Allow Me to Reveal My Stupidity

[Anderton]

I've played bass for many years, however, I also very much like keyboard bass or even doubling the two. So, I undertook a massive sampling project to sample all 8 unique sounds from the Gibson EB 5 (sadly, not made any more) because I wanted a 5-string bass sample library but also, the eight different sounds come in very handy when loaded into a sampler.

 

A couple people asked if I'd sample a Thunderbird and the 2015 model year includes one, so I borrowed it for sampling. The T-Bird has the exact same pickups and exact same electronics as the EB 5, so I though the sampling would probably be an exercise in futility because the sound would be very similar.

 

Wow, was I wrong. It was like two entirely different basses. And that's what I mean by my stupidity...they ARE two entirely different basses! The neck-through-body has a lot to do with it, but so did the different tonewoods. I never fully grasped how little of the bass's sound is determined by the pickups, and how much by the woods. But now I'm smarter

[Phil O'Keefe]

That tends to be a REALLY controversial POV - at least over on the Electric Guitar forum, but I've long been a believer in the influence of the wood type on guitar and bass tone - including electrics.

 

BTW, they didn't discontinue all the EB line, did they? I really liked the four string EB Bass I reviewed a couple years ago.

[WRGKMC]

Pickups are like microphones. They can EQ and color the sound and some can be hotter in gain then others but they "Do Not" produce the frequencies in the strings themselves. Its what's attached at both ends of the string that does that. The neck and body equally resonate vibrations back up into the strings and the pickups merely transduce that vibration into an electrical signal. Quite faithfully in many cases.

[Craig Vecchione]

Pickups are like microphones. They can EQ and color the sound and some can be hotter in gain then others but they "Do Not" produce the frequencies in the strings themselves. Its what's attached at both ends of the string that does that. The neck and body equally resonate vibrations back up into the strings and the pickups merely transduce that vibration into an electrical signal. Quite faithfully in many cases.

 

To be clear, a pickup only senses the change in magnetic field caused by the ferrous strings moving within it. The entire instrument affects the string vibration, but we don't want to imply that pickups are like microphones beyond being transducers. Microphones "sense" mechanical vibration (movement of air or in the case of contact mics, a surface), while pickups sense only magnetic field changes. String an electric instrument with gut or nylon, and see what happens.

[*BLEEP*]

The neck and body equally resonate vibrations back up into the strings...

 

...and the pickups merely transduce that vibration into an electrical signal.

 

 

 

The pickups also resonate to a degree with the body wood because they are attached either directly or indirectly to the body wood structure.

 

Floating jazz pickups and pickups mounted on a pickguard / scratchplate (e.g. -- Strat) are at least once removed from the body wood, so they will be less influenced by the natural acoustic tone of the body wood structure.

 

Many basses have direct mounted pickups. So the body wood structure will have a good amount of influence over the plugged-in tone produced by the pickups.

 

In the end, the sonic undulations traveling up and down the strings plus the pickups being minutely resonated by the body wood structure will add up to the electrical signal traveling through the cord to the amp.

 

 

[*BLEEP*]

...Gibson EB 5 (sadly, not made any more)

 

...Thunderbird

 

 

 

So far, I think this is the best bass Gibson has ever made. It's the Gibson Les Paul Money Bass (yes, as in $$$), or just Gibson Money Bass (no "Les Paul" designation).

 

A silly name for an excellent, well balanced, relatively compact form factor bass with crazy long sustain and that unmistakable deeply-nuanced and articulate Thunderbird tone because it's outfitted with a pair of vintage T-Bird pickups coupled to a flat body. It has a set-in neck, not a neck-through configuration like a reverse T-Bird, but, it definitely sounds and performs more like a T-Bird than a Les Paul bass with a carved top. I've only played just a couple. Both were exemplary.

