HeadlessBassist

It is a factory fretless, yes. So would be a very delicate job, I'd assume. Yes, with the bend well it's a 32" scale as standard.

Guys, Guys, listen... We picked up a nice, but very oddly spec'd Status S2-Classic 5 today and we're looking to get the lined fretless neck fretted. Obviously most Luthiers won't even go near a graphite neck with a fret hammer, but if you know of a brave one with nerves of stainless steel (like his frets!), please do let me know!

Yes, A3's Preamp Pedal is interesting, but hearing Nick Campbell play his Olinto copy of his original Precision on his song, "Fancy Jeans" (starting at about 4:05) is worth the price of entry...

Well, it's been yet another epic traveling day, starting off from Derbyshire straight to Northampton to pick up a sales bass for a friend, followed by a trip to see @Silky999 for some routing action in the workshop, then onto another sales bass pickup from Hemel Hempstead, and finally to Kensington for a lovely Italian dinner and a great evening of bass chatting with @themoo and the obligatory long haul back to the East Midlands. So, what about the 'routing action' I hear you ask? Well, I'm not sure who was the most nervous, but the walnut/graphite Jazz needed to lose a little mass, so we decided to do some chambering - yes, obviously leaving a neck-width central spine giving clear 'tone block' vibration transmission from the neck to the bridge. Anyway, it was very cool to see Silky at work and as always, I am very grateful for his time, thoughtfulness and thorough research. 22mm I tell you. 22mm exactly!

I'd be looking for an Aguilar AG4M. I had one in my 95 Stingray and it was the best sounding Stingray I've ever played.

Agreed. If they're your brand and gauge, you're good to go. On most of my basses I usually slap on a set of 40-95 Elixirs (I like the long lasting rich tone and bendability). I recently picked up a shortscale 5-string Maruszczyk 'Mr.Tee' as a P/X which had the thickest set of flats I've seen, so they had to go. I actually found a reasonably priced set of Ernie Ball 40-95 flatwounds and added a 35 gauge for the top C. A short setup later and it plays like butter. Due to the bargain price of my own Fazley Judge Plus (aka. Kermit the Bass), I threw on a set of cheap Warwick Red Label strings that I got in the Black Friday sales. Bass £63. Strings £8. Reminds me of the cafe menus on Discworld; Rat and beans 8p Rat and ketchup 7p Rat 4p” “Why does ketchup cost almost as much as the rat?” “Have you tried rat without ketchup?!"

Soundtrack to a relaunch of the "Mr.Soft" adverts of the 80s? I'm nearly four minutes in and I'm suddenly feeling the need to lie down in a dark room!

That looks fabulous. Hope it plays as well as it looks!

That's standard operating procedure with all new basses - bin the stock strings and put something nice on. Always makes a huge difference.

Paging @Silky999 - he's used quite a few imported roasted necks in builds recently. He will have the knowledge of where to go and what's good value.

I love single cut basses, but have never quite managed to own one apart from an ACG for a short time many years ago. You might find that nothing resonates quite like them. I particularly like the sound of the Cort A5 SC - came very close to buying one last year, but failed to pull the trigger before the cheap offer finished.

Definitely liking the new logo & tagline 😃

Hey LowB-ing, unfortunately I'm away working for the next couple of days, but I'll see what I can do on Friday

One small query... Why does it have to be hum cancelling? If you install proper copper foil shielding, you get a hum free bass. The Walnut/Graphite Jazz I've just had built is shielded properly and it has no hum at all from the Fender Pure Vintage 66 pickups. (The 64 versions in my American Original Jazz can be a little hummy at times with the standard Fender cavity shielding paint.) My American Professional II Jazz has the Fender V-Mod II pickups with the Alnico 2 magnets on the bass side and Alnico 5's on the treble side and that sounds suitably vintage with that warm bottom end, and is completely hum free. So top of my list for passive Jazz pickups would be the Fender Pure Vintage 66, Lollar 60s and Lindy Fralin 60s. All of these have the rich tone, thumping bottom end and clear yet not harsh highs.) Every time I've played a Jazz with 'Noiseless' pickups, they always sound flat and inert when played passive. When you switch the preamp on, it's another story, of course.

Absolutely - they're just little individualities which make it a little different and more distinct. At the end of the day, what counts is how it plays and sounds, and it plays and sounds epic.

Here are a couple of Sound Clips, recorded from TC Electronic RH-750 in 2x10 enclosure with a Sennheiser Podcasting Mic about 8 inches from the amplifier. No effects. Graphite jazz 1.m4a Graphite jazz dean town 2.m4a

As I've said in previous build threads, get your MGCS Basses orders in soon. He's not only getting a bit good at this bass-making game, but every example I've played so far turns out to be much more than the sum of it's parts. There's nothing to apologize for here, just a great sounding and playing bass. And don't forget, if you've been toying with the idea of one of @Kiwi's AUROK™️ Graphite Necks, go for it. They're great!

