Fretboard Woods

[BigRedX]

15 hours ago, White Cloud said:

That's a reasonable question.

The best that I can offer in reply is this;

I owned a Lakland Skyline 4402 back in 2008 with a rosewood board which developed a crack in the neck. On contacting Lakland they actually offered to ship me a new neck however, I requested a maple board instead. No problem was the reply. They even paid for a luther of my choice to fit it and a new set of strings (Jimmy Moon in Glasgow). Exemplary service all round.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that the maple had a snap and brightness as opposed to the prior mellow response.

I know that this is by no way empirical evidence, but for me this experience was pretty conclusive.. 

Same bass all round with an identical replacement neck other than the board (although I accept no two necks are ever identical given the bespoke material that is wood).

But it is just as likely that:

1. The perception of brightness was purely psychological, brought on by the fact that the bass had new parts on it, after all you weren't able to hear the bass with both necks side by side.

2. Entirely down to the new strings fitted. As I said in a previous post, the brightest sounding of all my basses is the one that has had the strings changed the most recently

3. That the dullness of the previous neck was down to the fact that it was damaged. A new undamaged neck with a rosewood board would have been equally bright and snappy.

[chris_b]

15 hours ago, White Cloud said:

Anyway, the moral of the story is that the maple had a snap and brightness as opposed to the prior mellow response.

This is exactly the difference that the guys who make these instruments say exists between maple and rosewood. And the doubters still doubt. The Wyn video is a demonstration, Michael Tobias taps his body blanks and chooses the most resonant pieces. And the doubters still doubt.

The flat earth society lives.

[police squad]

I have to laugh at all this nonsense.

Some people can hear the difference and some people can't. I would love to be able to NOT hear the difference, it would make life easier.

Applying too much science to it is also a bit pointless.

Everyone should gig a Steinberger bass, just once. Once is all you need to know that, the material an electric instrument is made of, does indeed make a massive difference to the tone. Those of us that have had a Steinberger ( a proper one) will understand what I mean about the truest fundamental note.

me, personally, my number 1 P bass is alder, rosewood board. All my favourire sounding P basses have been this, except my first which had a maple board. I have a great band video, shot in 1988/89 using this maple board P bass. It sounds like a maple board and alder body P bass. Slightly glassier is the sound than the rosewood board bass.

I don't particularly like ash bodied P basses but I do have one with a fretless maple board.  It lacks the punch of alder. 

Now, an ash bodied telecaster (guitar) with a rosewood board really floats my boat, but a maple boarded one will cut your head of at 30 yards

Enjoy everyone and happy Friday

[BigRedX]

3 minutes ago, chris_b said:

This is exactly the difference that the guys who make these instruments say exists between maple and rosewood. And the doubters still doubt. The Wyn video is a demonstration, Michael Tobias taps his body blanks and chooses the most resonant pieces. And the doubters still doubt.

The flat earth society lives.

The Wyn video, as has been said, is a perfect example of the rubbish pseudo-science behind "tone woods" for solid electric instruments. As with all these "experiments" that "prove" the tone wood point, both the methodology and the sample size are scientifically meaningless. The blocks are all different sizes and weights. I could do exactly the same "experiment" and produce completely different results simply by choosing my blocks to give the results I wanted. It needs to be done with multiple examples of each block of wood from each tree species, firstly with them all exactly the same size and then again with them all exactly the same weight. Then there needs to be a good consistency of sound between the blocks of the same species and definite difference between these and all of the blocks of different species.

The Michael Tobias example is far more valid. At least he's not blindly (deafly?) choosing his woods on the basis of species alone. It would be interesting to see how the resonance of the body blanks transfers to the tone of the finished bass and if there is any correlation between the "sound" of the blank and the sound of the bass it is made from. It would also be useful for him to make some basses from the blanks that he would normally discard after the tap test and see if they really don't produce a decent sounding bass.

[Nicko]

I prefer the look of rosewood boards, but both my precisions have maple boards because when I tried them in the shop they felt better to play.  Tonally I'm sure it makes a difference but I'm not sure why, and my cloth ears probably wouldn't be able to tell playing the kind of music I like.  FWIW my basses are basswood and maple and alder and maple,  The basswood sounds better to me although I'd be hard pushed to describe the difference and I doubt its due to the wood rather than the other components.  The one I prefer is a chinese Squier, the other is a US Fender which cost a whole lot more.

