LukeFRC

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]part 2 - Luke gets some bits randomly off gumtree and instantly regrets [/font][/color] [font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]So you know when you see something on gumtree for like £50 and you kinda go for it as it's a small enough amount of money that you're not weighing it up massively.... well I cycled up to this guys to see this bass was undecided.... and then went home he rang me and I went for it....[/color][/font] [font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]Now the sensible thing would have been to buy a OLP for about £150 or so. Or even a USA made Musicman Sub bass cost £300-400 secondhand. [/color][/font] [font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]Why sensible? Cos you get a playable bass... what i picked up was defiantly a project....[/color][/font] So what is it.... It's a solid ash body painted with some black stuff... it's sunk into the grain too. Home made pickguard maple neck with... odd dot markers, very flat radius and lifting frets a jack socket and a pot that's some kind of tone control a black bridge of some kind a bone nut he cut himself and tuners scavenged off another bass - made for a smaller hole... oh and the good thing is there's a Bartolini MMC pickup in there. You can see where I've taken the thing apart. Oh and I forgot to meantion... the fella made it all himself, leeds school of music (college of music ? the one which churns out brilliant musicians anyway) used to do a instrument building course. He was a drummer and had done it and made a guitar and a bass. This is the bass. So I got this, and with dead strings it didn't sound awful and after a day wondered why I had bought it. It's been made by this fella - I could rebuild it and it be amazing.... or I could spend ages on it and realise he hadn't paid any attention in his classes and all I've bought is firewood (and Bart pickup) who knows... Coming up in part 3 - the one where luke improvises to strip the body.... [font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"][/color][/font]

PART 1 So a build thread - and more a bolt parts together than a carving wood type build thread... So I've got a few really really nice basses and pretty much no GAS. A few months back I did a trade with mark_ir, and while at his studio I got to play his old Stingray bass, it was a 1977 pre-eb thing, in root beer or whatever the brown colour is. And it was amazing - such a "musical" instrument. I loved it. And a stingray is one of the few classic types of basses that I've never really tried... Had P basses, Had Jazzes, and sold them as they sound great but never my bass tone live Tried a rick long enough to know it wasn't for me. But a stingray's always that other bass that someone else has but I've never had the chance to play with. Well I built a fretless once with a musicman pup in the right position on an old Vox standard body... but I also used ronseal diamond hard to coat the fretboard and it went hard enough I couldn't sand the radius back in so it wasn't very playable. So lets make a stingray! (coming up in part 2 - Luke gets some bits randomly off gumtree and instantly regrets it.)

[quote name='mark_ir' timestamp='1332343358' post='1586981'] work is just an excuse to acquire more bass toys than should be allowed, [/quote] so a while back (and on gumtree not basschat) I had an GK combo that I wanted to sell as it was a bit heavy and wide for my 3rd floor flat. Mark got in contact and I took the amp and a couple of basses for him to play with... he let me have a shot on a load of his gear too... Great times and while I went wanting to sell him an amp I ended up giving him money and trading for a walkabout scout. Anyway - Mark is a great guy so trade/sell/buy with confidence - he also has a stingray which is one of the nicest basses I've ever tried ever - if you do a deal with him see if he'll let you have a shot.

[quote name='MoJo' timestamp='1437293213' post='2824817'] The reason behind the original post is that I own both a TC Electronic BG250-115 and a Peavey BAM210. The latter is twice the weight of the former. I've been gigging the BG250 for a few weeks now in small / medium pub gigs and personally, I think it sounds great. I've not got a wireless system so I'm never more than 10 feet from it. Recently a guy was selling his BG250 on eBay because he didn't think it was 'throwing it out to the back of the room'. I was surprised when I tried the BG250 out at PMT as to how loud it was and how warm sounding too. Nothing like the demos on YouTube. My fear is, I suppose, that it sounds great up close but lacks the uumph to project that sound 30 feet away. [/quote] it all depends on how big his room is doesn't it? If it sounds good to you- don't worry about it and just play it.

[quote name='grandad' timestamp='1437258481' post='2824740'] I've had a PJB Flightcase and PB300 for a few months. I A/B it with my Peavey Max 160 into an Ampeg B115E. So that's SS discrete into Ferrite speaker compared with SMPS + class D into Neo's. They are very different in tone when set with a flat eq. I would say the SS bottom end is more dominant against the low mids for the Class D. To get a similar umph the bass is at 2 compared to 12 oclock and the low mids at 10. But I'm not sure this is a lack of umph in class D amps as more the clearer tone of a newer amp design. The umph is there to be dialed in as are more tonal options. The thing I've noticed most is the definition. Notes are more precise and also getting used to hearing the higher harmonics. I was comfortable with my old rig and I think it takes some listening time to adjust. [/quote] I think if you're comparing a Phil Jones Flightcase and PB300 with a Peavey Max 160 into a Ampeg B115e the fact that one rig is Class AB and the other Class D is so far down the list of variables as to be irrelevant.

Build yourself a fearful?

Following james' build thread I realised there was a small chance he might have a part I needed, so I asked... and he offered me loads of things, and lots of advice and good chat. Just bought some tuners and a pot out of his parts box - a great basschatter

[quote name='Chienmortbb' timestamp='1437117598' post='2823644'] The question is clearly prompted by the idea that tall is better than wide for bass drivers, when used in multiples. [/quote] no. In the idea of the Baffle step.

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1437087781' post='2823572'] If you turn it upside down, are they pronounced "spiw"? Dood, have you got any 1x12s to A/B this one with? [/quote] mine was a serious question ..

Quick q does the sound of the "pronounced mids" change slightly if you turn the cab onto it's side?

[quote name='dood' timestamp='1437061838' post='2823306'] I actually can't wait to fire her up for a listen! [/quote] neither can we!

If I were you I would also put the hellborg pre/poweramp in the for sale section here on the list. The pre is essentially a copy/clone of a Neve channel strip into a amp with the output transformer.... I had the preamp and it was lovely but didn't have the amp to go with it.

odd question.... best pickups I ever played were Nordstand - any reason why you went fender rather than nordies?

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1436105043' post='2814962'] Funnily enough, that's [i]exactly [/i]what Ned Steinberger did and Stuart Spector said, 'Love it!' A little while later, the head of sales at Warwick said, 'Bass guitar sales have nothing to do with body shape. We're going to copy the worst body shape on the market and I'll prove to you we can still sell millions of basses with it.' And that's how that happened. [/quote] I quite like the body shape. And even if you didn't are you really telling me that Warwick do not make worse body shapes?

None of my current basses came from here! Which was a bit of a shock! I think I've bought 3 or so.

same seller as kegs dodgy warwick post. I've just offered £1....

or ebay had an offer on if you started a sale post at a certain time...

surely the designers are old enough that they aren't using the metric system! The 12mm, 15mm or 18mm chat makes me helpful its going to be in nice simple metric!

[quote name='Kev' timestamp='1435878212' post='2813357'] Fingerboard and neck being glued up.... [attachment=195527:11667962_10155706033015405_1544610083_n.jpg] [/quote] think chris needs more clamps