How can two versions of the same bass be *that* different?

[TheLowDown]

30 minutes ago, 4000 said:

Nothing to do with setup. I set up all my basses as near identically as I can and have tried swapping bridges and electronics. The basic characteristics remain. 

I doubt it. Even if it seems like they're set up "the same", sometimes even minute differences can have a huge effect.

Edited January 24, 2021 by TheLowDown

[AndyTravis]

I know roughly what an ash/maple jazz and precision will sound like, I can approximate most combinations in my head - everything else is nuance (pickups/pre) etc.

Also, I’ve had about 6/7 basses with graphite necks and they all had a commonality...again, body wood and pickups etc will put a different spin on it.

But as @Beedster stated, a good neck mated to a good body is just that - unless it’s made on spec at massive cost, mass manufacturers won’t match bodies to necks specifically.

Im falling into the wormhole - I’ve been here before and I’m sure it’s a daily occurrence on forums around the world.

Body and Neck wood choices and the affect the do or do not have on the sound of an electric bass or guitar.

The variations come down to inconsistency of wood and how well they match bodies to necks etc. And what works for me might not work for 3 or 4 other players.

An interesting experiment was when I played 3 p/j’s and sent the recordings to a few basschatters, between a £2500 sadowsky, a £2000 status and a £400 Yamaha - there was very little in it and it was difficult to pick between the 3.

”it all sounds like you...” - can’t remember if that was @LukeFRC or @bassfan

I will now sell all of my basses 😯

 

[4000]

1 hour ago, TheLowDown said:

I doubt it. Even if it seems like they're set up "the same", sometimes even minute differences can have a huge effect.

Of course they can. But that really is nothing to do with it. I’ve done it across multiple instruments. If you don’t think different instruments can sound different, then you’ve either got a closed mind or closed ears. 🙄

Edited January 24, 2021 by 4000

[Chiliwailer]

1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

The @Chiliwailer purple one that I now own is nothing like the blue one I had, mainly down to the different pick-up's and bridges they were equipped with, so not that surprising i guess?

Yeah I found the pup and pre’s make a big difference on the Flea’s.

I was lucky enough to compare the purple one to 4 other FB4’s with the same pup, pre and bridge. The purple was always my favourite, it just had a touch more punch, but 3 were amazing too, and 1 was just average. 

[Killed_by_Death]

 

A couple of years ago I was discussing how the local Fender dealer ceased being a G&L dealer.

I can't recall if the shop-owner gave me a reason, but he did say that when they got their first L-2000 he was loving it & decided he was going to keep the next one for himself.

When the next one arrived it wasn't as 'lively' as the first one.

I tried two L-2000 side-by-side at Guitar Center & one was definitely more alive than the other. I even brought home the one with the Ash body:

I've owned two SR300E Ibanez basses, one had the black hardware & just sounded OK. The other had a really stiff neck & sounded so good I think in a blind test I couldn't have identified it apart from my SR1800E with Nordstrands.

 

[itu]

If a bass is similar like her sisters, the luthier has found some kind of a "holy grail". Carbon fibre, yes and no, I still think they are different. Different than wood but also different against each other. I like the ideas of Patrice Vigier and Rob Green, but even though they use a lot of CF, I still hear subtleties between instruments. Sometimes even feels are tangible, although hard to describe.

An ideal instrument could also be very dull. I am sure there is no single instrument that could serve everyone. And I am happy with that.

[such]

About a decade ago I decided the perfect bass for me would be a Marcus Miller sig Fender Jazz. My friend had one and I really liked it, he wouldn't sell though. I bought two on here, and borrowed my friend's one. I put the same strings on all three and set them up to my specs. They were so different it's not even funny. My friend's sunburst was the heaviest and had the thickest neck, was also the darkest sounding. The natural that I kept was lightest and most airy and open sounding. The other natural was somewhat generic compared to those two. Still very good though and I would have been super happy to keep it if it wasn't for the comparison. 

[Ed_S]

Had this with my Ibanez SR655 - there were two ‘identical’ basses with serials not too far apart at the shop, just arrived with the tape unbroken. Unless they were both terrible, one was going on the wall and one was going home with me and the guys were happy to get both out and let me compare.

One was lighter, had nicer grain patterns, better fretwork, tighter fit and finish and just sounded lively played unplugged. The other was fine - a QC pass and perfectly playable - just not feeling special after handling the other. I bought the nicer one for full whack, and then a week or two later they had a sale and took an absolute wedge off the one they still had. Ordinarily I’d have been annoyed, but in that particular case I can genuinely say I still felt like I’d got the better deal.