[Cuzzie]

12 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

The Wyn video, as has been said, is a perfect example of the rubbish pseudo-science behind "tone woods" for solid electric instruments. As with all these "experiments" that "prove" the tone wood point, both the methodology and the sample size are scientifically meaningless. The blocks are all different sizes and weights. I could do exactly the same "experiment" and produce completely different results simply by choosing my blocks to give the results I wanted. It needs to be done with multiple examples of each block of wood from each tree species, firstly with them all exactly the same size and then again with them all exactly the same weight. Then there needs to be a good consistency of sound between the blocks of the same species and definite difference between these and all of the blocks of different species.

The Michael Tobias example is far more valid. At least he's not blindly (deafly?) choosing his woods on the basis of species alone. It would be interesting to see how the resonance of the body blanks transfers to the tone of the finished bass and if there is any correlation between the "sound" of the blank and the sound of the bass it is made from. It would also be useful for him to make some basses from the blanks that he would normally discard after the tap test and see if they really don't produce a decent sounding bass.

How would you design the experiment, and what sample size would be required to make it statistically significant?

[BigRedX]

3 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

How would you design the experiment, and what sample size would be required to make it statistically significant?

That's a tricky one. You'd need to devise a method of dropping each block from exactly the same height onto the same surface. I also suspect that the surface they are being dropped onto would have to be chosen so that the act of dropping the wooden blocks onto it doesn't change the surface by damaging it. For me a minimum sample size would be 50. Ideally several hundred.

[Cuzzie]

5 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

That's a tricky one. You'd need to devise a method of dropping each block from exactly the same height onto the same surface. I also suspect that the surface they are being dropped onto would have to be chosen so that the act of dropping the wooden blocks onto it doesn't change the surface by damaging it. For me a minimum sample size would be 50. Ideally several hundred.

It is probably easily do-able - most wood blocks either glued together or 1 piece for a body are between 42-50mm thick and there is always wastage.

There will be something for fretboard labels as well so a custom size could be reached 

[ped]

22 hours ago, BigRedX said:

The brightest sounding of all my basses is the one with the newest strings on it.

I think it's a different sort of 'bright' - more of a toppy 'glassy' attack from maple than the 'zing' a new string makes. You can even hear it with flats, perhaps more so. One of the reasons I like maple board P basses is because it helps give those octave pops a bit more snap.

[police squad]

29 minutes ago, ped said:

I think it's a different sort of 'bright' - more of a toppy 'glassy' attack from maple than the 'zing' a new string makes. You can even hear it with flats, perhaps more so. One of the reasons I like maple board P basses is because it helps give those octave pops a bit more snap.

right on Ped

[White Cloud]

5 hours ago, BigRedX said:

But it is just as likely that:

1. The perception of brightness was purely psychological, brought on by the fact that the bass had new parts on it, after all you weren't able to hear the bass with both necks side by side.

2. Entirely down to the new strings fitted. As I said in a previous post, the brightest sounding of all my basses is the one that has had the strings changed the most recently

3. That the dullness of the previous neck was down to the fact that it was damaged. A new undamaged neck with a rosewood board would have been equally bright and snappy.

I hear you.

Good points well presented, nonetheless;

1: I honestly don't think I was psychologically prejudicial in the sense of some unconscious bias at all.

2: The fundamental response was dramatically altered, inclusive of when the new strings had been played a lot and become dull (inevitably).

3: I've honestly never owned a rosewood fingerboard bass (by far and away my preference btw) with a particularly bright or snappy resonant response... especially unplugged!

My own subjective experiential perception of having played bass for 40 years (and owning almost everything at least once) is that the key to the tonal fundamental is in the neck/fingerboard construction. 

That said, I'm an 'artiste' and not a 'scientiste' 😝

Edited July 31, 2020 by White Cloud

[Bassfinger]

23 hours ago, chris_b said:

This is exactly the difference that the guys who make these instruments say exists between maple and rosewood. And the doubters still doubt. The Wyn video is a demonstration, Michael Tobias taps his body blanks and chooses the most resonant pieces. And the doubters still doubt.

The flat earth society lives.

The pickups arent listening to to resonance of the wood - they're listening to the vibration of the strings, and that is a function of the rigidity of the structure.

