Do Bubinga and Purpleheart necks sound similar?

[Ghostnote]

What do you reckon?

 

[Rick]

Warmoth did a video on necks and sound.  It’s on YouTube.  While not bubinga or purpleheart it’ll give you some ideas.  Also if you dig into the warmoth website you’ll find wood comparisons.

 

[musicispeace]

This is a good question. I have a strat with an all bubinga neck and I would subjectively characterize what I think I hear as slightly rounder than maple. Its a great sounding guitar with an alder body and Zhangbucker pickups. The only experience I have had with purple heart is an Ibanez guitar I have that has a 3 part neck of maple, purple heart in the middle, and then maple again with an ebony fretboard. I don't think there is enough purple heart for me to comment on it but the Warmoth "tone meter" shows bubinga and purple heart as very close.

Below is a video that influenced me toward the bubinga neck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDEvE2k2G6Q&t=224s

 

[stratamania]

@musicispeace the tele in the video has some good tones and sounds like it was recorded with some volume. I am curious but what is leading you to conclude that is bubinga that is making that tone versus some other element?

 

[Bob Hoover Ross]

an Ibanez guitar I have that has a 3 part neck of maple, purple heart in the middle, and then maple again with an ebony fretboard. I don't think there is enough purple heart for me to comment on it

Yeah, I've always wondered how much the stringers in a multi-lam neck contribute to sound. I know the folks at Alembic will insist that an otherwise identical 5- or 7-piece maple neck with ebony stringers will exhibit "a noticeably more solid fundamental" than that same neck with purpleheart stringers, but A) I don't think that's enough info [sic] to characterize what a purpleheart neck sounds like, and B) da hell does "a noticeably more solid fundamental" mean anyhow?!?!

 

[Rick]

First let me state that I'm not expert on music theory, but I think what they are trying to say is that it promotes the fundamental (ie lowest, most prominent note, while combing out the partials, and / or overtones, which would be higher and jumbled together).    Smells like marketing spew.

 

[musicispeace]

@musicispeace the tele in the video has some good tones and sounds like it was recorded with some volume. I am curious but what is leading you to conclude that is bubinga that is making that tone versus some other element?

That is a good question. For me, I took it that the neck will have some influence, as in the sum of all parts does have an effect, and that the player in the video specifically asked what the neck wood was and commented on the tone. It would have been helpful to have had more information about how it was recorded.

 

[stratamania]

@musicispeace the tele in the video has some good tones and sounds like it was recorded with some volume. I am curious but what is leading you to conclude that is bubinga that is making that tone versus some other element?

That is a good question. For me, I took it that the neck will have some influence, as in the sum of all parts does have an effect, and that the player in the video specifically asked what the neck wood was and commented on the tone. It would have been helpful to have had more information about how it was recorded.

Got it. Without a comparison of the neck being swapped out on the same guitar etc, this is always a challenge as each part of the guitar, signal chain, recording and playback has an influence. Though in this case we can probably conclude that bubinga in general seems to work well as a neck wood.