Best wood for a bass guitar?

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Bugle

Preston
Corporate Member
A friend of my sons wants to build a bass guitar. I guess he has built 6 strings, but not a solid body bass. My son is going to get the bass and asked me what wood he should use based on weight, look, resonance, etc. I know there are some luthiers here who will have some great advice.

(I am also going to recommend this site to my son's friend)

Thanks.
 

CarvedTones

Board of Directors, Vice President
Andy
You will probably think I am being a smart alack, but one of the preferred woods for an electric bass is actually basswood. Maple necks are very common also. Deviations are usually for looks rather than sound.
 

danw

New User
dan
Basswood is a great choice for a bass. It sounds fantastic. I have built 3 basses with basswood bodies and maple necks. One with walnut stripes and one with purpleheart stripes. 2 of the basses were topped with a different wood to get get better looks. Basswood is bland to look at. One had flamed maple, the other had oak. One was painted so looks did not matter.
No15Front.jpgNo15Back.jpgDewight's Bass front.jpgDewight's Bass back.jpg
 

CrealBilly

New User
Jeff
Weight is always a big factor to consider. I mean you don't want to have to stand there with a log strapped around you neck...

next factor is it tone wood or not? Does it ring back at you when you whack it or does it just thump?

Finally after the first two conditions are met - use whatever species you prefer because the final product will be light and sound good.

I also consider wood softness - something like basswood although super easy to work... dents supper easy also and will always need to be handled with kit gloves... i built a painted fretless. Bass with a yellow poplar body a white oak neck and a hard maple finger board. it sounds evil but the poplar body is so easy to dent it's not played much...

Maple and swap (lowland) ash are very popular choices for bodies and maple is very commonly used for necks.

Whatever wood you choose consider weight and it's tonal characteristics and you will be just fine...
 

CarvedTones

Board of Directors, Vice President
Andy
While I agree that basswood is easy to dent, if you add binding or simply round the edge it is not much of a problem IME. On an electric guitar, the sound is mostly from the string and pickups. The wood can't dampen too quickly or move much (tuning affected by that). It's really tweaky and subjective past that.

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lnelson

New User
Larry
My son is actually about half way thru a bass build project. He researched the heck out of it and ended up using alder for the body. Fortunately (for him at least) his dad happened to have a good quantity of alder in the lumber storage area so he helped himself to some of the thicker pieces. Hopefully, your friends son understands that the parts needed to build a quality bass are not cheap. My son has spend hundreds of dollars on the different pieces needed (I know nothing about instruments so do not even know the correct names).

Part way thru the project, my son shifted gears to a 4 string so if your aspiring instrument builder needs some of the parts yet let me know and we can maybe hook the boys up for a discussion.

Larry
 

CrealBilly

New User
Jeff
My son is actually about half way thru a bass build project. He researched the heck out of it and ended up using alder for the body. Fortunately (for him at least) his dad happened to have a good quantity of alder in the lumber storage area so he helped himself to some of the thicker pieces. Hopefully, your friends son understands that the parts needed to build a quality bass are not cheap. My son has spend hundreds of dollars on the different pieces needed (I know nothing about instruments so do not even know the correct names).

Part way thru the project, my son shifted gears to a 4 string so if your aspiring instrument builder needs some of the parts yet let me know and we can maybe hook the boys up for a discussion.

Larry

Yeah if not tone wood and the passive pickups are spring mounted it's not going to make much difference in tonal quality anyways. Try some rotosound stainless wound strings and mini humbucker pickups, 250k pots with. 047uf caps for a more tone than he cares for.

What really makes a bass sound awesome is using tone wood throughout and a semi hollowbody design with hard mounted pickup.
Try D'Addario XL nickel wound strings for a warm tone

Then again you could go with active pickups and have a battery operated equalizer electric tone instead of natural passive pickup sound.

Choices choices... no right or wrong answer...
 
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