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I can even imagine what @eude was thinking. I'll bet he was thinking : "OK clever clogs Andyjr1515. So you can build 6 string electrics and you can build dreadnought acoustics but they are - well - NOT BASSES! And, yes, admittedly you've made a bass or two and you've modded a few. BUT I BET YOU CAN'T SORT THIS ONE!!! Oh, and before you say you can, did you know it's a VI? Bet you've never done one of THOSE!" I'll let @eude fill in the background but the challenge is to take this body: And put a shortscale neck on it and a Warwick two-part bridge. "Oh...and did I mention the b****y big hole through the body?" "Oh - and the neck pocket might not be the right size for a VI neck but I'm sure a clever clogs like you will be able to sort THOSE trifling details!" So what could I do but accept the challenge! Besides, I've only got my reputation to lose. @eude has this rather nice bass carve to lose

No backline at all. It's the way forward.

Tried to finish this off. Almost but not quite. First popped the magnets onto the truss-rod cover: ...and hey presto: Then installed the Shadow Doubleplay electrics. It comprises a blendable under-saddle piezo: and a mini magnetic pickup at the end of the fretboard: I suspect that this is intended for a flatter fingerboard radius (prob 12" - I've build closer to an electric neck with 10" rad and locking tuners. Makes it easier for me to transfer from my electric to the acoustic) so I sunk it into the top to make sure it didn't foul the top and bottom E strings: As it turns out, I've overdone this and will, at some stage, take it off and pop a shim underneath. I then installed the preamp / blend unit that sits inside the soundhole (I'll photo it in the 'finished' shots) and the rear strap pin / jack socket. Before I put the strings back on, I cleaned up and oiled the fretboard. The frets - well, at the moment there is absolutely no buzz anywhere so I haven't even polished them! When I get a moment, I'll at least do that but there is no need for levelling and crowning By the way, before you go thinking I know what I'm doing, that is a first... And - other than the low nano-mag pickup being a bit quieter than the piezo - we have electric amplification. Lastly, now the strings are on, I do my usual 'sit it like a cello and scrape the neck to the final shape by feel, spinning it round and playing it then re-scraping until it feels like I want it. This is followed by a quick tru-oil slurry and buff and it's good to go within an hour. Am I the only one that does this? No matter how well you fit a neck to the profile templates, I don't think you can really tell if it's right until you play it. So that's what I do. And the most subtle tweaks can make all the difference! Remaining jobs: - Replace the nut with a slightly wider one (plays fine with the present one but it isn't quite wide enough - Raise the nano-mag pickup (ditto) - Side dots! It's a big b****r and there is no way you can see the top of the fretboard when you are playing it - Final polish in about a week's time - Take the arty farty photos

This ^^ . And of course the ''flat' tone may not indeed be flat on some of the amps as they each have their own voicing. I'm sure most of them could be made to sound like each other with some simple EQ-ing if required..... One of my fave things about the bash was hearing the range of tones we can all produce...... from Nancy Johnson's gnarly rock tone to Frank Black's beautiful double bass style fretless tone to OBBM's traditional warm tone to Richard Searle's muted picked tone.

It would be nice to see more Darkglass demos using different genre's and more traditional type basses.... All I mainly hear is dingwals and metallic sounding metal tunes. I'm sure all his pedals could sound good in other formats. I liked the b3k on lower settings and would be interested to hear what more med type drive this could do

Just got this Explorerbird. I was toying with the idea of building one, but thanks to Karl Aldorfer pointing me in the right direction, I managed to find this beauty. Well chuffed

Here's the thing, none of those amps sounded bad. Some of the 'baked-in' tones might not be as preferable as others, but nothing sounded bad, due in no small part to a classy cabinet. Likewise with the blind bass test, nothing was bad, just small variations on a theme. A real eye opener on both fronts.

I bought a set of these a few years ago just to put on a jb I leave in my summerhouse £12 I think and was really impressed Very nice deep warm tone Well worth the money

I'm shocked @cetera I feel I may have to down-grade your status to 'quite knowledgeable Spector Guru' in light of this shocking revelation

Where do I have to send that cheque to again? 😂

Very interested that a number of people are up for this little (big?) challenge. I should perhaps explain my own feelings behind why I thought I might do it...... Ultimately, I think too much about gear, like many here, always thinking about what next piece of gear could replace or potentially better the last piece. Which is strange, as I have a lot of fantastic gear that allows me to do everything I want (need) to, at a very high level. Obviously this a well-known story, and basically the definition of GAS. It's usually well humoured and dismissed as a bit of fun, but it genuinely takes up a fair chunk of my thought processes, which kind of gets a bit tiring if I'm honest with myself. So instead of trying to manage it, I'm going to stop it altogether, safe in the knowledge that I have some amazing gear, and that actually nothing will change haha. As mentioned, in actual fact, I only have a couple of very intentional purchases left, so if we're including those in my 'exceptions'....I'm technically starting from now haha. Si

Or an Excision?

