PhilHill
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Near as I could ever find out, bone was originally used because it was durable and could be polished well and was plentiful. A lot of them used Ivory too, but it was more expensive. After that tradition took over and everybody had to use it because great granpa did. As for sound, I've heard folks take both sides of the street on it. As always with such things, personal preference is the rule. I would say use whatever will do the job, and sounds the way you like. As long as the material can be filed and finished without great trouble, and is durable enough to last a decent amount of time, all is good.scobass said:Thanks for the reply Aaron. My only experience is with bone and synthetic bone (of which I'm not 100% sure of the exact material - very well could be graphtech) on basses.
The nut would only affect the tone when playing open strings, right? If so, I could see why guitarists would care more about their nut material. As a bassist I very rarely use open strings unless I'm sight reading.
That said, i do prefer the synthetic bone tone better, although ultimately I chose graphtech for my current build because I assumed it would be more durable and wouldn't need replaced for a long time. (No comment on the lube and stench hahah)