basexperience

In use yesterday at the Dubs in the Middle festival (wicked stage, and the backline provided was an entire 1x15 / 4x10 Ashdown stack on castors - impressed!) - TBH I've seen promo shots of Absolution 5a Elwoods where the binding looks completely identical to this. The finish is impeccable! The binding is the most amazing job, and the bass performed beautifully!

I'd certainly ask what truss rod they're using now. This bass was made in 2014, I think - I bought it from Quent: manufactured in 2014, so it's an 11 year old bass now. I'd hope they have improved things since then.

I can recommend @Manton Customs - Robin just did an amazing job on my Maruszczyk Elwood 5a Absolution, truss rod replacement for the "soviet era" rod in there after it gave up (seriously, it's not a good design) - also put carbon rods in. Sourced, aged and replaced binding for the board which looks excellent. Now playing so nicely! There's a thread for the work over here:

Another update - THE BASS IS BACK! Arrived very early at 8am yesterday, and after a little time to warm up in the house and a couple of setup tweaks for relief and action, this bass is now 100% where I want it. Low, low action, fast to play, great tone, and looks amazing. Robin has done a great job of getting the finish right - you have to look really closely to tell it's had work done to it at all - the neck binding in particular is a lovely piece of work, blending back into the original around the headstock. Truss rod now works in the normal direction, with a seriously long key available (nice one!), the carbon rods are in there doing their job, and the whole bass just feels so much better. Thanks @Manton Customs!! If anyone would like to see some pics of the completed article on here, let me know. Cost was seriously reasonable considering what's been done here - the bass overall cost to me is still a lot less than a new one, and I can have confidence that it won't need work like that again. It really is a stunning instrument.

You’ll be fine. I’ve got 2 wicks with bell brass frets and a couple of basses with stainless steel ones, and I only use D’addario XL nickels, no worries at all. I’ve used stainless steel strings a couple of times and I don’t think you need to worry about excessive fret wear.

I recognise this feeling so much. I've played a lot of jam nights in the last 2-3 years, and they can be just like that. One particularly rough pub in Reading yielded occasional moments of inspired stuff, truly eclectic song choices and some hair on the back of the neck moments. Random people telling you they love the bass and normally it doesn't get a chance to shine - when I hear that, I just know someone really heard what I was doing. That's when the house band fee feels like it's worth the candle. I hope you get that feeling as often as possible - it's the feeling of having actually entertained someone. 🙂

Yep! I wound up finding him on Facebook via the FI group there. Blue case coming this week!

As it turns out, I can! I didn’t realise there was anyone still making them - but there’s a fella on Facebook who’s in the Future Impact group, and I’m now in touch. Yay!

Oh cool, not heard of that one, I’ll make sure the band know about it!

Christ, that’s a good idea

The fella who made them just stopped doing it, sadly.

I needed some weird reverbs and noises, so I took a £50 punt on the M-VAVE ANNBLACKBOX and I've got to be honest, it's better than I expected. I need to repair the FI again though, the output level pot has died just like last time. I'll have to take it off the board, the pot isn't solid enough to survive being in the bag. What synth do you think I should replace it with? Wish I could get one of the 3D printed recase kits to turn it into the mini version, then I could pull it into the board a little and off the back edge, which would protect that pot... replacing the pot is a complete ballache as well.

Hey, you must be somewhere near me! I'm based out near Newbury after many years near Maidenhead and I gig up and down the M4 a lot.

The wide ones look really comfortable. What's on the other side? Would it grip a little and counteract neck dive a little?

That glucosamine habit can be an excellent one to get into. I’ve been taking it for nearly 20 years (I’m 54 now) and I’m convinced it’s the reason I don’t have major joint issues. Yet. What age are you guys? Do you tend to fret hard?

I recently joined an Alanis Morissette tribute act, Jagged Little Alanis. First full set was last weekend at the Essex Arms in Brentwood - great little venue. The amazing fella who did sound videos everything. Here’s me trying to be Flea 🙄

I’ve had an update from Robin at @Manton Customs - neck is back together, everything is great, all that remains is the cosmetic job to ensure the new binding looks in keeping with the slightly aged binding on the rest of the bass (this thing has binding on all the edges!). So that’ll take maybe another 2-3 weeks. really looking forward to getting it back. Being able to play it like the Rikkers will be amazing.

Don’t be put off - critical to me finding out I had a problem was discovering I couldn’t adjust things to my liking. I’d say it sounds like very small adjustments, then give it time to settle, and critically remember the anticlockwise reverse action on the rod. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I wonder if the old rod design could even get the neck as flat as I wanted it. I’d had the bass around 2 years at that point, and it had never been quite as ludicrously flat as I keep other basses… I can say that getting the bass fixed has been a great adventure in itself!

Great gig with Jagged Little Alanis, at the Essex Arms in Brentwood - nice venue, a real stage! Used the Rikkers and the current mega-pedalboard, which I'm going to cannibalise a little for a more targeted one for this band 😄

I'd always rather have a rod which needs a little more turning to achieve the desired result (within reason) as this allows for finer adjustment - if you're a picky bugger like me who loves the neck totally flat with pretty much no relief at all, it makes all the difference. I'd also imagine a rod with a rather rapid adjustment might get "stiff" faster, as presumably you require more force per unit of relief (the forces here remain the same, it's kind of like gears on a car - I'd like first gear on my truss rod, not 3rd)

If you look at the picture, you can see the original rod is threaded so it tightens anticlockwise (the head was attached to the top of the rod as you see it in the picture, I think). It looks pretty straight to me in that pic. I can see why it *was* sensitive, the threading at both ends presumably means you get a lot of travel for a small amount of adjustment at the head. What I can say for sure, is that I knew all along it was a reverse action rod, and I never got the neck flat. @Manton Customs - did the old rod channel show signs of compression where the rod was mounted internally? I'm curious, too.

Actually, you've reminded me that the tale of acquiring the filter had a false start - I bought the guitar version by mistake and had to enable the extended LOW eq while I was using it. You're right - there's no need for the 8K! Although I may now check it out with the expression pedal plugged in to see what happens when I sweep things a bit... great pedal, though..

And I can really recommend the shipping company Lenspeed Logistics, too. I've learned a lot in the whole process here.

I've actually only just realised something completely fundamental about the old truss rod: it's literally not pulling against itself, as it were, unlike the new one. So the new one is bending under the force of the part which screws, against the attached rod which accompanies the threaded rod. The ends of the rod are fixed and do not move, or dig into the wood in the plane of the fretboard (so it's not squeezing the neck, as it were, it's bending it). The old rod depends on the wood to be strong enough to take the squeeze from what look like two hunks of steel, and not compress, which is EXACTLY what I keep reading happens with these necks. You run out of rod adjustment, and then... snick, off comes the adjuster head. Honestly... 😑