ASH/Maple VS ALDER/Rosewood - FENDER JAZZ BASS

[Bart Funk Bass]

Finally, I compared both of my Jazz Basses.

Which one do you like more?

 

[TrevorG]

Wow! They were too close for comfort. I have Ash with maple on my Ultra. I think Ash ad Rose wood gives depth and Maple and Alder give give brightness so I'm not surprised they're so similar. Think the Alder sounds a bit tighter but not much!

[kodiakblair]

Would have been better with the basses playing to a blank screen.

 

That way there'd be no chance of confirmation bias creeping in.

[Bart Funk Bass]

45 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

Would have been better with the basses playing to a blank screen.

 

That way there'd be no chance of confirmation bias creeping in.

 

Good idea! 😎

[Aidan63]

Are the settings on the basses and the amp the same or did you tweak the settings slightly to get 'your' sound ?

[Burns-bass]

As with all these things I can never discern a difference. Personally, to me (and I’m sure I’ll sound like a heretic) a P bass sounds like a P and jazz a jazz, woods and necks don’t make much difference.

[Lozz196]

The 2003 rosewood Jazz doesn’t sound quite as bright to me, which is what I’ve found with my two Jazzes, both US Professional, same make of strings etc. 

[40hz]

I'll be stoned for this, but I can't hear any difference at all. If you hadn't put the graphic up and hadn't told us this was a comparison, I'd have assumed this was one bass playing the entire time.

[BigRedX]

A sample size of one of each. Scientifically meaningless.

[Pirellithecat]

How about 2 : 1?

I really can't tell any difference - they both just sound like my headphones!

And I'm a Rosewoodophile!   (sounds worse than it is .......) 

[Bassassin]

I might be cloth-eared & hearing-damaged from years of high-dB ear abuse, but with these comparisons and with my own basses I can never hear a difference that's not more likely to be attributable to pickups, electronics, pickup positioning or even hardware.

I love the look & feel of a lacquered maple fretboard so for me it's an aesthetic & tactile choice.

[Baloney Balderdash]

The differences are extremely minuscule, for sure there would be no possible way to tell the difference in a mix with those two basses. 

Though the maple neck one does sound ever so slightly brighter and more lively to me and the rosewood neck one ever so slightly darker and duller, but honestly that could just be the strings, and I actually kind of suspects it very likely might be just exactly that in this case. 

Also some playing styles, amps and eventual microphones and other gear used for recording do lend them self more to bring out the differences in different basses than others, and some styles of playing paired with some gear/recording gear would make more or less everything sound more or less the same, without any doubt, for instance I couldn't tell any tonal difference whatsoever in the slapping parts of your video.  

And of course the audio quality of the video, once it's been through the converter to YouTube format, doesn't make it any easier to tell tonal differences when they are so subtle as happens to be the case between the sound samples you recorded of those two basses.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Drax]

17 hours ago, Bart Funk Bass said:

Finally, I compared both of my Jazz Basses.

Which one do you like more? 

Red / rosewood, looks better. 

Well done anyone picking out the different woods without looking, wish I’d started wearing earplugs when you did.    

[Bassfinger]

Too close to call. The difference is so slight it could be down to something like the age of the strings. The ash has slightly less fret buzz.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Bassfinger

[Bart Funk Bass]

10 hours ago, Aidan63 said:

Are the settings on the basses and the amp the same or did you tweak the settings slightly to get 'your' sound ?

Both basses were recorded with the same Ernie Ball strings. Bass plugged straight to the Focusrite interface. No EQ, no COMP.

[Bassfinger]

Were both strung with strings from the same batch, fitted at the same time, and played roughly the same amount since?  Are they set up identically for nut height, string height, intonation?  Just too many variables to start attributing these slight differences to types of wood.

Two very nice bases, by the way.

[Bart Funk Bass]

This is the same one set of strings. Nut height, string height, intonation are very similar.

[dannybuoy]

75 RI sounds way better to me.

[Bart Funk Bass]

For me too. But alder is way lighter and easier to play.

[BigRedX]

9 hours ago, Bart Funk Bass said:

This is the same one set of strings. Nut height, string height, intonation are very similar.

Unfortunately for the test to have any validity similar isn't good enough. 

[Bart Funk Bass]

If you don't like my test, there are bunch of them on YouTube.

[Hugh971]

I agree there is very little difference between the two. I'd lean towards the MIJ as my preference but I reckon that's mostly in the pickups rather than the woods.

Wood wise I usually lean towards a maple neck but that's more of an aesthetic preference rather than anything to do with tone.

[Bart Funk Bass]

It's been always a debate that the maple neck is much brighter

[tomthebass]

On 06/08/2020 at 11:06, Bart Funk Bass said:

It's been always a debate that the maple neck is much brighter

For me maple fingerboard is snappy and crisp, rosewood is warmer but can be soggy... that's a consensus over at least 30 instruments 🙄

[40hz]

1 hour ago, tomthebass said:

For me maple fingerboard is snappy and crisp, rosewood is warmer but can be soggy... that's a consensus over at least 30 instruments 🙄

Soggy?