Wood For A Bass?

Nomad

Just musing on a future possibility and looking for suggestions…

I fancy trying a bass at some point and would like to get an idea of what sort of woods to consider. I gather that basses often come in non-traditional woods, so I'm open to ideas. The plan at present is a 4-string, set neck, fretted, with an ebony board. Scale length not decided yet, but at the shorter end of normal size (32-33"?). I have a bit of fairly dense Sapele which is 800mm long, which I thought might suit this for the neck.  

I'd like a 'clean' sound that gives the option for a fair amount of brightness (assuming pickups and electrics can be used to get it more like a dull thud or rumble if desired). I probably mean that it should be conducive to slap, although I don't/can't play slap style (at least not just now).

 The basic body shape I have in mind is the fairly typical double cut with a long horn at the top. The plan is to oil it – no stain – and I'd like something figured that comes up in anything from a dark amber to a mid brown when oiled. Not bothered either way about fitting a cap.

What does the panel recommend?

Andyjr1515

Hi @Nomad

To be honest, any wood that you would build a 6-string electric from is going to be suitable.  Without wishing to open up 'the' debate, the body wood will not make any perceptable difference in sound.

Dark amber to mid brown figured sounds like N American (or English) Walnut to me.  Nice to work with and comes up super-duper lovely with oil:



There are also some very nice figured mahoganies around if you look hard enough

Freebird

I always have wood for a nice bass 

WezV

Before even considering tone the real question is structure... get that right and the tone takes care of itself

Traditional mahoganies are pushed to their limits on the electric guitar, let alone bass.  It works, but only when nicely quarter sawn and straight grained.  If you ignore the grain you start to run into issues and we all know that 1-piece mahogany necks still break more than any other.

Sapele is one of the stiffer mahoganies and I would gladly use it on a bass as long as it was quartersawn, with CF bars or flatsawn laminated from 3-5 pieces.  Tonally,  It should work well with the shorter scale length and help prevent the dullness of some Gibson Basses (especially if reinforced) - but there are a lot of other factors to consider first.

Nomad

Thanks Chaps.

Andy, the figuring in the second photo is just about what's in my head - that looks lovely. If walnut is nice to work and takes oiling well, then I'll focus on that. I agree that the body wood isn't predominant - it seems to me that the neck is a bigger factor, given that it's much thinner and longer. it was more just a general statement of what I'm after, and maybe looking for some confirmation that the other bits will help take things in that direction (sapele, ebony).

Wez, by structure, do you mean the structure of the wood, or the structure that results from the construction of the guitar? Both?

Here's the bit of sapele...

End A

End B

Top

Bottom

Looks nicely on the quarter at end A, and not bad at end B. I'd put end B at the body join (unless someone explains why that's a bad idea). The top edge in each of those images mates with the surface shown in the 'Top' photo, and that's what I'd put the fingerboard on, to make most use of the quarter sawn area. To me, the grain looks about as straight as one can hope for.

It's quite dense - weighs 2.93kg, dims 800 x 91 x 50, which makes it 732kg per m^3.

Viable for a neck for the proposed instrument?

Rabs

Ian on Ebay has some nice blanks at the moment... Im thinking about that last bit of walnut hes got....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/iana1174/m.html?ssPageName=STRK:MEFSXS:MESOI&_trksid=p2053788.m1543.l2654

GSPBASSES

I always find the main consideration before starting a build on bass, is what it's going to be use for. From that information you can decide what type of bass, pickups whether to go active or passive and more controversially what wood use. Although most of the standard basses like P bass, Jazz bass or Stingray will cover virtually all type of music. 

 If the base is going to be passive, then the choice of wood can be quite critical, for instance, the best sounding P basses are made from Alder with a maple neck, rosewood fingerboard can be a Maple finger board. That combination will cover any type of music your likely to play, from heavy rock, pop, funky jazz to country and anything in between. When I built these as active I nearly always use the Seymour Duncan quarter pounder, coupled with a EMG circuit that has volume, bass and treble cut and boost plus mid with mid sweep. Then if you add a Seymour Duncan Jazz quarter pounder , making the bass a PJ then you have an instrument that will cover absolutely every type of music you could think of.

