Kiwi

Single coil or humbucking pickups (in my experience at least) are a blunt tool when it comes to tone. They're useful for general changes in that you can move a resonancy peak around, boost/cut output level and cut the highs back but that's about it. If you throw a set of MEC's in a jazz bass you'll just get jazz bass, albeit with whatever changes MEC made to impedance, voltage and output to get the Warwick character they wanted. The most interesting (and sophisticated) pickups I've encountered are those on Wal basses. Each pole piece has it's own coil and is essentially it's own pickup. Potentially you could wire up stereo panning from that arrangement but the potential for tweaking the resonancy peak for each pole piece is interesting - and the effects of cross talk between pole pieces. It would be really interesting to throw some of those in another bass to see what happened.

[quote name='obbm' timestamp='1476104801' post='3151291'] Exchange rates are always moving up and down. In my working life I've seen the dollar/pound swing between almost $1 =£1 up to $2.4 = £1 and back. Just because the rate is bad today doesn't mean it will stay there. [/quote] Cold comfort for those of us depend on importing for our livelihood. [quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1476100783' post='3151218'] Also, some Chinese stuff is sh*te, but a lot of it isn't. [/quote] Generally they don't solve problems very well unless they're in a crisis and they don't do things that require professional judgement very well but they do repetitive, mass production stuff incredibly well. Chinese stuff is only as good as the effort put in by the person responsible for quality control. US companies with Chinese manufacturing employ QC firms to check random samples off the production line are consistent with a spec sheet that should include tolerances on critical dimensions. Warwick do some incredibly neat work on their line of Rock basses. Overlord who make headless parts are rubbish.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1476109567' post='3151373'] Do we have a large scale producer in the U.K. ? [/quote] Tanglewood is about as big as they get here.

I haven't gigged since 2009. Not because I haven't wanted to but simply because lack of work hasn't afforded me the luxury of staying in one country long enough to develop contacts. f***ing recession.

Unless they're using a lot of imported parts...ABM's prices are bad enough in doubling within two years from 20 quid to forty five for a headless tuner (yes, ONE tuner). Goodness knows what impact Brexit is going to have. Chinese prices will no doubt fill the gap where products can be produced without too much professional judgement and retailers will start championing the value and credibility of Chinese made goods on discovering that the alternative is not selling anything because the majority of customers can no longer afford the alternatives. Or...someone will take the plunge and invest in a UK based 3D printing bureau capable of mass producing bass parts...

Yeah but I had a go on a prototype 5 string back in 2010 though. If he can get Warmoth to supply the parts and you ask him nice, he might compromise. It sounds like he's made huge progress in managing the false triggering issue too if the demo vid is any indication.

Speak of the devil... http://www.starrlabs.com/product/zbass/

I mentioned what Jam Origin were up to on the last post about MIDIbass/synth bass. It was OK but did have minor latency issues down the lower registers, no worse than on my Graphtec/Axon AXON system. The only way to avoid latency issues in pitch to MIDI conversion is to avoid pitch to MIDI. The best solution out there is by Steve Chick, who designed an electronic resistance based system that was licensed to Valley Arts, Wal and then Peavey. He's since developed his own range of basses under the Industrial Radio brand but none of those systems were cheap or easy to fix if they went wrong. More over, you still had to play very cleanly and deliberately on those basses too if you wanted to avoid false triggers...just like you do on all the other systems including the Deep Impact and Future Impact. Just something a player's gotta learn if they want to use the system, but it's possible if the effort is put in. Playing quickly and percussively is still pretty tricky though. It's a shame no one makes push button fretboard, game controller type bits of kit in a 34" scale. It might be an ideal solution.