 

For some crazy reason, the Money Bass was only around for a couple of years. I think Gibson may have sold a lot of them because they weren't very expensive (depending on finish). Still, they rarely pop up for sale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WRGKMC]

 

 

 

The pickups also resonate to a degree with the body wood because they are attached either directly or indirectly to the body wood structure.

 

Floating jazz pickups and pickups mounted on a pickguard / scratchplate (e.g. -- Strat) are at least once removed from the body wood, so they will be less influenced by the natural acoustic tone of the body wood structure.

 

Many basses have direct mounted pickups. So the body wood structure will have a good amount of influence over the plugged-in tone produced by the pickups.

 

In the end, the sonic undulations traveling up and down the strings plus the pickups being minutely resonated by the body wood structure will add up to the electrical signal traveling through the cord to the amp.

 

 

Wood is not magnetic and does not induce any signal into a pickup. If you tap on a pickup with your finger it does not (should not) induce any sound because your finger is non magnetic.

 

If the pickup does make a sound, its because tits microphonic and something is acting as a moving diaphragm. A microphonic pickup would then pick up body tones, but for the most part, many pickups that are built well and wax potted do not pick up body vibrations directly worth noting at all.

 

If anything the body may make the pickup oscillate is a different pattern then the string, but its still not generating a tone from the body itself, its from the strings magnetic movement across the pickup surface whether that surface is a moving target or not. You can have the screws and springs that mount a pickup vibrate and induce some signals. Theres an easy fix for that too. Just use non magnetic screws and surgical tubing as springs.

 

A pickup that's firmly mounted to the body will simply move with the body vibrations but that alone doesn't induce sound into a pickup unless the gain is really cranked up high and the small vibrations between the pickups mounting plate, Magnet and Coil are enough to vibrate. Again its a matter of how microphonic the pickup is. The body may vibrate up and down side to side or have waves ripple across it. Those wont be heard as tones under normal operating conditions and realistic gain levels.

 

The simple test is, remove the strings, plug in and knock on the body. If you don't hear a Xylophone like resonance of a wood block like you would with a Piezo element, then its ability to pickup body resonance isn't a big enough factor to be worried about.

 

What is noticeable is the resonance that travels through the body back up into the strings.

 

Don't know if you tried it as a kid, but we used to make tin can telephones as a kid. The fidelity was good enough to have a voice heard on the other end. Using wire works even better. The fidelity goes way up because its a harder material and has less sound absorption. Of course there is a reverb effect like you'd get from a reverb spring but the fact is on a short guitar string that revibration is very short.

 

The strings conduct sound between the body and headstock very well just like the sound travels between headstock and body through the neck joint. Sound travels better and faster through solids then it does through the air and since the bridge and nut conduct vibrations "bi directionally" in both directions at the same time after the string has been struck.

 

The wood, metal and plastic simply filter a certain amount of the vibrations the strings produce and what gets back into the strings is filtered tones. Sound travels 13000 feet per second through wood and nearly double that speed through steel. By the time a string is plucked and is ready to change direction, the sound from the initial pluck has already traveled through the body and is coming back up into the string through the bridge, Nut, Rail and tuners etc.

 

The key here is that sound coming back into the strings is a lower level then the primary note being generated by the strings themselves. The lower level resonance coming back into the strings is both colored by the wood and a lower intensity. The resonant tone of the wood is obviously going to return the strongest frequencies back to the strings. The rest is absorbed by the wood in varying amounts and at different rates. High frequencies are absorbed faster then low by wood so what we wind up hearing is added bass a strong bass response.

 

Its exactly because of this filtering that makes one guitar to sound different from one another. Not the pick-ps. Pickups can only remove frequencies that already exist in the strings. They don't normally generate their own frequencies unless again, they are microphonic and self resonate.

 

I've done several comparisons on this site to demonstrate this to others including frequency analyzer shots but its amazing the number of people who just don't understand basic science. Last time I used 3 guitars with matching pickups. Recorded them all with the same settings, then recorded them with the signals gained up. Everyone could identify the tonal differences between the clean tracks and even guess at which guitar were which.

