A luthier's experience with tonewoods

[drTStingray]

8 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

My Dad didn't like to use oak for furniture, toys or even turning (for candlesticks...), as it 'moves'. Even when seasoned, and over long periods, once 'worked', it would twist or bow, as the cellular structure adapted itself to its new form. Difficult to get regular, stable results (a pair of candlesticks, with one slightly bent, was often the result. A set of banister rails would be nigh on impossible to produce...). I don't think oak would be good for instruments at all, regardless of its tonal qualities. Drums can be made from oak (especially snares...), but they're not from large slabs. Mostly ply's or blocks glued up.
On another aspect: there are many excellent archtop guitars with ply tables (my Hofner Comittee being one...). 'Tone' ply, obviously. 
Just sayin'.

@Dad3353 I sincerely hope you're wrong as I'm about to take delivery of a desk from........ you guessed it - Oak Furniture Warehouse 😳 

Well it looked nice in the picture! 

[Geek99]

14 hours ago, Muzz said:

Naaah, you'll never charge more for it if you call it Tone Plywood...how about 'The body wood is a mellow yet sharp, dark yet bright Tonoply'? Double the price and Bob's yer Uncle, craddock's yer Aunt and yer dog's from Tarporley...  😁

Edit: the Naughty Filter's completely ruined that saying, then...pfffft 😕

I think we should be calling plywood “matrix ash” - after all every other word in the English language has been used in front of “ash”.

[Killed_by_Death]

 

Plywoods are known as tone lattice worldwide, in every corner.

 

[drTStingray]

8 hours ago, WinterMute said:

So, I'm think of getting Alan at ACG to build me a 5 string fretless as I can't find a 20th Anni SR5 fretless for love nor money, this naturally led me into a bit of research about woods and construction and I've been reading a lot about this over the past week. It seems to me that a number of things are true:

Solid bodied instruments are less (or not at all) susceptible to variations in tone depending on what they're made of.

Rigidity is key and acoustic instrument make better use of the tonal variations in woods as they are intrinsically weaker and so less rigid, which seems to allow the wood to resonate with the chambering/hollow bodies. 

Most of the "tone" in an electric instrument comes from the pups, the pre-amp, the amp/effects and player.

Rigid is an excellent word.

All that said, my 20th Anni SR5 fretted doesn't sound like any other SR5 I've played, and this may be due to the use of a mahogany "tone block" that the pups and neck connect to, or it may just be the Alnico pup and the new pre EB put in the thing. Could also be magic, I don't know.

I've asked Alan a few questions, he seems to know what he's doing.

I have a mahogany bodied Musicman Sabre and it sounds subtly different from an ash bodied one to me. Bass tone does make a difference and people (non musicians) do notice it. 

Similarly a maple boarded standard Stingray (light oil and wax finish) sounds different from a rosewood board one (same neck finish, construction and body attachment - same body wood, pick up, hardware and EQ.

Im firmly in the camp of body and neck wood types make a difference - along with strings, player etc etc. Just my take on it. 

[Dad3353]

42 minutes ago, drTStingray said:

@Dad3353 I sincerely hope you're wrong as I'm about to take delivery of a desk from........ you guessed it - Oak Furniture Warehouse 😳 

Well it looked nice in the picture! 

Not the one with the supposedly-matching turned candlesticks, I hope..? 

...

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Dad3353

[drTStingray]

10 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

Not the one with the supposedly-matching turned candlesticks, I hope..? 

...

 

Afraid not!! I did wonder about the gothic Victorian church pew style chair with turned legs but stuck with something more modern haha!! 😂👍

[Shaggy]

Re oak as a “tonewood”,  a couple of pics of my custom electric mandolin which is made entirely from oak, including the neck (with a strengthening aluminium central spine instead of a truss truss).   Heavy, but then - it’s only a mandolin!   You’ll recognise the pickups, and brass knobs have been temporarily nicked to go one of my basses......

