Favorite Top woods and why?

[Ken Smith]

Foe the last few years I have been sorting and using some of the best Flame/Tiger maple I have seen or had collectively. This wood is 10-12 years old within my stock. From this wood we make the White Tiger models as well as others in the line.

So, what is your favourite Top woods and why? I think you can tell from what we produce what I like personally. Now, I wanna talk about what you guys like.

[Lou Laurenti]

Foe the last few years I have been sorting and using some of the best Flame/Tiger maple I have seen or had collectively. This wood is 10-12 years old within my stock. From this wood we make the White Tiger models as well as others in the line.

So, what is your favourite Top woods and why? I think you can tell from what we produce what I like personally. Now, I wanna talk about what you guys like.


Ken

You use so many fabulous woods and many look outstanding. I truly love the Tiger Maple/Flame Tiger. I also love the Walnut used on your Black Tiger models. Right now its a toss up I love them both.

Lou

[Scott Pope]

I am a maple top fan as well. The tone. The clean articulation and the solid foundation at the bottom. But from the mid bass on up it stays out of the way so you can choose your primary tone wood at will: ash for snap, mahogany for girth, korina for complexity, walnut for variety (both black and west coast species), alder for the "tastes like chicken" tone, and basswood and poplar to burn in the fireplace as you sit in your living room enjoying playing your bass.

Now, for necks, I'm a fan of a purpleheart stringer in a 3-piece maple neck. But that's for a different thread.

[Adam Linz]

I use to have a Koa winged 5string bolt on burner when I was doing more electric playing. Ever since I was a kid flipping thru bass player magazine and seeing all these incredible bassists playing KSBs. Yes young ones there were magazines before everyone and their dog had the Internet. I got my bass in my mid twenties and sold it to a student who was going to surpass me as an electric player. Now I see that the Koa is no longer available as I have the itch for another KSB. I feel very lucky to have spent uncountable hours on that bass and to know what a professional instrument both felt like and how it could elevate my playing to unexpected levels. Thank you Ken for inspiring the bass players of generation X with your instruments and for helping us realize our highest potential. Best, Adam Linz

[Ken Smith]

I use to have a Koa winged 5string bolt on burner when I was doing more electric playing. Ever since I was a kid flipping thru bass player magazine and seeing all these incredible bassists playing KSBs. Yes young ones there were magazines before everyone and their dog had the Internet. I got my bass in my mid twenties and sold it to a student who was going to surpass me as an electric player. Now I see that the Koa is no longer available as I have the itch for another KSB. I feel very lucky to have spent uncountable hours on that bass and to know what a professional instrument both felt like and how it could elevate my playing to unexpected levels. Thank you Ken for inspiring the bass players of generation X with your instruments and for helping us realize our highest potential. Best, Adam Linz

A Koa winged 5-string bolt-on burner? Really? Either it is NOT a Burner or the wood is NOT Koa. We never made Burners in Koa.

>> If you get me pictures of the bass or even the serial number, I can ID it for you so you know what bass or wood you actually have. :cool:

As far as Koa being available, in my book, it's no better than maple or walnut. It just costs 5-times as much not to mention the shipping from Hawaii. If we needed Koa, we would have it. Of all the woods we have used over the years, it was one of the least requested woods for our basses. When we made a Koa bass, it was either a hard sell or someone took it so as not to have to wait. It's pretty wood when highly figured but it doesn't beat beautifully figured maple or walnut in looks but in tone, Koa doesn't sound as good as it looks either if you ask me. ;)

[Ronen Tat]

Visually I prefer dark woods for the top but my BSR6EG Q.maple/mahogany/Q.maple literally sings like no other bass I've tried. Maybe its the top, maybe the core, maybe the neck's mass or all together...

[Keir Riggs]

I myself prefer the zebrawood & mahogany combo. It just yields so much in tone when you need to cut through the mix w/o drastically adjusting your preamp. I also like the redwood tops too.

[Ken Smith]

I myself prefer the zebrawood & mahogany combo. It just yields so much in tone when you need to cut through the mix w/o drastically adjusting your preamp. I also like the redwood tops too.

On Smith basses you mean? It takes the whole Bass to make the sound. The Top is only one part of many but an important one.

Different brands of basses will get different results in sound depending on the exact woods, construction and finish.

