? Similarly with the Jazz Bass, Fender moved the position of the bridge pickup. And then what about the Thunderbird - that seems be almost entirely down to the (rough) body shape as all sorts of constructions and pickups appear to be permissible and the bass still be considered a Thunderbird.

 

Ultimately once the bass has been compressed and EQ'd to fit into the arrangement/mix of the recording (which is how the vast majority of our audience will hear it) unless some very noticeable audio processing has been applied to the sound, they will all end up sounding pretty much the same.

 

Probably true, listen to any player playing any bass the way s/he plays it, through their own EQ, FX, rig, and it pretty much all sounds the same, especially when you stick another loads of musos in the mix

 

But deep down in the murky depths of grain and fibre, scientifically measurable differences lurk 😀

[neepheid]

Yes, but would it not be better to expend that kind of brainpower to cure cancer or something like that?  This kind of minutiae is frivolous at best and at worst a reason for a faction of the bass playing community to lord it over the other about how wrong they are.

 

I think I'd rather have to not worry about cancer, MND, Parkinson's or dementia/Alzheimer's than have all the mystery removed from guitar and bass construction.

Edited September 6, 2023 by neepheid

[Baloney Balderdash]

14 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Yes, but would it not be better to expend that kind of brainpower to cure cancer or something like that?  This kind of minutiae is frivolous at best and at worst a reason for a faction of the bass playing community to lord it over the other about how wrong they are.

 

I think I'd rather have to not worry about cancer, MND, Parkinson's or dementia/Alzheimer's than have all the mystery removed from guitar and bass construction.

Great point! 

 

How about the owner(s) of this forum donated the money used to run it to research in cancer instead.

 

After all could we all live with basically being responsible for people dying, just because we enjoy discussing bass?

 

How can people defend using money of a paid membership to this forum, or new music equipment for that matter, when people are actually dying because of it?

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[wateroftyne]

13 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Yes, but would it not be better to expend that kind of brainpower to cure cancer or something like that?  This kind of minutiae is frivolous at best and at worst a reason for a faction of the bass playing community to lord it over the other about how wrong they are.

 

I think I'd rather have to not worry about cancer, MND, Parkinson's or dementia/Alzheimer's than have all the mystery removed from guitar and bass construction.

 

Deary me.

[neepheid]

1 minute ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Great point!

 

How about the owners of this forum donated the money used to run it to research in cancer instead.

 

After all could we all live with basically being responsible for people dying, just because we enjoy discussing bass?

 

Eff off and stop twisting my words.  You know damn well I am talking about the hypothetical scientific study being proposed in this discussion, not the discussion of basses in general.

 

Enjoy your troll food.  I hope your next s#ite is a hedgehog

[Chienmortbb]

8 hours ago, JoeEvans said:

It seemed to me that in the clean sound comparison in that video, the ash guitar was actually a bit brighter than the mahogany... But impossible to judge properly whether I can tell without a string of properly set up double-blind tests. Does anyone know if such tests have ever been done?

https://sites.google.com/site/leonardoguitarresearch/lgrp-network-newsletter/lgr-network-luthiers

 

This is a group of luthiers that each produced two identical acoustic guitars. In blind tests, neither luthiers nor classical guitarists could tell the difference between exotic woods and native European woods.

[Baloney Balderdash]

1 minute ago, neepheid said:

 

Eff off and stop twisting my words.  You know damn well I am talking about the hypothetical scientific study being proposed in this discussion, not the discussion of basses in general.

 

Enjoy your troll food.  I hope your next s#ite is a hedgehog

As far as I am concerned you are the troll here, and your reply was exactly as far out as my response to it.

 

And you know it!

[wateroftyne]

 

"Here man... settle doon, will yiz?"

[Beedster]

24 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Yes, but would it not be better to expend that kind of brainpower to cure cancer or something like that?  This kind of minutiae is frivolous at best and at worst a reason for a faction of the bass playing community to lord it over the other about how wrong they are.

 

I think I'd rather have to not worry about cancer, MND, Parkinson's or dementia/Alzheimer's than have all the mystery removed from guitar and bass construction.

 

I think that was the conclusion this thread had arrived at unless I'm missing something?  

[neepheid]

2 minutes ago, Beedster said:

 

I think that was the conclusion this thread had arrived at unless I'm missing something?  

 

I dipped in and out of the thread, apologies if I'm repeating something someone's already mentioned.

[Beedster]

12 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

https://sites.google.com/site/leonardoguitarresearch/lgrp-network-newsletter/lgr-network-luthiers

 

This is a group of luthiers that each produced two identical acoustic guitars. In blind tests, neither luthiers nor classical guitarists could tell the difference between exotic woods and native European woods.

 

This exemplifies the non-science around all of this. First it's one study. Second has it been published? Third there's clear bias in the organisation's aims - committed to the use of non tropical woods. Fourth the study is destined to find the effect in question (check out the audience). And n=2! It's PR not science. There was a similar PR piece years ago from an organisation called the European Hydration Agency or similar, who pushed out numerous dataset on a regular basis about the need for people to carry bottle of water everywhere to avoid everything from mental illness to road rage. Oh, they also waned against the perils of tap water, so it was about commercially bought water.

 

You'll never guess who the organisation was funded by...........? 

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

I dipped in and out of the thread, apologies if I'm repeating something someone's already mentioned.

 

As has been said before.....