There is a corollary discussion on this topic in the saxophone world, regarding plating (nickel, silver, gold) on brass or raw brass or lacquered brass or RE-lacquered brass and the inherent tone you get from each (and the loads of marketing crapola behind it). Vintage horns with darkened over time lacquer play darker, silver horns play brighter, gold brighter still. The brass used before WWII was magical and now has less whatever in it, etc. It is all pure B.S. Tone goes like this for saxes….person, mouthpiece, ligature (only in holding the reed properly or not), reed, sax neck design, sax bore design, sax brass thickness across design. Add on top of that that a sax setup can ruin the tone across all of those in the hands of an incompetent tech, which is the biggest determination of tone of a sax and if you buy one IMO.
I was in a store once and a guy was playing a black nickel plated horn and went ‘oooooh, this is so dark’ (note: it is good we can’t go around slapping people upside the head for stupidity in public).
@Lanny’s latest video here Post your covers! (2019-2022) - #4861 by Lanny proves how you can manipulate your tone WAY beyond the wood of the bass.