Author Topic: Little old me.... (Read 187 times)

twiggyjudas · « **on:** September 27, 2004, 12:42:07 PM »

So here I am, a first poster to the Alembic club, and I've been a frequent visitor to the site for a while now. Alembic has become a definited acquired taste, and I need to save a lot of money before I can get my perfect Alembic, but thats not really the point of my post.

I have a question about the tonality of certain wood combinations -- namely ebony, ash, mahogany, maple and Redwood burl.

If I were to build a standard 4 string neck-thru bass out of the following:
Maple core with Ebony laminates
Mahogany wings
Ebony and Ash laminates between the wings and the core
Ash laminate, bookmatched to center on the top with a subsequent cover of Redwood Burl
Ebony laminate on the bottom with another (you guessed it) Redwood burl top

then what type of tone would I expect to get out of it? I've been thinking that there'd be a lot of sustain and mids, but the maple would give me some attack and the Ash would enhance the lows a bit.

Many thanks for any help.

palembic · « **Reply #1 on:** September 27, 2004, 01:44:02 PM »

Hi Cliff,

welcome to the club of the low-frequencied. Sounds interesting what you are proposing. The problem is that I don't really See what you mean. I mean no offence but I really can't follow it very well.
Maybe some visual references???

Paul the bad one

valvil · « **Reply #2 on:** September 27, 2004, 02:17:27 PM »

Hello Chris,

welcome to the club.

In a neck-through bass with that much ebony (ebony neck lams, ebony fretboard, ebony body lams) it won't matter very much what the other woods are, the ebony will totally dominate the sound. It will have massive sustain, huge low end and excellent attack. (it will also be pretty heavy)
In a neck-through instrument most of the sound will come from the neck woods, so anytime you put ebony laminates in the neck you'll end up with a very big sound, and as I said above, the rest of the woods you choose generally will have a minimal influence on the sound. Also, remember that you can't predict with total accuracy what instrument made with xyz woods will sound; you can speculate and most times you get what you think you're going to get, but sometimes the results can surprise you. I've seen instruments built with the same woods (with the same electronics, at the same time) that sounded pretty different from one another. So keep that in mind.

Valentino

twiggyjudas · « **Reply #3 on:** September 29, 2004, 12:14:46 AM »

I understand that totally, I just wanted a general guideline. And heaviness isn't a problem with me, I prefer my basses to be on the heavy side with a long 35-36 scale. I'm too tall to handle a short scale properly when I'm playing, it's one of the reasons I can't play guitar very well. I'm also happy to see that a lot of ebony would probably give me pretty much the sound I'm craving for.