Basvarken

Forgot to show you a step 😉 Before I drilled the holes in the headstock I made a test headstock out of cheap MDF Because for this bass I had to used a new type of tuner for the octave strings. I had always used ultra light weight Gotoh Stealth tuners for the octave tuners. But Gotoh no longer makes them. Gotoh does make carbon plate tuners that are very light weight as well. But they are quite expensive and have to be made to order so it can take months to have them. Then I found that Schaller has a light weight tuner too in their arsenal. The GrandTune machine heads. I decided to modify them a bit by cutting off one lug. This would not only make the tuners even a bit lighter. But also would make the headstock shorter, which is a big factor in the battle against neck dive! So when I was happy with that result I drilled the holes in the real headstock (as seen in the post above).

When the fretboard and truss rod cover were ready I made a rough cut of the neck shape. And glued the fretboard on. As always I used strips of inner bicycle tubes for clamping. Then clamped the neck to my work table. And started to shape the neck profile When the neck was taking shape I drilled the holes for the tuners. Drilled holes on the side of the fretboard for the side position markers Glued the markers in Filled the little gaps under the frets with a mix of ebony sawdust and Titebond Original

It always starts with a few wood blanks. I asked my wood supplier to make a body blank of White Limba aka Korina. And a nine-ply neck blank of White Lima woith strips of mahogany in between. I routed a slot for the carbon reinforcement strip in the middle. And two tapering slots for the truss rods. Made the spokewheel part fit. And decided to cover most of that part with pieces of the same White Limba, because it was siting a bit deeper than the rest of the truss rod. Drilled hols in the ebony fretboard for the inlays And after I had hammered in the frets (sorry no pics) I made the truss rod cover.

Here's the video demo to show you how the bass sounds:

Today I can finally present a new Brooks bass guitar to you guys. The Brooks EXB-12-TP Black. As the TP in the name already gives away, it was custom built for Tom Petersson of legendary band Cheap Trick. Tom sent me an email end of november 2024. At first I thought someone was playing a joke on me. But it turned out to be real. And early january Tom ordered two twelve string bass guitars. Here's the first. (more about the second one soon...) - Korina body - Nine ply laminated Korina set neck. Glued in - Black finish. Gloss - Checkerboard binding - White 3-ply pickguard - Ebony fretboard - Abalone position dots. Aluminium ring in 12th position - Jumbo frets - 30 1/2" scale - Buffalo horn nut - ETS Custom made twelve string bridge set. Nickel - Two spokewheel double action trussrods - Carbon reinforcement strip in the neck - Gemini Dominator in the neck position. Nickel - Gemini Devastator in the middle position. Nickel - Pure Tone output. Nickel - Toggle switch. Nickel, black tip - Hipshot Ultralite Mini clover bass tuners, Nickel - Schaller Grand Tune guitar tuners. Nickel, Ebony button - d'Addario custom strings - Weight: 4.9 kg ] I'll post pics of the build process below.

Looks like Marleaux maybe? That string anchor behind the bridge is typical for Marleaux.

Two brandnew Brooks bass guitars More infos soon...

Here you go: - Mahogany body wings - Nine ply Mahogany/Walnut neck. Neck through - Opaque white (blonde) high gloss finish - Abalonoid binding - Ebony fretboard - Circle position dots - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Buffalo horn nut - Three ply black/white/black pickguard - Custom made twelve string brass bridge set - Two spokewheel double action trussrods - Carbon reinforcement strip in the neck - Lace Alumitone Bass Bar in the neck position - Lace Alumitone DeathBar in the bridge position - Allparts stacked pots (volume/tone volume/tone) - Mullard capacitors - MEC on-on switch for coil split (humbucker-single coil) - Gotoh GB 350 lightweight bass tuners - Gotoh Stealth ST 31 guitar tuners - 2 xPure Tone Multi Contact jack output - d'Addario EXL 170 - 12 strings - Weight: 4.2 kg

The white twelve-string Thunderbird that I bullt 4 years ago.

I don't have a proper demo available. But here is a song that I recorded with this bass back in 2008

Took some new pictures of my Epiphone Jack Casady Signature. I modified this bass about 20(!) years ago with a Gibson lo-z humbucker from a Les Paul Bass that I had bought on Ebay at the time. I was not so impressed by the Electar element that Epiphone had developed in collaboration with Jack Casady himself. I never believed the marketing story that Casady didn't think the Gibson element of the Les Paul Signature was good enough. Knowing Gibson, they just had no idea how the original element was put together and then made a brave attempt to come up with something as close as they could to the real thing. Anyway, I took the plunge at the time and put the saw in the gold top to be able to mount the large oval Gibson humbucker in it. Thanks to CTS I managed to get hold of the right potentiometers that match the low impedance of the element. And the three-position rotary switch does not operate an impedance converter, (as with the original Epi JCS), but chooses from the three coil-taps that come out of this majestic Gibson pickup with no less than 8 wires. The head of the bass also got an overhaul. Every JCS suffers a major neck dive. So I replaced the tuners with much lighter Gotoh Res-o-lites. And I also adjusted the shape of the head slightly. Makes a huge difference I also fitted the bass with silver cap reflector potentiometer knobs. I modified the pickguard to match the shape of the chrome pickup ring. I placed a chrome bridge cover. And behind the bridge hangs a so-called Modbar to keep the double windings at the ball end of the strings away from the bridge saddles. I replaced the plastic nut with a bone nut. I've used the bass many times since. Live and in the studio.

