MoonBassAlpha

Guitar and bass for me and I  own a drum kit. Since lockdown, my drumming has come on a bit. I  recorded along with a jazz backing track yesterday and it sounded almost like a drummer. 

Anyone who has heard my composition challenge entries can decide for themselves on the merits of my drum wrangling

As an addendum to my earlier post a few months ago,  I  got the Studiospares m1000 Mark 2. I  think they were £59.

They have a more robust headband now,  still have removable cable and now come with 1 set of leather ish pads and 1 set of velour ones, similar to Beyer. Sound wise they are quite similar to the mk 1 but  slightly clearer top end. I always found the mk 1 a bit shy there. The m2000 is the same in open backed design. 

On 12/02/2021 at 18:25, Andyjr1515 said:

We're going for an oval jackplate, set into the body.  It's 6 of one and half a dozen whether this is best done before or after the main finishing.  For gloss, I tend to do any holes and cuts after because these kinds of features can tangibly change how well the coats go on the way I do it.  If I was doing a spray finish, I would do it before.

It never ceases to amaze my just how big a hole you have to drill to fit a standard jack plug! 20mm is pretty much the minimum and even then you often have to taper it to allow the tip contact the required movement:

 

And these jack plates don't have a lot of leeway:

 

A carpenters mallet and two or three different radius curved chisels around the periphery and I can start paring away the wood with a standard chisel.  The criss-cross formed by the chisels is useful because it prevents chippings getting too large and deep:

 

And happily, no slips.  In the morning, I'll tidy up the edges with some fine emery and finish off with a quick sealing wipe of tru-oil:

 

I've always wished more builders would do this. Nice detail Andy!

Looks great!

On 01/02/2021 at 13:05, Maude said:

If I was going to source some original Hofner ones for mine you could've had my Schallers. I've realised though that the holes have been enlarged to fit the Schallers so no going back to original now without extra work. Hofner used Schaller parts when they ran out of stuff as Schaller was literally down the road so they're kind of fitting anyway. 

I'm not sure about mixing colours of hardware, if anything will work though I'd say the tuners might as they're on a separate part of the bass, hard to say without seeing a mock up though. 

Also on the pickup front, does it matter that the pickups are too wide? Presumably they'll be sat in cavities so the raised centre section of body is largely irrelevant, isn't it?

Wilkinson do some Hofner lookalikes that don't cost the earth....

10 minutes ago, BassBod said:

Is it just me, or is anyone else disturbed by a black bridge with chrome tuners?

 

I think it is consistent with Wal basses generally. 

Looks super. The bass in the background is my favourite single-cut shape out there though...

On 04/12/2020 at 16:05, jezzaboy said:

Just completed a sale with Jules and it was totally hassle free. I wouldn`t hesitate to do business with him again.

Ta!

Thanks Gerry! I had completely forgotten about the feedback thread, so I've popped some on yours too. Using the Mustang a lot now! Cheers!

23 hours ago, TwoTimesBass said:

Thanks mhoss, that makes sense, gives you some great options for the matching pedal! Those mini XLR's are pretty good, i've used them on a couple of (non-guitar/bass) projects in the past and they stand up well. Lemo also make some great, if a bit pricey, mini multipin connectors.

Lemo connectors are indeed things of beauty. They're so well made and finished. 

Bought Gerry's (@jezzaboy) mex Mustang just before Christmas. A total gent, the comms were excellent and the packaging, bomb proof!. A flawless transaction from start to finish. Deal with confidence, basschatters!

Is your preamp balanced output? 

19 hours ago, Rich said:

I think mine is also too far gone to be restored to factory. One pickup is dead and the other's not brilliant, only 3 out of 4 tuners work properly, the bridge is damaged albeit functionally ok and the original pots & knobs are long gone. It'd cost a fortune to make it worth money, and I'd rather have fun with it.

My mate's Verithin had both pickups die after an extended vacation in his loft. It was very inexpensive to get fixed. I  think the failure mode is corrosion where the hookup wires attached to the coil. The flux used was probably acidic and gradually corroded the thin coil wire over the years. Don't write the dead one off!

Sorry to hear that Douglas, hope you feel better soon!

I'm loving these Hofner rebuild jobbies! For me,  they are a nice size bass, quite small and light, and the lovely neck inlays have so much character! 

I  think a mid and neck pickup placement would be well worth trying , as is often noted,  the bridge pickup doesn't yield particularly useful tones.

Is that an active bass,  and can it be switched to passive? 

I didn’t quite read the picture text properly,  that makes sense to me now. 

With this sort of thing, it's worth bearing in mind that Gibson guitar headstock breakages probably account for 90 percent of all across all makes and brands. 

At least you've got a head start on getting this one off!

I know it's a bit late now you've cut wood, but isn't that a rather extreme headstock angle, or are you making it into a bass lute?

Wow, one of the strongest months so far. This is going to be a tough one to sort out!

The spacing of the Rumblekat bass gives nice tones with middle/neck positions

On 21/01/2021 at 10:58, Dad3353 said:

Band In A Box 2021

there's some awesome stuff in biab.My mate used it on a tune he did backing for me to practice drums along to in lockdown. I used it for an early lockdown composition challenge entry, Frantic Hamster Wheel. Everything except the drums sounds amazing!

Basschat composition challenge January 2021, as promised yesterday!
Piece inspired by this month's photo.
Any fans of Janek Gwizdala will be familiar with his Baby Elephant sound, which is what I'm using here, played on my new Mustang bass, with half-round strings, it's first competition outing.
The usual poorly played drums and a couple of guitar tracks on the Eggle (Berlin Pro)and that's about it.
Mostly in a slow 12/8 but slips into a bit of 13/8 near the end (I just can't help making things bloody difficult for myself!) and a bar of 13+1/4 / 8 just on the drums where I got a bit confused.

16 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

 

Agreed - it doesn't look good.  Happily, it is fake (well, if the US President can run a country on that basis for 4 years...).  I can only take a one handed photo on the SLR with my right hand, which unfortunately is the hand I drill with.  So this is held in the left hand and is not drilling.

"And that, m'lud, is the reason we are not paying the insurance for the totally forseeable accident."

I must admit it looked like the opening sequence for an episode of Casualty...

I think mine is done.  I'll sleep on it and put it in tomorrow. Any fans of Janek Gwizdala will know what to expect for a baby elephant sound. It's slightly annoying,  but that's babies, eh!

A first outing for my new Mustang too.

Roughly what scale did this end up and did you add side dots?  Looks nice.