We asked our Facebook audience last week what their favorite tonewood material was. The answers may surprise you (would you believe agathis was mentioned a few times?)
What about you? What tonewoods (yes you can name more than one) have worked out best for you and why?
Myrtlewood or Ash
Mahogany
walnut
My favorite tonewoods for electric basses include: mahogany, swamp ash, and walnut. Spanish Cedar has also worked well for me in the past. For the fingerboard (or fretboard), I prefer: rosewood, purpleheart, and macassar ebony.
Mahogany hands down
the obvious answer to what is my favorite tonewood to build a bass would be Basswood of course!
Swamp ash and maple, punchy and clear!
Although I haven’t tried my hand at building a bass,(yet) I would have to say alder. I owed a Carvin LB75 a few years back that was made of alder and it had a great tone and light too. However I really love the way koa looks but unfortunately haven’t had the opportunity to try a bass made from koa.
Swamp ash and maple, super punchy and clear!
Swamp ash…and bubinga for the body and love wenge and ovankol for the neck
Maple and purpleheart fretboards
So far I like alder for a tone wood. However I don’t like the look of natural alder. My favorite wood as far a looks are concerned would be koa. Even though I have yet to play a koa bass.
Basswood no contest
Swamp Ash has the best overall sound for that low down bass Growl! Maple for the neck and fretboard.
I want big fat sustain above all else, so I built my last one out of walnut, and it exceeded my expectations.
Mahogany and Alder for me
Alder body, with purple heart fret board.
Ash.
A swamp ash body and maple on maple neck seem to work best for me with single coil pickups. Very clear and a wide range of frequencies for recording.
My thoughts exactly!
Swamp Ash Body & Maple Neck/ Ebony Fingerboard(single coil J-Bass Pickups
I like maple and/or alder for a bass body (both are excellent for accentuating mids). For necks, it’s maple all the way. For fingerboards, I like maple, ebony, or bubinga (though rosewood’s OK).
swamp ash body, maple neck and fretboard
Walnut kicks ass in the lows and the highs
I’m in the process of proto-type Bass. Body is made of P.O.C. (Port Orford Cedar). Tonal quality is exceptional. Strength to weight ratio makes it the lightest and strongest wood out there. Neck is Honduran Mahogany with a Bullet-wood Finger board. Watch out!! Nickal Bass Company
Wow! I looked up P.O.C. Common use is in soundboards for Acoustic & Classical guitar. While Swamp-ash, Maple, Mahogany and Alder are industry standard set by Fender and Gibson. Oregon Wild woods and Teton Marketing are great sources and confirms the attributes associated with POC. Great concept. Keep us posted. 🙂
Black korina for the body (one of the best woods for body in the world, just my opinion) wenge for neck (it delievers killer mids) and brazilian rosewood for fretboard.
Ash and Alder. The most prominent bass tone for fretless since the 70’s has come from alder, and the same for the most prominent slap tone, ash. And in general, most of the great bass playing we have all loved has come from basses (Fender J and P) made of these body woods with varying neck/fingerboard combos.
Maple and alder
Mahogany for the body and Maple and purple heart for the neck. It is a balance between what holds the neck tension and what sounds the best. I do neck throughs so it has a striking look. Purple heart is like natures graphite rod. It’s murder on saw blades though.
Swamp Ash and Maple neck and fretboard.I have built several basses with this combo and they sound great.I also built one with black walnut body and neck with a Wenge fretboard.Great tone and sustain.
I like funk and so for me the best wood match is basswood for the body and hard rockmaple for the neck all of this fitted with a Bartolini 9J1 set with passive electronics.
My current Favorite bass has a Poplar Body and a bubinga neck with a Bloodwood Fingerboard.
A nice crisp, light weight piece of wood. The species makes absolutely no difference. I also notice that the less a blank costs the better it sounds. Customers invariably prefer the sounds of prettier pieces of wood. They only hear with their eyes.