[Keir Riggs]

Of course Sir!!! :D This is the Smith forum. The bass that Don Boyette has is totally awesome in tone. I'm not sure of the neck woods, but just from looking at the body it appears to be zebra & mahogany, if I'm incorrect please let me know the correct wood combinations. I would love that bass in a 6 string version.:D

[Ken Smith]

Of course Sir!!! :D This is the Smith forum. The bass that Don Boyette has is totally awesome in tone. I'm not sure of the neck woods, but just from looking at the body it appears to be zebra & mahogany, if I'm incorrect please let me know the correct wood combinations. I would love that bass in a 6 string version.:D

Ok, and yes, it probably was Zebra and Mahogany. One has to play the various basses in the same room, same amp and same day to judge the differences between them. Neck woods were probably Maple/Morado like they have been for decades.

We can easily make you a 6-string version of that bass. Of course, we have made 2 circuit revisions since Don's bass was made. Tonally, the circuits have the same and more than they did back then. It just looks different now with its current layout that came out around 1993.

[Keir Riggs]

Definitely looking forward to it !!!! :D Thank you for the info Sir !!!

[Carlis Hsu]

:rolleyes:

I have one with Shedua top and it looks, no, it is art, fantastic.

Now I am fascinated by the idea of tiger maple top+core because I love the dense figure so much. and I presume that a maple core+top will make the lightest Ken Smith bass?

[Ken Smith]

:rolleyes:

I have one with Shedua top and it looks, no, it is art, fantastic.

Now I am fascinated by the idea of tiger maple top+core because I love the dense figure so much. and I presume that a maple core+top will make the lightest Ken Smith bass?

Lightest in color maybe but not lightest in weight.

For weights of our woods, please take a little time and study the charts that I personally made from weighing several individual samples of woods in MY stock here in the building, dried and ready to use.

The information published in books are not accurate for our use because of the moisture level used and the possible variety of the sample, figured or not. Also, all other wood info I have seen published buy builders is either copied from a book or imagined but from what I have seen, not scientifically studied and weighed.

http://www.kensmithbasses.com/woodpages/woodpagecontents.html

[Bob Faulkner]

All the Koa hate!

I'm quite pleased with my BSR4EG with Koa as the core wood!.. The color of the wood mixed with the flame figure in the Koa really makes the edges of the bass pop to me, and I can't find anything about the tone of my bass to complain about!

I specifically requested Koa be the core wood in my bass!

My favorite top would be quilted maple, though the highly figured walnut tops Ken has come up with have almost converted me..

[Franck Callebert]

I vote for flame mapple and figured Shedua top !

[Carlis Hsu]

Lightest in color maybe but not lightest in weight.

For weights of our woods, please take a little time and study the charts that I personally made from weighing several individual samples of woods in MY stock here in the building, dried and ready to use.


Do you remember any Ken Smith bass that was particularly light in weight?

I wonder how important the weight as a factor would be for a good tone, and if a light weight would compromise that tone.

[Ken Smith]

Do you remember any Ken Smith bass that was particularly light in weight?

I wonder how important the weight as a factor would be for a good tone, and if a light weight would compromise that tone.

Light in weight? Given that the Necks and everything else would all be the same, only the body wings would be different. I think from medium woods, you can go up a pound for the heavier woods and down a pound for the lightest possible woods.

If we use a 3-pc neck, it will be lighter than the 5pc. The laminated heel with just maple, is also lighter. Morado fingerboard is again lighter.

The lightest core wood we ever used was Palownia. It looks like swamp ash but feels half the weight. But, it's soft and doesn't sand easily against the other woods so we only tried it once that I can recall. Plain un-figured walnut is about the lightest top wood we have used.

If the body is too light and the neck is normal, the bass could be neck heavy. Balance is the key, not light on one end of the instrument.

[Scott Pope]

Balance is the key, not light on one end of the instrument.
Absolutely! Over the past 36 years of playing electric bass, I've always had more fatigue with instruments that were either body or neck heavy instead of balanced, even if the balanced instrument weighed a pound or two more overall.

[Jason Mendelson]

What first turned me on to Smiths in the 90's was seeing the beautiful Flamed and Quilted Maple tops.

I still say a 5A Quilted Maple / Flamed Maple top would take the cake...

[Joshua phelps]

For me, walnut. Always seemed like a total package choice for a top wood. Beautiful in presentation (even the grades that aren't super figured), dense enough to provide a good amount of sustain yet not too terribly heavy. When I think of the classic smith sound I think of walnut tops.

[Michael McNally]

Plain dark ebony, with no figure. It just looks like pure class to me, especially with a gloss finish. Second choice would be morado, straight grain..cathedral cut I believe, just so natural and beautiful looking!

[Rainer Bastian]

+1 for Ebony tops, but for me they could be highly figured. These basses not only look wonderful, they have THE sound to me. I played 3 with these tops and they all were killin'.

Second choice would be dark Cocobolo or figured Koa.