So this all started in the heat of last Summer when I picked up a prototype Nitro Jazz bass in Daphne Blue by @Silky999 while I was on my way to a gig in Torquay. Quite soon after, I added some Fender Pure Vintage 66 pickups and an uprated tone pot capacitor. This bass, having grown beyond the sum of it's parts, basically showed that Silky999 was definitely onto something... Again, soon afterwards, I signed up for one of @Kiwi's first batch of Jazz bass graphite necks which he was soon to be putting into production in China. The initial intention was to put the graphite neck onto Silky's Nitro Jazz prototype, but it had already become a very good bass as it was. A few weeks later, I noticed that Silky had started work on his own common shape bodies, and he was in the middle of a Walnut Jazz Bass build. Swiftly adding 1 + 1 together, I came up with the concept for this bass - a sort of homage to my no.1 bass, a 2007 Walnut Status S2-Classic that I've owned for 19 years - so we'd build a sort of Vintage-Modern Jazz with Fender Pure Vintage pickups from the American Vintage II series basses, as well as black Gotoh '66 Lollipop Tuners and other nice Gotoh hardware, but with one of the first Kiwi-produced "Aurok" graphite necks for a modern twist to both the look and the sound. The neck arrived on these shores about two weeks ago, delivered directly to Silky and the build has been completed in two weeks. He's definitely put a HUGE amount of work into this bass during that time, overcoming several teething issues, not to mention learning to drill the inserts into graphite for the first time, but we've got there. It's not perfect, but gawd, does it sound fantastic?! I was originally going to get a John East J-Tone preamp plate for it, but it honestly doesn't need it. The 500k pots and more than ample copper shielding have made this a very quiet, yet shouty and clear instrument! Sound-wise, it's actually turned out better than I'd hoped, with a deep, growly tone & a lovely clear top end, with that unmistakable graphite 'shimmer' underpinning the sound. My errors? Well, the first was in the ordering of the lovely Gotoh Lollipop Tuners from Thomann - they're sold as either "4R" or "4L" sets - which I logically deduced would be RH and LH orientation. Er, nope. They're actually labelled for the direction in which they physically turn. Duh. Anyway, I've now accidentally got another bass with "vintage reverse tuners". Yep, we ended up putting them on backwards. I blame the Japanese, personally. Secondly, I ordered a really nice black Gotoh bridge which is seemingly set up for 19mm spacing, as opposed to the usual Fender-style 20mm, so the strings slightly miss the pole pieces, but it still plays and sounds amazing. It can be easily fixed later with a different bridge with adjustable string spacing. I also really liked the wheeled string tree on my GB Spitfire, so added one of those to the tally of parts, as well as a cheeky black "F" logo neck plate - after all, Fender did design the Jazz Bass, so they should deserve a little credit. So it just remains for me to thank both @Silky999 & @Kiwi again for all their hard work. The bass sounds literally amazing - even better than the Status T-Bass I recently played at Andy Baxter's showroom. No, I'm not kidding. Sound Clips to follow...

Coming soon (probably tomorrow) to a Kiwi near you - I'll just say that you're going to be mightily impressed! (PM coming this evening too...)

Many thanks to both @Silky999 & @Kiwi for all their hard work on this - it's the culmination of about a year of developing ideas which started off with my reserving one of Kiwi's first batch of Jazz necks, and originally planning to put it on Silky999's Nitro Prototype Daphne Blue Jazz, and then I happened to spot his Walnut Jazz body thread. What followed was a long haul wait for the neck to be developed and shipped, followed by lots of shopping for parts. I decided not to cheap out, so we've got Fender Pure Vintage 66 Pickups, Gotoh Lollipop Tuners and a high mass Gotoh Bridge, amongst lots of other nice bits. The last stage will be to decide whether to put a John East J-Tone preamp plate into it. Thanks again both of you for all your amazing hard work! @HeadlessBassist

Well, I seem to have fallen into the world of the short scale again... I took this lovely & unique little beast as a part exchange the other day and after a little work to get it set up properly, it's coming on very nicely. Oh, and apologies if this bass has been featured on this thread before. I got bored after scanning through more than 20 pages back. So what is it? It's a Maruszczyk 'Mr.Tee', a 30" scale 5-string hollow body Telebass with a Tele-style floating single coil pickup and a Piezo Bridge. This is all backed up by a powerful three-band preamp with sweepable mid frequency. The body is Alder with a Buckeye Poplar Veneer, and the neck is made from Flamed Maple with a Macassar Ebony fingerboard. The bass was originally built as a 5-string short scale fretless, but someone had it professionally fretted by a luthier. They did a very nice job, too. The original flat wound strings (tuned E-C) had way too much tension, so I ordered a set of 40-95 Ernie Ball flats with a 35 gauge C string from Rotosound. Had to fight a little with the truss rod before realizing that it's a two way affair which tightens backwards. Anyway, enjoy!

Now we're talking. That looks great! Bet it plays like a demon too. I have an unused red tort Jazz guard lying around. If you want it, let me know.

Fantastic playing, Joe! Even on one pickup, a Series 2/S2 will cut through anything and everything.

Argh! The temptation is strong with this one - luckily, I've already got an MGCS Basses instrument in the works and almost completed. Phew! I need to say to everyone, @Silky999 is getting very good at this game very quickly. His care, attention to detail and careful research are second to none. You'd all best order one of his basses before he hits the BigTime! (... or should that be 'BassTime'? 🤔)