[SteveXFR]

Have you ever tried down tuning that mandolin, putting on a ton of gain and smashing out some heavy riffs? 

We tried it with an electric violin left in a practice room and to be honest, it sounded terrible. 

[Maude]

22 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

Have you ever tried down tuning that mandolin, putting on a ton of gain and smashing out some heavy riffs? 

We tried it with an electric violin left in a practice room and to be honest, it sounded terrible. 

Interesting. 😄

[Shaggy]

25 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

Have you ever tried down tuning that mandolin, putting on a ton of gain and smashing out some heavy riffs? 

We tried it with an electric violin left in a practice room and to be honest, it sounded terrible. 

No, but I did try it through the sub-octave thingy in my Ashdown bass amp to see if I could make it sound like a bass, and it sounded.......terrible 

However, it’s really really nice with a touch of chorus and/or reverb.

[Muzz]

14 hours ago, drTStingray said:

I have a mahogany bodied Musicman Sabre and it sounds subtly different from an ash bodied one to me. Bass tone does make a difference and people (non musicians) do notice it. 

So you're saying you have had non-musicians tell you they can tell the difference between body woods of a bass on a gig?

I've had an entire band not notice* I switched to a 12-string bass at a rehearsal before now... 😁

* OK, technically they did notice me put one bass down and pick another one up between songs, but when I asked them what they thought about the difference in sound, they all went 'What?'**

** OK, the really depressing bit: the geetar/singist said 'Look, it's just a bass'... 😕

Edited March 5, 2021 by Muzz

[WinterMute]

43 minutes ago, Muzz said:

So you're saying you have had non-musicians tell you they can tell the difference between body woods of a bass on a gig?

I've had an entire band not notice* I switched to a 12-string bass at a rehearsal before now... 😁

* OK, technically they did notice me put one bass down and pick another one up between songs, but when I asked them what they thought about the difference in sound, they all went 'What?'**

** OK, the really depressing bit: the geetar/singist said 'Look, it's just a bass'... 😕

There is much truth in this post.

[ezbass]

2 hours ago, Muzz said:

 

** OK, the really depressing bit: the geetar/singist said 'Look, it's just a bass'... 😕

Has he recovered from the imprint of 12 machineheads being smacked into his face?

I have a guitarist friend/acquaintance who revels in bassist ‘jokes’. Other than it just being a dïck move, he is actually not a funny bloke and his attempts at humour always seem to miss the mark. I even think I’m as good a guitarist as he is, as he only ever seems to churn out worn blues ditties and licks and I can do that.

[drTStingray]

2 hours ago, Muzz said:

So you're saying you have had non-musicians tell you they can tell the difference between body woods of a bass on a gig?

I've had an entire band not notice* I switched to a 12-string bass at a rehearsal before now... 😁

* OK, technically they did notice me put one bass down and pick another one up between songs, but when I asked them what they thought about the difference in sound, they all went 'What?'**

** OK, the really depressing bit: the geetar/singist said 'Look, it's just a bass'... 😕

You obviously can't have been playing loud enough!! (Or their hearing's impaired!) 

But no - I'm saying they notice bass tone and comment on it sometimes (it's happened with the mahogany Sabre several times). The orange Bongo is another that has generated very favourable comments, people asking me what make it is and how refreshing to see and hear a bass that isn't one of those boring brown things you can barely hear!! I couldn't possibly comment 😯

Regarding other musicians I've had similar experiences sometimes - an example was a drummer who, talking to me in the break was waxing lyrical about a fretless on an album - I said 'oh I'm playing one tonight' - he said 'I hadn't noticed'....... it's not surprising as he was playing as if he was building a shed and probably couldn't hear much of the rest of the band anyway!! So I said 'hmmm I'd better turn up in the second half so you can hear me and we can become a rythmn section'..... 😬

Conversely ive had the singer come up to me in a sax and guitar solo and say the bass sounds great 👍😊

Edited March 5, 2021 by drTStingray

[4000]

18 hours ago, drTStingray said:

I have a mahogany bodied Musicman Sabre and it sounds subtly different from an ash bodied one to me. Bass tone does make a difference and people (non musicians) do notice it. 