[Beedster]

10 hours ago, itu said:

If a bass is similar like her sisters, the luthier has found some kind of a "holy grail". Carbon fibre, yes and no, I still think they are different. Different than wood but also different against each other. I like the ideas of Patrice Vigier and Rob Green, but even though they use a lot of CF, I still hear subtleties between instruments. Sometimes even feels are tangible, although hard to describe.

An ideal instrument could also be very dull. I am sure there is no single instrument that could serve everyone. And I am happy with that.

Two graphite/carbon necks that come off the production line one after the other, that have been built using the same material, the same process and with the same quality control, will have similar if not identical characteristics in every respect (playability, acoustics, stability). This is rarely if ever true of two wooden necks, even if the blanks were cut from the very same tree. Carbon necks built by different manufacturers, or by the same manufacturer using two different materials/processes can of course have different characteristics, but that's not what the OP was referring to   

[Beedster]

13 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

I know roughly what an ash/maple jazz and precision will sound like, I can approximate most combinations in my head - everything else is nuance (pickups/pre) etc.

Also, I’ve had about 6/7 basses with graphite necks and they all had a commonality...again, body wood and pickups etc will put a different spin on it.

But as @Beedster stated, a good neck mated to a good body is just that - unless it’s made on spec at massive cost, mass manufacturers won’t match bodies to necks specifically.

Im falling into the wormhole - I’ve been here before and I’m sure it’s a daily occurrence on forums around the world.

Body and Neck wood choices and the affect the do or do not have on the sound of an electric bass or guitar.

The variations come down to inconsistency of wood and how well they match bodies to necks etc. And what works for me might not work for 3 or 4 other players.

An interesting experiment was when I played 3 p/j’s and sent the recordings to a few basschatters, between a £2500 sadowsky, a £2000 status and a £400 Yamaha - there was very little in it and it was difficult to pick between the 3.

”it all sounds like you...” - can’t remember if that was @LukeFRC or @bassfan

I will now sell all of my basses 😯

 

That's about the truth of it

[itu]

23 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Two graphite/carbon necks that come off the production line one after the other, that have been built using the same material, the same process and with the same quality control, will have similar if not identical characteristics in every respect (playability, acoustics, stability)...

...although we know that some CF necks have been defect. Modulus has had issues just like Steinberger and Moses. Delamination, warped necks... A stable and normalized production line is the ultimate everybody tries to reach - within reasonable effort.

[Beedster]

27 minutes ago, itu said:

...although we know that some CF necks have been defect. Modulus has had issues just like Steinberger and Moses. Delamination, warped necks... A stable and normalized production line is the ultimate everybody tries to reach - within reasonable effort.

Early days with Modulus yes, but it was new technology then, and the rare exception now demonstrates that even the best technology is fallible. Moses have always been lower quality than Modulus

[Munurmunuh]

14 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

An interesting experiment was when I played 3 p/j’s and sent the recordings to a few basschatters, between a £2500 sadowsky, a £2000 status and a £400 Yamaha - there was very little in it and it was difficult to pick between the 3.

”it all sounds like you...”

On the website of one of the string manufacturers is a set of 0'15" long soundclips of all their different strings, demoed by Steve Araujo. I listened through and thought, "they all sound like Steve Araujo.... just as every pickup on every G&L sounds like Steve Araujo...." ...and then the penny dropped.

[Beedster]

31 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

On the website of one of the string manufacturers is a set of 0'15" long soundclips of all their different strings, demoed by Steve Araujo. I listened through and thought, "they all sound like Steve Araujo.... just as every pickup on every G&L sounds like Steve Araujo...." ...and then the penny dropped.

Yep, it’s the same principle that ensures that no matter how high quality is the gear I use, it still sounds like me playing it  

[Rich]

I love the range of adjectives we use to describe the sound of our basses. So far on this thread, we've had:

aggressive, airy, alive, articulate, balls, bark, bright, brittle, clean, crystalline, dynamic, dark, edge, full ranged, grit, growl, generic, honk, indifferent, lively, nasal, nasty, open, punchy, resonant, singing, smooth, snappy, thick, thin, tight, twangy, unrefined, upper-middy, warm, and woody. 

And yes, I even sorted them into alphabetical order. Actually yes, it IS a slow work day at the moment, how did you know?

[Dood]

I have two Fender Power Jazz Bass Specials made two years apart. Same electronics on both. The only visual  difference is the shape of the bridge.

I had two Tobias 6 string basses, completely stock.