Ash with a maple fingerboard but I have just had a new body built for an old heavy bass and we used sungai (a type of swamp ash) found on Java. Wonderful results with new hipshot tuners I now have a perfectly balanced bass!
Bass wood, of course!
Light weight ash with oil finish has a slight advantage over alder. Not as muddy and holds up better against the inevitable gouge. Maple for the neck but a slice of Honduran rosewood over the maple creates a warmer tone which many prefer.
Alder body, Maple neck
Swamp ash and maple does it for me
Ash and maple is my tone it’s got a good response and nice lows …
I have swamp ash bass, but my favorite is alder body and birdseye maple neck and rosewood fingerboard.
I have good results with oak for the body and neck but that was on a electric cello…
I ha a Mansonia bass and it sounds incredible.
definitely my wood choice for my basses is wenge, in guitars mahogany and maple as needed
It doesnt mattet in an electric instrument. So I like anything that is light weight, stable, and attractive looking.
I love this. People who believe it doesn’t matter what wood you use have to believe every car would be served by the same engine. EVERYTHING MATTERS ! How much is another question. Here is the link to my bass which I think is a perfect combination of woods for the sound I seek.
Built a replica Jazz Bass using Swamp Ash body and a Maple neck with a Rosewood finger board……cannot ask for better….tonality and clarity.
my fave sounding bass I own is Plexiglass
Wow…never thought I’d see someone post Plexiglass for their fave tone wood.
That’s kinda like asking, “What’s your favorite tone?” Different tones for different songs. Different basses for different recordings. I usually prefer a scooped eq so I tend to prefer swamp ash with maple fingerboard for clarity.
Ironbark… very dense heavy Australian hardwood … resonance to die for. And pretty to boot. Also Rose sheoak … comes in at a bit over 1400 kgs a cubic meter.
I had a frettless bass that was all Hawaiian KOA wood with a ebony finger board. It sounded sweet, especially for a fretless. The only problem was that KOA isn’t a strong wood and needed truss rod adjustments now and then. I’m going to get another one some day.
Alder for the body and a maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard in my opinion has the most versatile tone for a Jazz Bass. For the Precision Bass, I tend to like an alder or swamp ash body with a maple neck and maple fingerboard. An insider’s favorite choice of body wood is poplar; – do some further reading and research on this wood and some interesting feedback and information will surface.
Bubinga it’s definitely my favorite this far for bad bodies. Though I’m currently in the middle of an unfortunately long drawn out build using semi hollowed zebra wood with a 4A curly koa top. For necks I love using purpleheart for some of the laminations to bring out a lil brightness in tone
Little known around the world is a gem of a tree in Australia called Queensland Maple. One of the few woods that will substitute for the traditional choices in building violins, and respectively so.. Ive built several basses with composite necks using it and wherever there is more maple, the better the result. My next project will be an acoustic upright made almost entirely from it! P.s. VERY stable, strong and light. B
ash body-maple neck-maple fingerboard
alder body-maple neck-rosewood fingerboard
My two favorites are swamp ash with maple fingerboards and alder with ebony fingerboards.
I have an MTD 735; poplar body, flame maple top, and wenge neck and fingerboard. It sounds incredible beautiful and unique, with a nice growl, gorgeous top end, solid lows, and a midrange that cuts for days. It is incredibly punchy, and beautifully warm and clear. There is a slightly raspy, yet velvety sheen to the notes too, like a great vocalist with that slight edge–Norah Jones or similar.
That being said, my main bass is a Bongo 6 string (basswood body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard) and that bass is more traditional sounding and incredibly versatile. Ebony sounds “pingy” to me; Purple Heart too but I like it more than ebony–beautiful highs.
For a Fender, I like alder and swamp ash, maple neck, and maple or rosewood fingerboard. Swamp ash is growlier, alder is more versatile. Just my $.02.
And worth every penny:-)
Swamp ash and a maple neck and fretboard is for me the best overall sound.Although I also like walnut bodies and webge fretboards for the sustain.