The Way You Do the Things You Do - The Temptations

It's important you get the RWRP thing right, unless you want an buzzy or out of phase sound... my suggestion would be to give yourself options, with a series parallel/switch for the EA & DG pairs of pickups as @Bigguy2017 suggested, and possibly a phase switch. You might be able to wire each pair with it's own series parallel/switch or wire both to a single "inner" series/parallel switch as well as having an overall or "outer" series/parallel switch. With the pickups being single coils parallel to the strings you can't really do coil splitting as you only have one coil per string.

My brain is melting trying to picture what that would look like wired up. I'm not sure it's possible. If it is possible I think you'd have loudness issues if you had one pair of pickups in series and one in parallel. That might not be a noticeable problem if you compress or distort the signal though.

EDIT: Cool idea, I was going to say why did you go with a reverse Split-P kind of slant with the pickup footprint... then I realized it's a lefty body.

Town Town - Tatus Toe

Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Iron Maiden

La La Love You - The Pixies

42 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I suspect that issues with the nut might not be as bass as they look.

 

Very tasty.

I'd say you're right, looks like the slot is good and deep to stop pop outs, and the angle is hardly a 90 degree bend on a knife edge. maybe double the average angle but not that extreme.

19 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

The string break angle is still in a single plane - just not one that is perpendicular to any of the sides of the nut (you have to stop thinking in 2D and think in 3D). The witness point for the nut is not on the "bottom" of the slot as with a straight string pull.

 

Of course that angle is still a bit too extreme even if it was rotated round to be in the standard plane for a string string pull.

I stand corrected! Thanks for that, I guess it's in a single vertical plane (if the bass is lying on the ground like in the pics), but instead of just being in a plane parallel (co-planar?) to the basses centreline like most 4 in line headstocks it's rotated with the center of rotation at the start of the nut where the angle changes.

The witness point is on the "bottom" of the slot, because the strings go down and sideways, so the witness point is also on the side of the nut slot. You could argue it's somewhere between the side and the bottom, if it's a single point of contact but I think it's less like precision machining (pardon the pun) and more like tying off rope so there are no weak points or snags.

Du Hast - Rammstein

5 hours ago, tauzero said:

The headstock mirrors the body angle beautifully. The best way to have approached the break angle issue (sadly no longer available) would have been to shift it all upwards[1], so the break angle to the E string was in the opposite direction to what it actually is and the break angle to the G is reduced.

 

[1] Or, depending on your perspective, leftwards

I think if you insist on wrapping the strings the same way around all the posts, so you can use 4 of the same kind of tuner (without weird partial reverse tuning lol!) you're spot on with the geometry, like the below:

I think the mixing of wrap directions is definitely a less elegant looking arrangement, if you look at some Bass Collection or Fodera, as well as I think a few others you can see the effect they have, definitely not to everybodies taste!

Chop Suey! - System of a Down'

On 16/08/2021 at 07:43, dyerseve said:

Considering the nut is brass and is cut to match the break angle, actually nothing could go wrong.

I'm pretty sure that even if the slot is perfectly smooth and deburred, and has enough room for the string to sit properly at the bottom of the slot, the sharpness of that change of angle where the string meets the nut (in two planes simultaneously!) has potential to cause issues. If you strung it in reverse you might have issues bending a thicker string that much in a tiny radius, and as it is I can see a dramatically increased chance of binding, even with smooth rounds or flats, compared to a much gentler angle.

The irony is the bridge, with little changes in angles, appears to have roller saddles (for string spacing adjustment I presume) while the nut has plain slots. A normal roller nut probably wouldn't work by itself, you might need to have bearings in two directions, like a bandsaw blade:

You might need a custom angled roller, or a standard roller and a custom roller string tree, rotated 90 degrees.

My suggestion would be to use a standard nut, cut normally, then run the strings around a very smooth string tree or trees you've angled or machined to the desired angles with very gentle transitions.

Or you could get creative!

EDIT: Lol I forgot to mention that other than some damaged laquer, that bass is glorious in it's wood and in it's over the top looks.

I do think it would be even nicer with contrasting wooden binding, or maybe a 4002 style checkerboard or some other jazzy pattern if it has to be plastic.