My two Shukers are made by the same person using the same wood types and same electronics. One is a 7 string the other a headless 6.

You would have to have cloth ears to not be able to tell that in each case they sound different to each other.

I’ve even had pairs of review basses that acoustically sound different to each other even before they are plugged in. (Dingwall Combustion 5 and Dingwall NG 5 string springs to mind)

 

[bloke_zero]

7 minutes ago, Rich said:

aggressive, airy, alive, articulate, balls, bark, bright, brittle, clean, crystalline, dynamic, dark, edge, full ranged, grit, growl, generic, honk, indifferent, lively, nasal, nasty, open, punchy, resonant, singing, smooth, snappy, thick, thin, tight, twangy, unrefined, upper-middy, warm, and woody. 

You missed 'vomit', but I can see why!

I have a couple of basses and they all sound different but good except a bitsa MM with a great roasted maple USACG neck with stiffeners that should, on paper, sound great: Alder Warmoth body, East preamp, Nordstrand pickup. Looks great, plays well, but everytime I play I it I come away dissapointed with the sound (honky and inarticulate) - in some ways it sounds worse than the Peavey Forum bass I'm currently failing to sell at the price of the Nordy pickup on it's own! I'm having to admit that the parts just aren't gelling!

[BigRedX]

There are just so many variables even in the construction of mass produced factory instruments, that is no wonder that two supposedly "identical" basses can sound very different. This is why I always maintain that worrying about the wood a solid electric instrument is made of is a waste of time for anything other than aesthetic reasons.

Once you switch to man-made materials the consistency will increase, but even carbon fibre sheets can be laid up in the mould in a different way with potentially differing sonic outcomes.

Having said that my two Gus 5-string basses apart from the fingerboard woods (cocobolo vs ebony) and the electronics (single coils with pre-amp vs humbuckers with passive controls) are the same. Switch off the pre-amp on one and activate the coil tap on the other, and they are inter-changeable from a sonic PoV.

[NancyJohnson]

Basses aside, I recall an interview with Ace Frehley where he mentioned that during the Gibson endorsement period, Gibson would send dozens of production line Les Pauls to him (no Custom Shop back then) and he'd play all of them, keep the best, return the rest.

Irrespective of what people think of him, I think it just shows the range of disparity in stock instruments and QC.

[Mykesbass]

17 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Irrespective of what people think of him, I think it just shows the range of disparity in stock instruments and QC.

I don't think this is a QC issue. Some just feel nicer by a quirk of nature. The three cheap Yammy basses I used as my example had no faults. And chances are, although two of us agreed, others would have preferred a different one, or not noticed any difference.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Briefly last year I owned three epiphone thunderbird vintage pros; a white one and two in sunburst. With the same strings and setup I honestly wouldn't have been able to tell them apart without looking at the colour/woodgrain. When I decided to sell one of the sunbursts, which one of the pair to keep was an arbitary decision as they were so similar.

[Lfalex v1.1]

Irrespective of people's opinion on whether or not "identical" instruments might be better/ sound different to each other, this much seems clear;

If possible, try out the bass before you buy.

If there's 2 or more the same,  try them all. 

If you can, take your own favourite bass to compare/ contrast. Just to make sure it's not just the "Emperor's new clothes syndrome" making you want a new toy- unless the new one fulfils some other criteria that your existing instruments don't (more strings, headless, multi-scale etc.)

 

[baa]

I have six almost identical basses. (long story 😀)

Only different colors and built 79/80/81/82.

 

There is a tangiable difference between them.

It doesn't take much to alter the sound. A twist on the pickup screws or a tad higher on the bridge.

Now two are BEAD, and one has flats.

The rest have D'Addario XL170.

[LukeFRC]

2 hours ago, baa said:

I have six almost identical basses. (long story 😀)

Only different colors and built 79/80/81/82.

 

There is a tangiable difference between them.

It doesn't take much to alter the sound. A twist on the pickup screws or a tad higher on the bridge.

Now two are BEAD, and one has flats.

The rest have D'Addario XL170.

I should recognise them shouldn’t I?

[LukeFRC]

8 hours ago, Beedster said:

Yep, it’s the same principle that ensures that no matter how high quality is the gear I use, it still sounds like me playing it  

I was about to say the same thing. 
I had a fretless for a while, and I don’t think fretless is a thing in the music I listen too, so possibly I should have started with my technique - but I realised I was having to focus really hard to play and sound exactly like I normally do (but slightly out of tune) 

ive given my basses to other people To play and they sound incredible.

probably shows the weak link in my gear!