The doubters still doubt because the guys who make these instruments  have yet to actually prove it scientifically.  Where are the before and after audio analyses or oscilloscope traces to back up what they are saying?  I'm not saying that they're not right - they may well be...or not - but they're going to have to actually employ a wee bit of science to prove their claims.  We've had 7 decades since the P bass appeared and no one has done this, which kind of makes me understand where the doubters are coming from. Tapping blanks of wood is laughably meaningless ins scientific terms.

You want to silence the doubters? Then show them the teensiest shred of actual scientific evidence.  A before and after audio spectrum analysis using a machine to pluck the strings identically in both cases.  Until that's done people can tap all the blanks they want.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Bassfinger

[Cuzzie]

FingerboardAndTheSoundOfTheElectricGuitar_PateLeCarrouFabre.pdf

[Cuzzie]

And if any naysayers care about thermo treatment of tonewoods and what it achieves, and also for the believers and interested 

Thermally-Aged-Tonewood-2020.pdf

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, Cuzzie said:

FingerboardAndTheSoundOfTheElectricGuitar_PateLeCarrouFabre.pdf 1.7 MB · 5 downloads

I'm going to have a proper read of this and other PDF you've uploaded over the next few days (although the maths may be beyond my 'A' level from 40 years ago), but just from a quick skim read there are all sorts of problems with the methodology from a scientific PoV, some of which are acknowledged in the study and others which are conveniently overlooked.

My biggest problem is the sample size. Two. One of each type of guitar. From a scientific PoV this is statistically meaningless. For there to be any point to "tone wood" for a solid electric instrument, not only do you have to prove that fretboards made of different species of wood sound always significantly different, but also that fretboards made of the same species of wood sound consistently very similar. 

Everyone knows that it is possible to find two supposedly similar instruments that sound noticeably different. That's an experiment anyone with access to a decent sized music shop can do on a spare half day playing through their stock of Telecasters/Stratocasters/Les Pauls/P-Bases/J-Basses.

The other questions I had at this stage are: where was this article originally published? Has it been peer-reviewed and if so what were the findings? There doesn't seem to be any information on either attached to the article which IMO devalues the worth of the findings. Proper scientific studies always need to be independently verified for them to have any validity.

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, Bassfinger said:

The pickups arent listening to to resonance of the wood - they're listening to the vibration of the strings, and that is a function of the rigidity of the structure.

It's worth remembering that pickups are not microphones (with the possible exception of those which have become microphonic with age - perhaps that explains the claimed 'airy' sound of those ancient Strats and similar). This applies especially to modern pickups, which are usually potted/sealed and are pretty well immune to vibration as a result. If you tap your finger on the pickup of an old P bass or similar, you will often hear a pop through the speaker. If you do the same to something like a Bartolini or an EMG, you won't hear one (or if you do, it will be tiny).

Pickups don't "listen" in the way that a microphone or our ears do (which is by sensing physical vibrations/movement of the air). They detect the movement of the strings within a magnetic field (cast by the magnets of the pickup) and convert that into a minute electrical signal. It's similar to the way a stylus on an analogue record player works. The grooves on the record cause the stylus, which is attached to a thin rod of aluminium, boron, etc to move. The other end of the rod is attached to either a small magnet which moves within the field created by a miniature coil (moving magnet cartridges) or a small coil which moves within the field created by miniature magnets (moving coil cartridges). Again, this creates a minute electrical signal.

It's logical that everything in the construction of an instrument, including materials used, will affect the way in which a string will vibrate. However, the contribution of the material, assuming it is of similar density/rigidity, is really not worth worrying about. Construction - through neck or bolted, etc - and especially the integrity of the construction is the thing that really has an effect, together with electronics - pickup, preamp, etc.

Obviously, an instrument made of balsa (if it could be done in a way that wouldn't cause it to collapse under the tension of the strings) will not have the same structural integrity as one made of hardwoods. However, the difference between hardwoods of similar rigidity/density is so small as to be insignificant.

[Cuzzie]

2 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I'm going to have a proper read of this and other PDF you've uploaded over the next few days (although the maths may be beyond my 'A' level from 40 years ago), but just from a quick skim read there are all sorts of problems with the methodology from a scientific PoV, some of which are acknowledged in the study and others which are conveniently overlooked.

My biggest problem is the sample size. Two. One of each type of guitar. From a scientific PoV this is statistically meaningless. For there to be any point to "tone wood" for a solid electric instrument, not only do you have to prove that fretboards made of different species of wood sound always significantly different, but also that fretboards made of the same species of wood sound consistently very similar. 