Here we are then. Pulled the trigger on a pair of Aguilar SL112s today. I think that's me sorted now. GAS has disappeared.

Here is an analysis to see the harmonic content Open B Open E and some pics with me

You were probably an obsessive teenager, as I was, when you got your first bass. The first song I played live was 'Alright Now' by Free. It took me forevers, squirrelled away in my bedroom, to get the tricky bassline in the solo. In fact I was still figuring it out about 5 mins before I went onstage. But this dude is 51, he's got better things to do than hide away in his bedroom for 6 months learning 2112.

I did, in fact rush were probably the reason I started on the bass. Rush and Yes. I got an Ibanez Rick clone.

It's just my personal opinion, of course, but I don't think it's worth compromising on amplification. I think a dedicated bass amp is the way to go every time. For practice, at home as well. The other alternative is a Preamp/DI or some sort of bass specific interface that can go to a PA style speaker. A guitar amp will always be found lacking.

I hope that nut is glued in properly otherwise it's going to be catapulted through the ceiling when you tune up!

Result (well, partial): the neck seller has agreed to a 50% refund and I get to keep the neck. I’m still disappointed it’s not the “right” one but it does look like a nice bit of wood, and the fingerboard in particular has some nice grain. May as well suck it up and crack on. The refin’d body has spent the last few weeks at our practice room whilst the paint cured and has finally made it home with me tonight. I’m a little short of time this week but may grab a few hours at the weekend to get the build into some sort of shape. As I think I mentioned in the OP, my long term aim with this build is a fretless. I’m not entirely sold on defretting the neck myself, however. I’d be more than happy if I could pick up a fretless neck for decent money, but they don’t seem to come up often (annoyingly I missed Beedster’s fretless neck cull in June) so I rather suspect my hand will be forced in that regard. It just seems that with defretting there are too many things I could make a right balls of, and I’d rather save myself the hassle. One could argue, though, that making a balls of a neck that has now cost me £16 isn’t exactly the end of the world. Onwards!

Just for home use your guitar amp will be fine....personally I would wait to part ex until you have been playing a few months....then once you are a bit more familiar with the instrument you might get the urge to jam with folks then you could always part ex for a half decent Bass Combo....but till then your guitar amp will suffice just crank the bass EQ to about full and keep the mids and treble to a minimum.

It's funny you say that I've been told in the past I'm as stealthy as a killer whale!! And yes you may christen it the Orca(ster) Bass!! 😁 I agree that would look nice with hidden pickups but I've got another build in mind which I was going to go down that route a semi hollow with piezo pickup possibly under the bridge I am going to call on Jez or Andy's expertise when I come to tackle that!! 🤔

Just purchased one of these at the weekend, very impressed. It is two different distortion channels, Hot tubes and Crayon but its more like l 4 pedals in one. great smooth drive on hot tube all the way up to 12 o clock and no loss of low end at all, not even touched the blend nob. up to 2pm and still only some eq to boost the bass a bit. best tube simulation i have ever played really good organic sound. Crayon is a nice smooth range of overdrive and again no blend needed much up to 12pm. gets a bit fizzy on loss a bit of low end on higher gain settings but not had to go beyond 50/50 mix as yet. Bang them both on at once and the hot tube drives the crayon. this is when things get a bit crazy and i did need some blend, but again on down to 50/50 at pretty harsh settings. Either side can be used as a clean boost full blend and 8-9pm gain. or gain all the way down completely. If it had a mids control as well as the bass and treble would also make a great pre amp. this certainly looks like my always on pedal from now on instead of my MXR M80 At just under£110 cannot recommend this enough, everything from mild boost mild tubey /grit to full on distortion and all the controls for flexibility you need.

More than just another Jazz copy? I hope so... I like the look of this one...

Probably competition to those, yes. I didn't look into the details but compared to K.2 it looks like the power section is much smaller and the Hi-z input gone in the CP series.

No shock you feel could ever match the disappointment I feel in myself.... 😂😂

It's my fault - I passed out from GAS withdrawal symptoms and my head came to rest on the 'page refresh' button all night.

I actually thought the Handbox was the best amp in that shootout by a country mile.