  Jazz bass has to be Swamp Ash maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, that gives you a huge range of tones, and of course the main tone of a Jazz Bass the nasally honk from the bridge pickup. If I build a active Jazz bass again I normally use, Seymour Duncan quarter pounders, not with a Seymour Duncan circuit but I use the East circuit, these come ready mounted on a controlled plate. A Jazz bass like this again will cover virtually any type of music you want. The great thing about quarter pounders they are really loud and in your face. If you back the volume off just slightly they start to sound like vintage Fenders.

Stingray mostly Swamp Ash, active or passive, great basses not so good when passive, but stick active in them, and they really come to life if you use the Seymour Duncan pickup and the Seymour Duncan circuit with mid and mid sweep. The circuit has a push pull on the volume control which activates a pre-set sound that you set up yourself with little dip switches on the circuit board, I think originally it was to switch the bass into slap mode.

I generally use traditional wood’s for basses, mainly because that's what people asked for. I do use lots of exotic woods when I can, later this year, or more likely early next year I'm making two John Entwistle's spider basses. These are constructed with a through 7 piece neck of Flame Maple and Walnut with an Ebony fingerboard. The body is constructed of two wings of a Walnut centre core’s with either Flame Maple or Birdseye caps back in front.

Back to your question, what wood to use, I don't like basses built with mahogany very much, in particular Sapele as I find bass bodies and necks made in Sapele are bit toneless, sound is best described as a plonk, unless you pack them with some very good active circuitry, but if you do that, then you might as well use a traditional wood anyway that's not as heavy. Soft Maple, Poplar, Sweet Chestnut, Basswood and Walnut are all good body wood’s. I think rock maple is about the best wood for the neck, flat sawn fine, but three-piece quarter sawn is much better. I have used carbon fibre rods for stiffening necks, but sometimes it can be too much, making it almost impossible to give a small relief in the neck.

WezV

I mean both...  you can get away with different wood on different construction styles

go with A as the neck end as you stated

Nomad

@GSPBASSES, it's for use at home, with no particular genre in mind. It's also most likely to be used solo, and perhaps occasional jamming along with backing tracks for bass. I'm not a bassist as such - really a guitarist who dabbles in bass now and then as a solo instrument. I dare say the nuances that real bassists are aware of are probably lost on me.

I'm not wedded to the bit of sapele for the neck - it just struck me as possibly suitable for bass, but it can be something else. If anything, walnut for both the body and neck is more appealing aesthetically, but I have no idea if a walnut neck is viable. The ebony fingerboard is a definite, however, because I like the look, and a set neck is what I want to do (don't want a bolt-on, and I'm not up for making a through neck).

I have no particular preconceptions on electrics/electronics, apart from a slight aversion to using batteries in guitars. I appreciate that active can give a lot of options for shaping the sound, however. As I said earlier, I'd like something that can do a bright, attacking sound that would suit slap, with the option to reduce the treble for a deeper, more conventional bass sound. I'm not especially interested in the more middy Jaco tone.

ICBM

I can't offer any positive advice since I've only ever built one bass, but I can offer some negative - don't use Iroko. It's a beautiful slightly-figured dark amber to mid-brown colour, but...

I had a piece which had a particular grain that looked perfect for a guitar, so I made a guitar body from it - a sort of rounded double-cut Les Paul/Ibanez Artist shape, since it was quite short. Then I realised it was going to be far too heavy for a guitar, so I fitted it with a bass through-neck I had salvaged from someone else's DIY Steinberger project disaster! - originally Matsumoku made - and made it into a 3/4-through. I finished it in oil, since Iroko is oily and not really suitable for lacquers. It worked very well except that after some time using it, I noticed that I developed a nasty rash on my arm and wrist every time I played it. I discovered that Iroko is quite well-known as an irritant, and I was obviously allergic to it.

ChuckManual

Basswood!






I'll get me coat...