I took delivery of my new Series II with ebony neck laminates a couple of weeks ago. I've done a few rehearsals and a gig with the new bass. I've also compared it to a virtually identical Series I bass, both of which have mahagony cores, quilt maple tops, and Alembic CX strings. The only difference is the neck laminates - purpleheart on one, and ebony on the other.
After listening hard to both basses played acoustically, through headphones in my music room (a fancy description of my basement warren) and through my stage rig on the gig, the effect of the ebony neck lams on the Series tone has become easy to hear. Frankly, the effect is pretty dramatic. Simply put, the bass with ebony neck lams has noticably more bass, particularly at or below 200hz. The increase in the bass frequencies was so significant that I had to adjust the EQ on my stage rig. I usually run my rig with the bass boosted on the EQ, but with the ebony lam bass I had to back off and run it almost flat.
To my surprise, the increase in the fundamental harmonic produced by the ebony did not seem to affect the punch side of the envelope; the attack and decay seem unaltered, though there is clearly more sustain. Have you ever switched string gauges from medium light to heavy? The effect of the ebony neck lams is something like that. My ebony lam bass sounds just like that Series tone I know and love, but a bit bigger.
The degree of the effect surprised me. I assumed I would hear something, because Susan and Mica told me I would. However, they understated the diffence that ebony neck lams make. The effect is much greater than I have experienced as a result of comparing top woods on the basses. Conventional wisdom holds that on a neck-through bass the neck woods are much more important to the tone than the top wood, and based on my comparisons I would have to agree.
One player's pile of junk is another's vintage Fender - we all have our own preferences. That said, I think that any player who uses EQ to boost the bass freqs a bit will love the ebony neck lams.
(Message edited by s_wood on May 24, 2005)
(Message edited by s_wood on May 24, 2005)