Here's an updated picture The chrome knobs are just temporary they are just there for visual effect! I definitely prefer this in white than the black 😀

This might come in handy

New bands worth checking out in the neo-soul genre include Moonchild and Hiatus Kaiyote. In fact, Hiatus Kaiyote are probably my favourite band right now. As unique as the Nai Palm may appear, I think I'm a bit in love with her. Here are some tunes worth checking out:

Been needing a beater bass for a while to mess around on at home, played a cheapy gear4music LA bass last week and found I liked it, neck was nice and really liked it being lightweight. Now, I do like modding cheapy basses, and this seems a good start. So pulled the trigger on a silver sparkle one today, which by accounts is more of a champagne colour than a true silver, so I've photoshop'ed what it should eventually look like. Obviously the pups, electrics and hardware are poor, but for now I will be leaving the tuners and bridge alone, and will be replacing the pup with an old Fender MIM one I have in my parts box, adding full sized Alpha pots, neutrik jack and 0.1 PIO cap. Tug bar, as I may be one of a few who likes to play using my thumb. Slapping on some old Chromes, and will sand off the headstock logo, to be replaced with a cheeky ESP vinyl decal I've seen on fleabay. Should end up with a pretty decent looking and sounding cheapy bass.

Yes I am sir. I have the Glou in stock and up on reverb. lovely things they are. Looking forward to trying one soon.

I had a few...gave them away as Raffle prizes at the last Herts Bash... Do you taunt your geeetarist friends with it? Ask them why their amps don't have a "Guitar" control, but do have a "Bass" control...

Yeh he was great actually, got a lot of compliments on the sound afterwards, I told them all to thank Liam!

Admittedly it has taken a couple of years to get this all done and finished how I wanted it, but, this is a working musicians axe and as such it has played many gigs during the restoration process, hence, 2 years I bought this bass from this very website from a chap in Germany, it was in a bad way, the P-ups were both dead, the neck had been fitted VERY BADLY and also the 'idiot' that done it had used white resin wood glue and had managed to break the decorative pearl around the neck fitting. Also the body of the bass had suffered from mould, this was a real problem to stop and cure it, it had left the bass looking very flat, dull and a coating of haze across the finish. Very sad indeed. Now I'm not blaming the guy who sold it to me, however, he failed to mention the condition and the fact the neck was glued on with resin (if he knew.... hmmm ) Anyway. Between myself and a very talented Luthier named Terry Chapman we have managed to restore the bass to it's former glory and managed to keep the 'Mojo' of a guitar built in 1964, it's nearly as old as I am and looks better too. The headstock logo was missing a piece of the H and I have ordered a replacement but it was not as nice as I wanted so I left the old one as it was. I know a couple of you guys were keeping an eye out for the finished job, so here she is in all her glory. Enjoy.

Yes they do. You can use a guitar amp, but I think that long term you might knacker it and it certainly won't give you the right sound for a bass.

Just to recap (for anyone reading) concerning the Bass Shootout, which featured fifteen different basses. I reckon 20-25 of us made it into the room to listen to Gary playing a now all too familiar riff from Carry On, Wayward Son by Kansas, not once, but twice, all the while behind a heavy stage curtain. It doesn't get any better, huh? From memory, the highest recognition score was 4/15 and there were a few zeros too (which is kind of alarming given my late mother could have identified a Rickenbacker).

Been going for a while, very funky, very jazzy, very rocky, very everything!

Got it 😉

I just sold Al Krow (Bas) my Barefaced cab. Super friendly guy with great communication. Due to distance we agreed to meet halfway between us at a Pub which provided a good opportunity for a drink and a gear chat - I just hope his GAS infliction isn't contagious 😄

Well it looks like it will be going back but hopefully just to be exchanged. I took the pickup cover off to fit the bezel and noticed that the pickup has been fitted to the base at an angle so sits completely squint. One I had the cover off I noticed a couple of areas of chrome on the surround that were slightly bubbled during the chroming process Not an issue as such but one of the screws holding the truss rod cover was only screwed half way in. I did take all of the screws off to make sure there were no surprises underneath I had a look at the back of the neck and from the area right behind the nut to about the 5th fret there is a section about 1cm across that looks like the paint has rippled. I'm wondering if the bass has been laid down before the paint completely hardened(?) Not impressed on a bass with an RRP of £2350 and not impressed that not only did it pass through the Rickenbacker QC but also the store that I bought it from didn't notice any of this. The bass had been out of the packaging as the case had dirty marks on it when I got it which came off easily so someone had looked at it prior to me buying it. I still want a 4003 but not this one. I've emailed the shop to see about exchanging it for another. I will make sure that they check it thoroughly before sending it out to me, assuming that their website is accurate and they still have another one. It's a shame as this one was set up perfectly right out of the case which would have been a first for me

For a stealth bass you need a matt black finish. I wonder how affordable Vantablack is. If you use it, fit a tracker too because you'll put it down one day and never see it again until someone trips over it.

Love listening to isolated bass. 1. Because you really get to hear the intricacies of the player. 2. You get a sense of how tones etc then work in a mix. 3. Makes me feel better about my bass playing, as plenty of great players still sounded a bit rough solo and made plenty of string/fret noise, overtones etc. But sound fantastic in the mix.

Jack, you asked for something to excite you. Value for money wasn’t mentioned. 😀

Both my Jazz bases have flats on them (Chromes), I find it gets rid of the twangyness, which is a good thing from my point of view.