Sweet Wine - Cream

The Combine Harvester ≈ Brendan Grace

Paint It Black ≈ The Rolling Stones

Thank You ≈ Led Zeppelin

Words (Between The Lines Of Age) ～ Neil Young

Looks well, a jazzy shade for a jazzy bass. Well done on the patient repeated prepping, coats, waiting, levelling, prepping....

G&L SB-1 sounds best to my ears, even if the other two are richer in the highs they're getting on top of the sticky guitar groove too much for my taste, if the bass level was lowered / EQ'd a little in those frequencies I think it would lose a lot of the bite. Flats win for my ears in that mix, and the P-like mids are hard to argue against.

Nice.

I think it depends on what sort of neck you're making (thick/thin, 4 string or 8 string etc., reinforced or not) as well as what the wood is like. I imagine you'll get a good idea of how stiff and tough it is when you prepare the stock.

If you go for a fender style 4 in-line headstock you might want to plan carefully how thin you make the headstock, most mahogany type woods being more brittle than maple.

For a fingerboard it should work just fine, particularly if it's a nice dense piece of wood and you give it a tough finish to protect it from

kaput . . . is it in splinters/horribly warped or is it something more minor?

Yeah, you can assume all necks could fail, if it's wood and if it's not laminated or x-rayed it could always have a large enough void or soft spot, assuming the wood isn't just unstable overall. Good quality control will catch almost all of these, before the wood is even cut into neck blanks, let alone a finished neck. I heard the Squire Jazz necks vary slightly, different fret sizes and carves, varying from year to year, mostly by which factory makes them I guess.

If you can get one cheap I'd go for it. If the truss rod works and the current neck can be salvaged I'd attempt that first, even replacing the truss rod if you're feeling brave!

On 27/07/2021 at 13:48, Grreth said:

Please excuse me if there is already a a thread on this but....

 

Has anybody tried replacing the neck on 34" scale with one of the retrovibe 32" scale necks?  Was it straightforward and did it work?

 

Thanks in advance!

It would need to be custom fit, unless it just happened to be within the intonation adjustment of the saddles.

Putting a capo on the first fret, measuring from there to the 12th  13th* fret should give you an idea

If the 32 inch neck would fit so the back of the nut is roughly where the 1st fret is on your current fretboard, and there is plenty of intonation adjustment in either direction...

It should be a fairly simple case of slapping it in and carefully drilling holes. Otherwise you'll have to move the bridge, modify saddles, maybe even have to relocate pickups, even if the neck pops right in!

*EDIT: It's the 13th fret on the 34" scale neck, which should correspond closely to the 12th fret position on the 32" scale neck that would be a drop in.

On 12/07/2021 at 22:08, shoulderpet said:

 

And not to hijack the thread but now having 1 spare pickguard I did what any self respecting basschatter with a Halfords 5 minutes walk away and got some spray paint for my spare pickguard so now I have a gold one as well, not sure which one I prefer 

 

 

 

On 28/07/2021 at 16:53, Marillionred said:

Is it good for metal plastic?

 

I'll get my coat......

 

7 minutes ago, Doctor J said:

The price should be £19.71, if you're just going to pull a number out of the air.

Or £1971, if you're going to be asking for silly money!

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

...The only solution I can see would be for both halves to be the same (3 string) size, but instead of having them overlap in the middle, would be to have the half only detecting two strings to stick up or down beyond the lowest or highest string. But then you're back to poor aesthetics again...

I think we can achieve what you're after by having a substantial overhang on both sides.

EDIT: Of course this would look weird with exposed pole pieces, since you would need a dummy pole piece where the 6th string would be to have a even magnetic field (why you're bothering to make the coils the same footprint in the first place!)

EDIT pt II: The "6th String" mentioned in my EDIT would be a low F# (I think?) in the above mock ups, a third pole piece in the B & E coil.

1 hour ago, Gardenerben said:

I like it, but I think it would look great with clear or a plain or pearloid, as long as it's not a neon/highlighter colour, that woodgrain will be the star and shine just fine.

25 minutes ago, Gardenerben said:

Much nicer tort that..

I agree, but the shade could be partly due to different lighting.

On 07/07/2021 at 15:06, prowla said:

What is the point of a bass with headless tuners and a headstock?

I think it's either for the look like @Dad3353 suggested, a bendwell type function like a Status Kingbass:

Or maybe it's to have the feel or hang-ability of a headed neck, while keeping most of the weight at the bridge end... there's probably other reasons I can't think of.