 

I believe that the particular pieces of wood in an instrument make a difference, and tend to feel that certain woods may indeed have certain characteristics, but the danger with the above is the sample size. I’ve had a couple of dozen Rickenbackers, all made of maple, and every single one has sounded different. So I don’t feel you can really safely say, based on a small sample of instruments, that the difference in sound is necessarily down to the species of wood. It may be, but I think it’s far too limited a test to make too much of it. 

[bertbass]

Has anyone mentioned tone 'glue' yet and the effect on sound of different glues?

[Geek99]

Wasn’t the glue found to be different in nature on a Stradivarius? 

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, bertbass said:

Has anyone mentioned tone 'glue' yet and the effect on sound of different glues?

Add to the fact that for a two-piece body made of equally sized pieces of wood, there are 8 different ways that those two pieces of wood can be glued together, which may or may not have a different outcome to the sound of the resulting instrument.

Edit to correct the number of ways the 2 pieces can be glued together from 6 to 8

Edited March 6, 2021 by BigRedX

[Doddy]

13 minutes ago, bertbass said:

Has anyone mentioned tone 'glue' yet and the effect on sound of different glues?

From talking to various luthiers, when a bass has a fancy top,the top wood is thin enough that it has very little effect on the tone but the glue actually adds a slight amount of natural compression over a bass without it.

[Beer of the Bass]

On 05/03/2021 at 11:55, Maude said:

Interesting. 😄

The double coursed strings on a mandolin sound horrible with more than a tiny amount of distortion. I had a solid body electric mandolin for a little while, and it was fun with modulation effects, but anything gainy didn't really work. I think this is why electric mandolins have also been made with four or five single strings.

[BigRedX]

8 minutes ago, Beer of the Bass said:

The double coursed strings on a mandolin sound horrible with more than a tiny amount of distortion. I had a solid body electric mandolin for a little while, and it was fun with modulation effects, but anything gainy didn't really work. I think this is why electric mandolins have also been made with four or five single strings.

It's the same with 12-string guitars. That's why the best ones have low-output single coil pick-ups.

[4000]

17 minutes ago, Beer of the Bass said:

The double coursed strings on a mandolin sound horrible with more than a tiny amount of distortion. I had a solid body electric mandolin for a little while, and it was fun with modulation effects, but anything gainy didn't really work. I think this is why electric mandolins have also been made with four or five single strings.

Our mandolin player occasionally uses distortion. It’s a bit of an acquired taste but it’s useable for some things. 

[tauzero]

On 05/03/2021 at 14:57, Muzz said:

So you're saying you have had non-musicians tell you they can tell the difference between body woods of a bass on a gig?

I've had an entire band not notice* I switched to a 12-string bass at a rehearsal before now... 😁

* OK, technically they did notice me put one bass down and pick another one up between songs, but when I asked them what they thought about the difference in sound, they all went 'What?'**

** OK, the really depressing bit: the geetar/singist said 'Look, it's just a bass'... 😕

It took over a year for the other members of one band to notice that I played a fretless.

[tauzero]

8 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Add to the fact that for a two-piece body made of equally sized pieces of wood, there are 8 different ways that those two pieces of wood can be glued together, which may or may not have a different outcome to the sound of the resulting instrument.

Edit to correct the number of ways the 2 pieces can be glued together from 6 to 8

Depends if you count all the different permutations of face to face, side by side, or end to end. Although the end to end one would be silly.

[Beer of the Bass]

13 minutes ago, tauzero said:

It took over a year for the other members of one band to notice that I played a fretless.

Years ago, the leader of the school big band didn't notice for months that I was playing fretless, but he did once or twice tell off the trombones when it was actually my intonation that was off, while I tried not to smirk...