Everyone knows that it is possible to find two supposedly similar instruments that sound noticeably different. That's an experiment anyone with access to a decent sized music shop can do on a spare half day playing through their stock of Telecasters/Stratocasters/Les Pauls/P-Bases/J-Basses.

The other questions I had at this stage are: where was this article originally published? Has it been peer-reviewed and if so what were the findings? There doesn't seem to be any information on either attached to the article which IMO devalues the worth of the findings. Proper scientific studies always need to be independently verified for them to have any validity.

Thanks for taking the time to have a gander - I am by no means staying this is the gold standard, cast iron best research out there, but it was more to illustrate the point made before that there will be research out there, I take on board the sample size debate.

The quality of the journals, impact rating etc. If I did a massive deep dive I could potentially weed things out, but from a scientific background and the potential integrity of researchers, addressing short comings as opposed to glossing over Them is a good thing.

There is some work out of the University of Lancaster Looking at backs of acoustic guitars, in particular Brazilian Rosewood as that is endangered and I suppose whether we need to use it and what difference there is.

The thermal treatment paper is looking at work out of Finland and also there is work in Germany, but that may not have English translation, but it doesn’t mean it’s not good.
 

If all studies no matter what the quality and sample size point to some difference in the woods, then as a trend that is surely the case? As a general point of course.

I suppose the point is, there will be scientific work out there, it depends entirely on how fervently you disagree and want to solidify your point there is no difference. This will lead to a search for evidence to evaluate.

But there are questions here which should not be mixed up.

Is there a difference? 

Is it perceivable?

How can the differences be used to our advantage?

Does it make a difference and in what setting?

If any of those bring a yes - then there is a difference, being pedantic or not, there just is, and it can be applied in or across species 

[Cuzzie]

5 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

It's worth remembering that pickups are not microphones (with the possible exception of those which have become microphonic with age - perhaps that explains the claimed 'airy' sound of those ancient Strats and similar). This applies especially to modern pickups, which are usually potted/sealed and are pretty well immune to vibration as a result. If you tap your finger on the pickup of an old P bass or similar, you will often hear a pop through the speaker. If you do the same to something like a Bartolini or an EMG, you won't hear one (or if you do, it will be tiny).

Pickups don't "listen" in the way that a microphone or our ears do (which is by sensing physical vibrations/movement of the air). They detect the movement of the strings within a magnetic field (cast by the magnets of the pickup) and convert that into a minute electrical signal. It's similar to the way a stylus on an analogue record player works. The grooves on the record cause the stylus, which is attached to a thin rod of aluminium, boron, etc to move. The other end of the rod is attached to either a small magnet which moves within the field created by a miniature coil (moving magnet cartridges) or a small coil which moves within the field created by miniature magnets (moving coil cartridges). Again, this creates a minute electrical signal.

It's logical that everything in the construction of an instrument, including materials used, will affect the way in which a string will vibrate. However, the contribution of the material, assuming it is of similar density/rigidity, is really not worth worrying about. Construction - through neck or bolted, etc - and especially the integrity of the construction is the thing that really has an effect, together with electronics - pickup, preamp, etc.

Obviously, an instrument made of balsa (if it could be done in a way that wouldn't cause it to collapse under the tension of the strings) will not have the same structural integrity as one made of hardwoods. However, the difference between hardwoods of similar rigidity/density is so small as to be insignificant.

I don’t disagree with comments here, but technically Balsa is a hardwood.......

[Dan Dare]

Just now, Cuzzie said:

I don’t disagree with comments here, but technically Balsa is a hardwood.......

I stand corrected. Didn't realise that.

[BigRedX]

19 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

If all studies no matter what the quality and sample size point to some difference in the woods, then as a trend that is surely the case? As a general point of course.

I suppose the point is, there will be scientific work out there, it depends entirely on how fervently you disagree and want to solidify your point there is no difference. This will lead to a search for evidence to evaluate.

But there are questions here which should not be mixed up.

Is there a difference? 

Is it perceivable?

How can the differences be used to our advantage?

Does it make a difference and in what setting?