 

None could make out the much differences with the signals gained up other then some minor differences frequency response which proves the fact that Distortion is exactly what the word describes in the dictionary. Gained up, all the overtones and uniqueness of the waves, get flattened until there is very little uniqueness left. The finer details get flattened are erased.

 

Its no different then two photographs. Take 3 clean photos of peoples faces and you can easily make out the fine facial details and identify the people in those pictures. Add distortion by throwing them out of focus and you may make out they are human faces, but good luck on identifying exactly who's in those photos if you hadn't seen the in focus first. The exact same thing happens when you gain up sound. You may identify it being a guitar but that's it.

 

Bodies and necks reflect sound back into the strings like a room reflects sound back into our ears. There may be room resonance but its not the same as the direct sound in frequency response. Each reflection absorbs a little more of the sound depending on the material its bounding off of.

 

Most guitars are made from hard materials that do reflect sound within the body well. We don't hear its full response because our ears hear air vibrations.

 

If you put your ears under water, the sound is intensified. The sound at one end of the pool sounds like its right next to us. If we could submerse our ears in a solid its would be even more instantaneous. The best we can do is place our ears against a solid body and just listen to the sound of a solid body. I always do this if I want to hear what the wood sound like. Our bodies feel those vibrations too when we play the instrument.

 

I can easily put one ear against the body, hear the actual wood resonance and compare it to what I hear coming from a speaker. Most pickups do a fairly good job of recreating the wood tone in the strings. Same for amps, though many do strip away allot of highs and lows leaving mostly mids, but even those mids are colored by the guitar body and neck.

 

Its easy to see visually too. Simply connect a Piezo to a body and record the Piezo and the pickup.

Run both through a Frequency analyzer and compare. If you want to capture both the string and body resonance in equal amounts then use a Piezo bridge. Sound travels in both directions there so you'll capture tones coming directly from the strings and filtered tones back from the body in more equal proportions.

[isaac42]

What about the pickup positions? Are they the same on the EB-5 and the Thunderbird? I've found that pickup position makes a difference, so even the same pickups with the same electronics would sound rather different if the positions are different.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

 

 

So far, I think this is the best bass Gibson has ever made. It's the Gibson Les Paul Money Bass (yes, as in $$$), or just Gibson Money Bass (no "Les Paul" designation).

 

A silly name for an excellent, well balanced, relatively compact form factor bass with crazy long sustain and that unmistakable deeply-nuanced and articulate Thunderbird tone because it's outfitted with a pair of vintage T-Bird pickups coupled to a flat body. It has a set-in neck, not a neck-through configuration like a reverse T-Bird, but, it definitely sounds and performs more like a T-Bird than a Les Paul bass with a carved top. I've only played just a couple. Both were exemplary.

 

For some crazy reason, the Money Bass was only around for a couple of years. I think Gibson may have sold a lot of them because they weren't very expensive (depending on finish). Still, they rarely pop up for sale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've never played one, but would love to try one sometime. Those things look sweet!

[Chip Stewart]

 

I've never played one, but would love to try one sometime. Those things look sweet!

 

My Hamer SB4 is very similar to the Gibson Money Bass. I love my SB4, but unfortunately Hamer doesn't exist anymore.

[lug]

 

My Hamer SB4 is very similar to the Gibson Money Bass. I love my SB4, but unfortunately Hamer doesn't exist anymore.

 

I HAD a Hammer SB4. My kids were using it at a buddy's house and he moved away......with it. I was going to piccolo it.

[ThudMaker]

I realize these are passive, but did we figure out if the pickup placement is essentially the same. Also, I tend to use 500k pots, so I can automatically assume I'm replacing when I purchase a bass. I also wonder with the different tone, if it is just the woods used, pot/cap values difference or to put it mildly, Craig A has been in the business so long, it wouldn't surprise me that the tone difference isn't one most of us could pick up on, but with Craig's spidey sense, it is noticeable. Inquiring minds want to know.