Nearly a year since I posted in this thread. Guess it's about time for an update. Farewell to the Steinberger XL25A, the tobacco burst Spector and the 1975 Jazz. Lovely basses but I couldn't play them and they were just surplus to my forseeable requirements. Hello instead to..."one I made earlier". [attachment=229532:IMG_1082.JPG] If you haven't seen the build thread, the specs are:[list] [*]Moses MB145 graphite Steinberger neck [*]Semi hollow body from mahogany with quilted maple front and flamed sycamore rear carved tops [*]Custom Armstrong humbuckers with coil splits [*]Noll 3 band parametric eq [*]Custom hidden headless bridge arrangement with ebony/rosewood bridge cover. [/list] There were a few extra parts needed to make this bass playable which are still on their way and it needs a decent set up. I've also "invested" (ie. spent more than I expected to) in some pedals. Future Impact bass synth pedal [attachment=229530:Future Impact cut out.png] Bought as a replacement to my Deep Impact which was becoming worn out with use. While 100 presets are available I wonder why. I've still found the first 10 Deep Impact presets to be the most useful. Empress 3 band Parametric Eq [attachment=229529:Empress para cut out.png] I bought this to give an extra boost to a narrow range of snarly mids. The sort of thing a decent wenge and maple neck might provide too. Incoming: FEA Labs dual band optical compressor [attachment=229531:FEA DBCL.png] They're currently selling every unit they make - it's based on Trace Elliot's Dual Band compressor which I've always admired, but with higher spec components. Guitar wise, I've sold the sunburst MSG to a BC member and the Klein-berger is awaiting a replacement tuning knob but is otherwise complete.

I'm not a Fender guy but would probably go for a beaten up mid-70's precision with a maple fingerboard and jazz neck dimensions. Decent amount of snarl with those IIRC and they sound funky with flats or rounds.

I would probably go with an East preamp. They sound good and come with internal gain trim and input buffers. If you want more control over the bass and treble then a Noll 3 band parametric will do the job too but you won't be able to fit it to any bass that requires a deep insert input jack unless you enlarge the jack socket hole internally to take the whole 9 pin socket.

Update bump: Found out how to get a satisfying crunch - JJ Tesla 12AX7C preamp valves. Gorgeous mid-gain sound (I guess it could be boosted too.) The woofy, fuzzy Black Sabbath 70's sound I was getting was simply worn out preamp valves. The JJ's have given my GX3 preamp a new lease of life. Wish I had the combo with me to work on too...

I'm in the middle of sorting out a situation with a particular music shop on Denmark Street that I won't name in the interests of giving them an opportunity to finish sorting their mess out. However on the topic of retail generally - my second day back in London was memorable for the appalling level of customer service offered by at least three establishments I visited. After the music shop, the next worst was a phone repair shop that treated me like my phone was some kind of poisoned chalice. I have to admit I tore a strip off the guy in the middle of the shop. All they needed to do was listen, and get back to me if they encountered anything unexpected. I had gone well out of my way to reach them and jetlag lowered my ability to tolerate teeth-sucking,could-be-tricky attitude. I told them what I thought the repair was going to be and (when I finally opened up the phone myself - I was correct). That entire day was a total and complete waste of my time and train fare.

I have owned two F112's for a couple of years. I used a couple of GB Shuttles and want for NOTHING. Midrange is perfectly preserved and the cabs sound like PA speakers but with a little bit of extra bottom end definition regardless of volume. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. A couple of GK RB700 heads could be a nice compliment, with their boost control.

I have Floyd designed trems on my MSG's and I'm still struggling to see what the benefits are over a floating vintage trem and a teflon/tusq nut. I'm finding the string tension is a bit much though, maybe I need to go back to 9's rather than 10's.

Trying (unsuccessfully) to cope with a new culture that didn't like middle class people from England. With the benefit of 30 years of hindsight it was one of the worst years of my life.