If any of those bring a yes - then there is a difference, being pedantic or not, there just is, and it can be applied in or across species 

As I hope I've made clear previously, my problem with "tone wood" for solid electric instruments, is not that different pieces of wood sound different (I'm sure we can all agree that they do, whether or not we agree that their contribution to the overall sound of an electric instrument is fairly negligible), but that a particular tonal characteristic can be universally applied to a particular species of wood and that it is consistently different to other species of wood, and therefore that there is a definite benefit in choosing a wood for its "sound" over it's appearance.

Edited August 1, 2020 by BigRedX

[Cuzzie]

10 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

I stand corrected. Didn't realise that.

That’s ok - I didn’t for ages - it’s all about pores and cellular make up - it’s essentially why hardwoods are better than soft woods for instruments 

FYI

https://www.wood-database.com/wood-finder/

[Cuzzie]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

As I hope I've made clear previously, my problem with "tone wood" for solid electric instruments, is not that different pieces of wood sound different (I'm sure we can all agree that they do, whether or not we agree that their contribution to the overall sound of an electric instrument is fairly negligible), but that a particular tonal characteristic can be universally applied to a particular species of wood and that it is consistently different to other species of wood, and therefore that there is a definite benefit in choosing a wood for its "sound" over it's appearance.

Nope - I know and respect where you stand - I was doing a more broad brush talking points thing

[acidbass]

I'd like to see a comparison video where a bridge, pickups, frets, a nut, tuners and strings are mounted on a work bench and things like sustain and waveform are measured. These to me are the only variables which make a difference to my mind from a physics perspective (apart from the way it is played of course)

Edited August 1, 2020 by acidbass

[Bolo]

To say "fretboard material A always produces tonal characteristic Z significantly" regardless any other factors (neck material, thickness and construction; truss rod design and implementation; headstock; body wood; hardware; pickup location and configuration; electronics; etc. etc.) Is simply ludicrous. 

You're all entitled to your opinion of course, but don't try to sell it off as science.

Manufacturers sell products with variations to sell more products. Tapping a block of wood can tell you something about it's density and possible included cracks and faults but it's only one of the checks a piece gets before it's chosen (hydrometer for instance).

Also I might be mistaken to the meaning of the 'fundamental' which in audiology we mostly assume to be the lowest dominant frequency in the timbre. The one frequency that does not fit in the 'maple is brighter' theory as that mainly suggest that the higher frequency  overtones become more dominant in the timbre.

Classical orchestra string instruments almost exclusively seem to feature ebony fingerboards yet differ great in tone, something to keep in mind maybe when claiming one type of material always has the same sound.

Lastly, can we refrain from name-calling people with a different opinion? Flat earthers, trumpian fact-deniers or whatever it was. Even more so when your logic is flawed and your facts are cherry picked and incomplete.

[leftybassman392]

Around 10 years ago I started a thread on tonewoods that I expected to last a few hours (I was young, new to the forum, naive,...).

Last time I looked (around 6 or 7 years later), it was still going.

(The numbers above are off the top of my head and at some remove from the original topic, but you get the general idea.)

Just so you know...

 

 

FWIW, when you pluck a string on a bass (or indeed any other stringed instrument), everything on the instrument vibrates to varying degrees and in extremely complex interactive ways. The pressure wave (read as: sound) emanating from the string is the sum of these individuals parts. If the bass is amplified, the pressure wave from the cabinet further influences the vibration pattern of the string (and hence the character of the pressure wave emanating from the cabinet...). All these separate factors contribute to a greater or lesser extent to the pressure wave that hits your ears. Furthermore, moving the cabinet to a different location within a room alters the room reflection characteristics in various ways, all of which can impact on the vibration characteristics of the string. And so on...

These are scientifically verifiable facts. Anybody sufficiently short of something more interesting to do might care to do a bit of Googling on subjects such as:

Resonance

Sympathetic resonance

Harmonic series

Fourier series

Plenty more for the terminally curious, but this'll do for starters. (I've been a bit of a lazy tart and just linked to various Wiki articles, but I promise you there's lots more out there.)

 

What happens when said pressure wave hits your ears is another matter entirely. So much so that it actually becomes a different area of study:

Psychoacoustics

 

There is a lot of hoodoo around this subject, but the physics is there for anyone to see.

The extent to which an individual can:

 

a) hear the effect of substituting one or more components with alternatives;

b) give a toss even if they can

 

is down - at least in part - to said individual (as has been made abundantly clear on these here pages).

 

Just so I've said it...