OK - to clarify: the guitar has already been built and played. I'm not happy with the way it sounds. Bubinga is by definition, a very hard, bright tone wood. What I am trying to move AWAY from, is "bright - harsh - overly punchy".
Rob:
The tonal qualities you want in a bass, and the properties you look for in guitar, are frequently very different. I mentioned in my post, that I had already tried a quarter-sawn flame maple neck with an ebony board on this guitar, and the results pushed the tone WAAAY to the unacceptably (to me) bright end of the spectrum. Putting a Bubinga neck on this Bubinga bodied instrument would only push the tone in that same direction - maybe even further! It might look "sick" - but it would also sound sick... and not in the way you intended. I do NOT want brighter and punchier - I've already got too much of that. I want to tame the brightness, and try to get the overall tone more balanced. Most of the "bright" I'm hearing, is due to the construction of this guitar - because of the woods that were used. I agree that the pickup(s) are somewhat of a wild card, but changing p'ups is not going to get me all the way to where I need to go.
This guitar was somewhat of an experiment, between me and the builder. He'd used Bubinga before, but this was the first time he'd tried a chambered Bubinga body, with a spalted maple top. Neither of us was sure of what the tonal characteristics would be, but I recommended we go with it, primarily because I liked the way it looked. Similarly, he'd never used Spanish cedar before (for an electric neck)but he knew that it was used successfully on acoustic instruments, and since it is in the mahogany family, theoretically it should be stiff enough. He'd already made one as an experiment, and when I saw how it looked, I fell in love with it. He said that if it turned out it wouldn't hold tune, we could try always try something else. We originally swapped out necks for a totally different reason than "tone" (neck stability), but it also turned out that going to the maple/ebony neck had a huge effect on the overall tone of the guitar, and only served to exaggerate the brightness, with even more harsh overtones than with the Spanish Cedar neck! So we subsequently switched necks back to the original (Spanish Cedar).
Pickup-wise, I knew I wanted a P-90 in the neck, and I also wanted to retain the traditional Tele bridge tone, so we chose a Lollar Vintage Tele bridge p'up to go with the Lollar P-90 in the neck. Thought these two would provide a good balance. But it turns out that in this guitar, the the bridge pickup is excessively punchy and bright - bordering on harsh. And nothing I've done has mitigated that. I switched to the DiMarzio Area -T Hot tele bridge pickup, because it is hum cancelling, and because it is also a little more mid-rangy than a typical Telecaster bridge pickup - while still retaining some of the Telecaster bridge characteristics. However, I'm not sure at this point, that even the DiMarzio is going to work for me. It may be, that I have to end up going to something like a Barden, or one of the Duncan humbuckers made to fit in a Tele bridge rout - and completely forego any traditional Tele bridge tone at all - just to get away from the harshness, and to fatten up the bridge tone on this guitar a little! (And btw - don't try to tell me that a Barden bridge sounds just like a Tele. I've used Bardens before and although I do like the way they sound, they don't sound a traditional Tele pickup).
So here is what I DO know (and am not just "guessing at" or "overthinking"). Because of the way this guitar is constructed - the type of woods used and the chambered body - the neck wood has a VERY significant influence on the tonal characteristics of this instrument. The pickups are also (obviously) a factor, but are not THE deciding factor... just a contributor. The Spanish Cedar neck is beautiful but has stability issues, and the neck carve ended up being thinner that what I had originally envisioned. Also, I am second guessing my decision to go with stainless frets - as they also contribute somewhat to the overtones and brightness I am fighting. So back to my original question: Does anyone have any ACTUAL experience with ANY of the 3 neck woods I mentioned: Goncalo Alves, Wenge, or roasted maple with a rosewood fingerboard. I know that maple is a bright sounding tone wood, but that the "roasting" process, mellows the tonal characteristics of the wood, so that it doesn't sound like a typical maple neck. That's what I've read anyway. SO... I just want to know if anyone on here, has any information or recommendations they might pass on, based on their DIRECT experience with any of the aforementioned neck woods - OR with any I might not have considered, which might have similar characteristics to what I've described! Thanks again -
ccasion14:
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