Fanny was a great band. And so was Birtha. Another all female rock band from the early seventies.

Thank you for the suggestion. I present the bass guitars as honest as possible. No effects, no compression. Just the bass directly into Focusrite Scarlett > my iMac. But my recording equipment and skills are nothing to write home about. 😉 On the twelve string builds with two separate outputs i did demonstrate how you can blend a clean signal with a distorted one. Because that was the purpose of the separate outputs. Plus of course with the Brooks QB, I demonstrated the SansAmp and the Compressor because they are part of the actual bass itself.

Finally found the time to make a short video demo of the Brooks EB-MM-Q

The bridge "problem" was solved. Before I did the staining, I sanded a little curved at the end of the fretboard Then stained the whole bass black. It really made the quilted pattern pop. Drilled the potentiometer holes Built up quite a few laters of clear. And sanded in between. Then applied the decals to the headstock. When everything was perfectly flat and well sanded I spayed the back of the body, the sides and the neck a matte black. And the some layers of transparent matte. Applied the serial number And then mounted all the hardware. Put some old strings on for a little test drive. Took care of Intonation, Action, tweaked the Hipshot Bass extender. And then put the new set of d'Addario Chrome flatwounds on (per request of my customer) I'll make a demo video after the weekend

Test fitted the pickup and the Guyker two point bridge with separate tailpiece that I originally had planned to install. Only to find out I did not like how that combination looked. Plus the guy who commissioned the build came by with a Rickenbacker he had acquired recently and he told me he wasn't too fond of its narrow string spacing. Which was the same as the string spacing of the Guyker two point (18mm). So I decided to order a MusicMan style bridge as an alternative. And see how that would fit. This one has a 19mm string spacing. In my opinion it suits the bass very well. Especially in combination with the Lace MusicMan style humbucker. The only problem was I had already glued in the neck. With the angle set for the Guyker two point bridge. And the bridge post holes already drilled... I was going to have to plug the holes. And redrill them, with a different (narrower) spacing. Plus I had to gain some extra height, since the MM style bridge is a fraction lower than the two point bridge. So I made an extra bridge plate out of a plate of brass. And sprayed it matte black to match the Guyker MM style bridge.

Drilled the holes for the machine heads in the headstock Routed the neck pocket Shaped the heel Checked the alignment of the neck, before I glued it in Drilled the holes for the bridge Made a template for the pickup cavity. And routed it.

Routed the profile for the controls cover Later on I decided to widen the controls cavity a bit more, to create some more room for soldering. I have no pics of that (sorry) Then routed the channel for the binding Glued the binding in, using acetone instead of glue. Because I was going to stain the top I did not want to risk any glue on the top. Acetone just softens the binding and makes it stick to the wood by itself. I used the same rubber strips of bicycle tubes for the clamping.

Worked on the headstock shape a bit... ...And the neck profile some more. Then moved on to the body. First I drilled some holes with a forstner bit to make it a bit lighter Routed the controls cavity Glued the bookmatched set up quilted maple on top And routed the outline shape along a template. This time I tried a different method by not cutting out a rough outline first. I just routed along the template straight into the slab. This way I hoped to reduce the risk of router tear out. Which in this case did work. But the downside is that the router bit get dull sooner (I guess)

Ordered a pre-radiused ebony fretboard at Holz Faszination in Germany. And drilled the holes for the potion markers. Glued the markers in and sanded everything flush with the 16" radius beam Hammered the frets in Before I glued the fretboard on, I closed up the part where the spokewheel part lies deeper. Maybe it's nonsense, but I think it's neater to have a bit more wood in that place 😉 Glued the fretboard on. As you can see I roughly shaped the outline of the neck prior to that. The rubber strips of inner bicycle tube pull the fretboard and neck nicely together. Let it dry overnight. And then took to cleaning up the sides and shaping the neck profile. When the sides were all cleaned up nicely I drilled the holes for the side markers. And glued the side markers in

I asked my wood supplier to make a body blank of two nice slabs of Khaya (mahogany) And a neck blank of three pieces of the same Khaya. I routed the trussrod channel. And chiseled the spokewheel part Cut the headstock angle with the band saw. And planed it nice and smooth

Just finished the build of a new bass. It is a hybrid of a Gibson EB-0 (Les Paul Junior Double Cut) and a MusicMan Stingray. The shape of the body and headstock are the Gibson ingredient. The scale (34"), the pickup and the bridge are the MusicMan ingredient. Hence the name [B]Brooks EB-MM-Q [/B] (The Q is for Quilt) - Mahogany body - Bookmatched quilted maple top - Mahogany set neck. Glued in - Transparent black stain on top - High gloss finish on top and headstock face - Solid matte black on back of body and neck - Pearloid binding - Ebony fretboard with m.o.p. dots - Aluminium circle 12th position marker - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Buffalo horn nut - Guyker MM style bridge - Spokewheel double action trussrod - Lace MM style man o war humbucker - Hipshot Ultralite tuners plus Bass-extender - CTS pot Volume Push Pull - CTS pot Tone - PureTone jack output - Dunlop StrapLocks - D'Addario Chrome Flatwound strings 50-105 - 3.75 kg I'll post pics of the build process in separate posts below.

I got these. They're one louder...

Easy fix 😉 Here's what a friend of mine did:

Got many requets for a video demo of this bass. So I caved in and made on this morning 😉