The heretic thread approved by Roger Sadowsky or For those who pretend tone doesn't come from wood...

[TrevorR]

1 hour ago, Geek99 said:

But Does the tone come from entrenched positions, or is it the metal in the devices that show us the comments?

So, what’s the best entrenched position for metal, then? 😂

[DubDelay]

37 minutes ago, TrevorR said:

My thoughts as well. It seems to more of a semantic point than anything around a definition of the word “impart”.

Thinking through the potential physics at play I don’t necessarily buy the “the body wood can only subtract frequencies” premise either. The strings will transmit vibrations into the body at the nut and bridge. These will rattle and reflect around the body/neck materials in all sorts of random ways at different frequencies. Some will be, of course, absorbed and dampened (at different frequencies and different amounts) reducing the overall energy of the system. However, it’s just as plausible that at some frequencies interference patterns or even standing wave vibrations could be formed within the body increasing the amplitude of those frequencies at the expense of others. 
 

The vibrations in the body would then transmit back into the strings at two points (nut and bridge) creating more complex overtones in the string. However, again since these would enter the strings at both ends it seems plausible that interference patterns could be formed at certain points along the string, potentially enhancing some harmonics while dampening others. If positive nodes coincide with the sensing area of the pickups - given the short wavelengths of many of the harmonics of the fundamental that also seems likely - within the complex waveform of the vibrating string there are likely to be positive and negative nodes at different micro-frequencies with some, therefore enhanced and others diminished, without breaking the law of the conservation of energy.

But as others have said, a bass sounds good if a bass sounds good and it’s core tone is a sum of the various parts (including player and playing style). It’s not simply attributable to one single factor and the organic nature of wood and potential variation in physical properties within one species - or even one tree/plank/piece of wood - means the effects on sound aren’t reliably predictable purely on the basis of species name (the usual contention at the heart of most online tone wood debates).

This sounds right to me. Some bodies are very resonant and some necks are, they work together or not, and you can feel when that works and when it doesn’t. Those are the ones I end up keeping anyway. 

[Geek99]

1 hour ago, TrevorR said:

So, what’s the best entrenched position for metal, then? 😂

An old one, long-held and utterly immovable 

vintage, if you will.... 🍿

[Munurmunuh]

1 hour ago, TrevorR said:

So, what’s the best entrenched position for metal, then? 😂

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

29 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

An old one, long-held and utterly immovable 

vintage, if you will.... 🍿

I thought you were unfollowing this nonsense? 😂

[TrevorR]

Just now, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I thought you were unfollowing this nonsense? 😂

Hiram, and now you’ve just drawn @Geek99 back into the thread you naughty boy! And so have I, slaps own wrist! 😂

[binky_bass]

10 hours ago, Hellzero said:

That's why you have to try a bass or any instrument to know if it suits your tastes, whatever electronics it has or whatever wood is used even if the wood matters a lot as proven in the video

Almost every bass I own was bought without trying! In fact thinking about it, EVERY bass I own was bought without trying! I don't disagree that wood does impact the tone at some level with different woods affecting to a varying degree, to me this seems obviously as each wood is different and sound waves travel through different mediums at different rates as dictated by the laws of physics, whether or not most end users can hear this is another matter!

I don't think you need to try a bass to be able to be 80%+ sure you'll like it. If it has 'good parts' and decent construction it should be fine! 

[EBS_freak]

In reality, you could string up any old table top with a bridge, a set of tuners, some frets, a couple of single coils (spaced like a jazz) - and it would sound within shooting distance of any other jazz bass.

Would be a bit of a **** to play though.

[Hellzero]

Funny, but now we have clever comments, with of course the usual "the OP is a donkey" comment.

Looks like, at last, what I'm saying is read the correct way and not not immediately biased because there are the two mystical words tone and wood in the same sentence.

For those interested, I have a solid scientific background including physics, biology and chemistry and I've been analysing thousands of medical studies because of my job.

