Wood age

[bloke_zero]

Before we start, if you don't believe that wood has any effect on the sound of a bass then please look away now, as the following question will upset you.

 

What role do we think age playes in wood tone?

 

I ask because I want to buy a new body. But the two basses I like the sound of most (that I have access to) are mid 70's fender p-basses.

 

As a test I can pick up one of those Fenders, put my ear on the upper horn (suggested by someone on here, but I can't find the post) and hear the unamplified tone of the bass. The tone that I hear there is substantially what I hear, and like at the amplified output. Conversely, there is an 80's Jazz that has a pretty meh tone amplified, and placing your ear on the horn as above - yeah, it sounds pretty weak!

 

So it feels to me like the two factors I'm zoning in on are:

1. The dominant tone of the body wood

2. It's age

 

(This is not to down play all the other factors, neck, pickup, eq, preamp etc, I'm just interested in the body right now!)

 

I'm thinking of attempts like roasting wood for bodies and necks, but specifically Sandberg doing that weird vibration treatment thing - they seem like attempts to replicate the natural ageing process? After all there is nothing magic about those P-basses, I've built modern versions to the same spec which sound completely different, the only thing is they are 40 odd years old!

[Crusoe]

10 minutes ago, bloke_zero said:

As a test I can pick up one of those Fenders, put my ear on the upper horn (suggested by someone on here, but I can't find the post) and hear the unamplified tone of the bass. The tone that I hear there is substantially what I hear, and like at the amplified output. Conversely, there is an 80's Jazz that has a pretty meh tone amplified, and placing your ear on the horn as above - yeah, it sounds pretty weak!

 

😄

[Random Guitarist]

From my limited experience of cutting it open wood changes with age, I have some old 50 year mahogany that I saved from a staircase. When I chisel or saw it it has a lighter drier characteristic then any new pieces. I believe that the rate of change slows down so there is more changes in the first ten years of the fifty then the last ten years. To that end I have a few blanks stashed in dry places around the house that have been sitting a while.

 

How mush real tonal difference it makes I'm not sure, but the wood itself does seem different.

[BigRedX]

The problem here is that you are trying to apply attributes to a single characteristic of an instrument, without considering all the other things that might be contributing.

 

Even though you say the amplified and unamplified sounds of the instruments you have tried have similar characteristics you haven't considered all the other differences that may be present.

 

First of all you are comparing two different body shapes. Can you say for sure that the shape of a body has zero influence on the tone?

 

Secondly how many pieces of wood is each body made out of? So many variables here that unless all the bodies were made from the same number of pieces and joined in the someway and the same places (and then see point one).

 

It may be (and more likely be) that your 80s Jazz simply isn't made out of pieces of wood suitable for a solid electric instrument. After all ever piece of wood is different. Even pieces from the same log can produce very different sounding instruments. Remember that at any age it was always recommended that you try multiple examples of an instrument before picking the one you like the best. That advice was just as true 50-60 years ago as it is today.

 

Finally you don't know what these instruments sounded when they were new. In relative terms there's not that much age difference now between a 70s and 80s bass. I would suggest that the 70s basses sound good now, because they sounded good when they were new. Back then Basses that didn't sound good would have modified until they did, or they would have ended up donating the parts that were good to make other instruments. These days if an instrument doesn't sound good we simply replace it with one that does.

 

Finally you sample size of three basses is scientifically meaningless.

[bloke_zero]

 

4 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

The problem here is that you are trying to apply attributes to a single characteristic of an instrument, without considering all the other things that might be contributing.

 🙂

My empirical process is in it's infancy!

 

I am not making any scientific assertions, merely expressing a preference based on my current experience. I'm specifically NOT ruling out the other factors, just wondering aloud what part age plays and whether roasting and vibrating is an attempt to replicate something that I believe I am hearing. Sorry for any lack of clarity!

[bloke_zero]

17 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

 

😄

Love spinal tap!

 

31 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

 

😄

I watched that with my dad when it came out - he was a session player in LA at the time - he said it wasn't a comedy but more like a documentary. I am glad to have finally become beyond parody!

[BigRedX]

20 minutes ago, bloke_zero said:

 

 🙂

My empirical process is in it's infancy!

 

I am not making any scientific assertions, merely expressing a preference based on my current experience. I'm specifically NOT ruling out the other factors, just wondering aloud what part age plays and whether roasting and vibrating is an attempt to replicate something that I believe I am hearing. Sorry for any lack of clarity!

 

In that case all you can say is that you like the sound of the two P-Basses you mentioned and you don't like the sound of that particular Jazz. 

 

There is absolutely no way of knowing what part the age of the wood on its own has played in the current sound of the instrument, and even less way of knowing if any of these other processes will be able to replicate the qualities of the sound that you like.

 

My completely unscientific method is to treat every instrument individually and simply decide whether or not I like the sound of each one. That's the best that anyone can hope for.