Anyway, so there was a problem with the string length and after faffing about for a bit, we concluded that the best option would be to go for a headpiece that allowed single ball end strings to be used. Moses do one but they're being a bit obtuse in confirming whether that head piece will fit my neck. I suspect not but then there's a question about whether the head piece could be made to fit if all it involved was removing material. Alternatively, HeadlessUSA do an add on string clamp out of milled brass or aluminium but it's a less elegant solution than the Moses head piece. We shall see what happens when I hear back from both this week. It's almost the sort of thing that someone might take to e-machine shop in order to fabricate... But anyway, Jon rigged a set of old strings he had so they fit just so we could test the electronics. The finished instrument is here: [attachment=228636:20160925_121806.jpg] [color=#1D2129][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]When I set out with this project I wanted visually to achieve something that looked like the bastard love child of a three way between Fodera, Steinberger and D'Angelico with body width to match a Jaydee. I think the extra coats of matt finish helped to pull the maple back a bit and turn the whole thing into a much more subtle thing.[/font][/color] [color=#1D2129][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Tonally, I went looking for prominent midrange, vintage highs and solid, warm lows. That was mostly achieved - loads of snarly midrange as you might expect with a semi holllow. However the bass sounds a lot more stingray than I anticipated through all the coil split options. I may yet still faff about with resistors to change the impedance of the neck pickup in order to fatten it up a bit. [/font][/color][color=#1D2129][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The surprise was how much sustain was on tap. I've generally held Moses-made Steinberger necks in high regard and that trust has been rewarded. I expected the semi hollow body to dampen things a little - and it has but in a nice way. The notes take ages to die off though - which suggests the next bass planned (a matching fretless in a tobacco sunburst), will be something to look forward to.[/font][/color] This bass took a lot longer to finish than I expected but the results have been more than worth it! For once, things turned out pretty close to how they were planned.

OK here goes part one before I fly back home tomorrow. Feel like I need to be doing some kind of Captain Kremen style exposition. "Hellooooo viewers! Last week you'll recall we left the bass finished but not complete! What could possibly go wrong?! Lots, as it so happens..." OK so Jon had painted the body in its colour coats and given it a couple of coats of clear finish. The grain popped way more than I expected and I ended up worried that I was going to have some PRS DNA mixed into the whole Fod-berger-gelico thing. That didn't turn out to be as big a deal in the end after Jon slapped more clear coat on it but there were a couple of issues we needed to resolve before we could make progress. 1) The neck pocket. The screw holes were out of alignment with the holes in the neck pocket DESPITE using the pointy neck bolt process to identify the locations of the neck bolt holes. So Jon and I agreed that the neck holes on the neck needed to shift instead of the holes on the body. So I drilled out the brass inserts we put in the neck last time, routed out a super deep channel through each of the rows of bolt holes and we slammed a couple of bits of wenge in, [attachment=228626:20160919_134109.jpg] Planed/sanded the inserts back, drilled new holes that lined up with the neck heel and then installed new socket inserts. [attachment=228625:20160919_170704.jpg] One problem solved. 2) Bridge Yeah Jon worked out a solution but the dimensions needed testing. So we worked on that for a bit. First a sodding great hole needed routing in the back of the bass for the tone block and to allow enough clearance for using the tuners. [attachment=228627:20160920_122719.jpg] Then I shaped and drilled holes in an oddly shaped tone-block that the saddles were fixed to. [attachment=228629:20160920_160059.jpg] After the bridge was fixed, Jon rounded the saddle edges off for me on the vicious belt sander (sorry, but I swear it had it in for me) and we set about aligning it with the neck. [attachment=228633:20160923_115857.jpg] After the saddle was screwed down, the rest of the work just involved tweaks - we took the ebony bridge cover down a few mill so it stood less proud, I lined the control cavity and tinted the back rout for the bridge, f hole and neck screw holes with black stain or paint. Then I installed the pickups, soldered connections on the pick up coil selectors and worked the rats nest of a circuit into something slightly more rational (and robust). That took a whole day as we didn't have a schematic for the pickup wire colours and I got the connections wrong before we both managed to work out what went where. After that...we discovered that the double ball end strings I brought wouldn't fit. OH f***...

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1474821580' post='3140797'] MacDaddy and Herbie, plus a colourful tuba. [/quote] I started humming "[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIM_2e4CBVs"]Tuba Smarties[/url]" when I saw this.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1474750290' post='3140301'] And a wall of Wals with their proud owners! [/quote] That made me go slightly weak at the knees...and I was even lying down. What a line up!

Here's a teaser with the man himself.

Ped and I can't make it, just too far to drive. Have fun though chaps.

Quick bump to breathe some life back into this thread. I was back at Jon's this week and while I didn't get to even start on the fretless, the first bass is finished...save for a new headpiece and set up. Stay tuned for more later folks...