And worth reading this, until the end, about the other Toyota : https://phys.org/news/2017-02-concert-halls-japanese.html

Also, for those who can't stand it, the summarised comparison of the 4 basses is, as mentioned at the beginning of the video, at 16'55''. You can even stop before the last sequence where the slap avalanche starts. 😉

[EBS_freak]

Well that's a bit of a whataboutism.

An auditorium is dealing with sound waves.

The output from an electric bass is electrical.

[Mykesbass]

13 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

 

For those interested, I have a solid scientific background including physics, biology and chemistry and I've been analysing thousands of medical studies because of my job.

 

So why are you quoting a non-controlled, non-peer reviewed 'experiment'?

[Geek99]

59 minutes ago, TrevorR said:

Hiram, and now you’ve just drawn @Geek99 back into the thread you naughty boy! And so have I, slaps own wrist! 😂

Curse you and your resonant wood fantasies - I’ve been led astray. Again.

[Andermtc]

12 hours ago, TheLowDown said:

I don't think humans will ever be the best judge. Too subjective. If someone tells me that I'm playing a maple neck, I may hear a maple neck even though it's rosewood. What people hear will always be coloured by what they want to hear and expect to hear.

Let a computer be the judge.

Exactly this.

I'm an automotive engineer so design and test suspension parts for cars, the number of times we change parts for an evaluation and get told they make a big difference, when the change is minimum, just because someone knows something has changed.
A number of years ago I got a serious bollocking for putting a difficult director in a car, telling him it was standard spec, then telling him we changed the suspension bushes to the better performing more expensive parts that he didn't want to pay for, and then let him drive it again, we got a big long speech about how the 2nd car spec was much worse, I then said sorry I messed up, I got that the wrong way round, the standard parts were on the 2nd drive, it didn't go down very well with management, everyone else though it was hilarious.

[BigRedX]

I saw this thread last night when the post post was the OP, but I didn't have time to post a comment. This morning I hardly need to as most of what I thought has already been said.

So we have 4 basses that sound (slightly) different to each other. That's easy. Anybody can do that. It would be far more impressive if he could make 4 basses that sound exactly the same, and even more impressive if the luthier could predict exactly how each bass was going to sound before it was made.

Maybe the bass version of "Snackmasters" where two respected luthiers are tasked with making a bass that looks, feels and sounds EXACTLY the same as a particular example of a classic bass. Now that would be something I would watch.

[Killed_by_Death]

6 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

a chap who later copped to Asperger's

You seem to enjoy tearing folks down over a disability, you did it to me before.

The person with Asperger's was probably thinking logically & not with emotion.

 

6 hours ago, Geek99 said:

I don’t fit into your “most” criteria

Wait, you don't believe in the laws of Physics?

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

[binky_bass]

I find that when I choose not to believe in gravity I end up floating away... 

[Hellzero]

1 hour ago, Mykesbass said:

So why are you quoting a non-controlled, non-peer reviewed 'experiment'?

Because as I wrote, but as usual people comment without reading, the only variable in this experiment is the wood, but even with the evidences before their eyes or between their ears, people keep denying. Same old Galileo syndrome.

[Geek99]

Unfollowed 

[EBS_freak]

 

2 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

Unfollowed 

 

Yeah, I'm feeling that.

[Supernaut]

[BigRedX]

Unfortunately it's just a marketing slogan.

"The sound of active electronics" doesn't have quite same ring to it

[Killed_by_Death]

Re: Conservation of Energy

Is there really though?

I mean, it's losing energy immediately after being plucked.

How can we discern a standing wave that increases amplitude of frequency X from just the attenuation of adjacent frequency Y?

Edited April 16, 2021 by Killed_by_Death

[EssentialTension]

Well, that's twenty minutes wasted.

Basses that looked different but sounded much the same - a bad noise.

[Hellzero]

I discovered today that the earth is almost flat, but I'm not sure if the it's the center of the universe. Wood some body tale E ?