[bloke_zero]

31 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

My completely unscientific method is to treat every instrument individually and simply decide whether or not I like the sound of each one. That's the best that anyone can hope for.

 

I get you! For background - I've been struggling with a build where I've had 2 different bodies and multiple pickup/preamp configurations. I'm happy with the sound of the pre/PU set up, love the neck, but the body (hard northern ash) is causing me issues - it is very scooped sounding - lots of low and lots of high, but I want mids. So I'm wondering whether I get a body made and just ask for a light resonant blank, or if I can get what I want more easily by finding an old body, maybe from a 70's p-bass knock off to mod (I want add a MM pickup). So I'm perfectly ready to be dissapointed, but gathering opinion on best route.

[itu]

Start from Chladni patterns to get a faint idea of what the shapes mean and affect a log.

 

Vibrating the body with an industrial shaker costs pretty much. That's the main reason it is used in limited scale. It is possible, but the price. It tries to imitate the years long playing effect to the wood.

 

You can dry, roast heat up the wood, if you want to dry it thoroughly. But when you get your instrument, it is affected by the humidity of your house. Sealing the body so well, that any moisture cannot make any changes is difficult. Paints and lacquers are so thin.

 

When I visit a shop, I play many instruments to find the one that plays well. I try to find the one that pleases my ears and hands. It is very easy to find differences between few instruments: our senses are not absolute, but we are good in finding relation between details.

[LukeFRC]

4 hours ago, bloke_zero said:

I'm happy with the sound of the pre/PU set up, love the neck, but the body (hard northern ash) is causing me issues - it is very scooped sounding - lots of low and lots of high, but I want mids.

How do you know you are happy of the pre/PU setup? Have you put that in another body/bass? 

Edited September 29, 2022 by LukeFRC

[bloke_zero]

16 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

How do you know you are happy of the pre/PU setup? Have you put that in another body/bass? 

Yes. And had a passive setup, 2 different active sets ups and different pickups. This is a 5 year project at this point. Incrementally the whole thing is moving forward.  At this point the the body is the next obvious variable I want to change (yeah, I've tried flats!).

 

As @itusays, the body just doesn't feel or sound right to me. If I could just walk into a shop and try out different bodies I would, but replacing the body is harder.

 

The current one is very unusal body, very dense/heavy northern ash. Great for a specific tone - lots of low and lots of dense smash highs, just nothing in the middle.  Makes EQ to fit in a mix really hard work. And I'm not a big fan of EQ when totally re-shaping a sound, I'd rather get the source right rather than have to fix it in the mix. The neck is roasted maple, has a different kind of snap, but is a beautiful neck to play.

[bloke_zero]

23 hours ago, Random Guitarist said:

From my limited experience of cutting it open wood changes with age, I have some old 50 year mahogany that I saved from a staircase. When I chisel or saw it it has a lighter drier characteristic then any new pieces. I believe that the rate of change slows down so there is more changes in the first ten years of the fifty then the last ten years. To that end I have a few blanks stashed in dry places around the house that have been sitting a while.

 

How mush real tonal difference it makes I'm not sure, but the wood itself does seem different.

Thanks - that is really interesting. Especially the ageing effect slowing down. Maybe reclaimed mahogany is the way to go. I don't know how much difference it'd make to the tone either! Interesting to find out.

[itu]

There's one thing I want to point out: the age of the wood is one parametre (if we are not talking about instrument dried wood) in the equation. Weight, shapes, neck attachment, hardware... the system may work with a specific component, but even with some special part, the system is still unpredictable. Do the parts play together or not?

 

The amount of parametres is just far too many. Or at least we know some details that affect the overall sound, like you need a good neck. But how those materials act together, nooo way Jose. Remember, tonewood is just a marketing term.

[bloke_zero]

Unfortunately everything in this day and age is a marketing term.

 

hmm. Maybe my scope is too narrow. At this point I’m tempted to order a mahogany body with the pickups routed to my specs and see how it sounds over the next ten years!

[Maude]

In my limited knowledge, as wood ages the resins in it crystalise making the wood more solid. 

Instinct would tell me that this would make the wood more resonant as less frequencies would be absorbed, compared to a softer, spongier wood, but I could be wrong. 

What effect this has on any tone qualities is the age old debate.

Is more resonant better? It depends what you want I suppose. 

 

[bloke_zero]

When it came to me the body was clearly an experiment in the other direction (I bought it off ebay wood unknown) - northern ash, MM rout, aluminium bridge. Very scooped. Great sustain. Potentially great for slap tones.

 

Having sat with it a couple of years and recorded it many times, I always end up fighting it with EQ and gating/compression. Leads me to think something more resonant will be better - something more middy, where there is a note bloom as the resonance of the string sort of gets sucked up by the body - hard to explain, but I can feel it my hands, hear it, and hopefully get an easier to shape sound.