Rexel Matador

My two pennies' worth. both songs tart with a guitar riff and then the bass comes in and makes it something really special: Matt Freeman - P-Bass pick perfection: Jonathan Gallant - Stingray I think - I'm not usually a fan but I love what this guy does with it:

I'm building a multiscale 4 string bass to be tuned to drop B flat (Bb, F, Bb, Eb) with a scale length of 900-850mm (approximately 33.5"-33.5") Usually, using such low tunings on a 34" bass, I find that the saddle for the lowest string has to go way back to intonate properly. The single string bridges I'll be using only have about 10mm of movement, so naturally I'm keen to get them in the right place. And I'd rather avoid having to plug and redrill the bridge screw holes if at all possible. What effect will the longer scale have? Will the saddle need to be even further back, or will it mitigate the need for such an extreme adjustment to achieve correct intonation? Are there any tips or tricks for determining bridge placement? Thanks in advance for any advice you might be able to provide!

Cut with the scalpel then widened with a knife so the saw bites (but that's for another day) Whether I've been accurate enough for this thing to actually play in tune remains to be seen, but I'm pretty happy to have got this far!

That pink fretboard has been abandoned on account of its flimsiness. I'm using this maple one instead. The heel end looks like that because I'm stealing the Framus idea again - screws going in the opposite direction under the scratchplate. It worked nicely on my first build so I thought I'd try it again. I've also radiused it. I was originally going to go for a totally flat board but decided against it. I don't really know why, it just sort of happened.

Lovely stuff. If you've come this far I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. Carving a neck is nowhere near as difficult as you might expect.

I've had good results with the Crimson Guitars finishing oil. From what I remember, they reverse engineered Tru-Oil and tweaked it a bit for guitar purposes. I forget the details. I'm not affiliated by the way, I just find it to work pretty well, and it's good that there are lots of demonstrations on their youtube channel.

I've totally lost the motivation for this, which is a shame as I've got so much more time on my hands. For one thing I feel bad buzzing away with powertools when all the neighbours are stuck at home! Hopefully I'll find some inspiration over the weekend and get back to it.

Stingray scratchplate and control plate. For such an "iconic" design they look like a rushed afterthought to me.

Gerry McAvoy - played with a pick and everything!

Branding on the body. Sandberg make some nice basses but those four dots mean I will never own one. And perhaps more controversially, tortoiseshell scratchplates. I always assume people like them because they invoke a particular era, because visually they make no sense - especially on a sunburst - gross! Highly subjective of course! Edit: I just thought of another one: those big long single cut bodies you so often see on higher end basses. I realise this one is not purely an aesthetic choice, but a horn does the same job, surely?

Made a template today. This plywood is far from the ideal material for the job but the piece of MDF I was going to use is in my office and I won't be going there anytime soon. It seems to be free from gaping voids so it should do the job. Still needs a fair bit of sanding but it's nice to see the body shape full size - I think it's going to look great. I've slotted the fretboard, though not to full depth yet, just to see how difficult it was actually going to be. Yes, it's covered in gunk from when I taped it down to plane the bottom, but after a good sanding it'll be fine. I like to keep my build diaries warts 'n' all. It's a very weird looking piece of wood - I'm just going to go with it and see what happens. And the neck blank with truss rod - still playing around with headstock shapes. I'm not doing anything fancy for this one - and I want to keep it relatively small as this bass is going to be long AF - but I still want it too look the part.

Yep But Dee Dee's were very cool, I must admit:

I forgot to mention the scale length - it's 900mm to 850mm - so roughly 35.5 - 33.5 inches. For my current band I tune, low to high Ab, F, Ab, Eb. -so the low string is a semitone lower than standard and the others are a semitone higher. I think, if I string it .135, .100, .080, .060 (or maybe .065) - I should get a good consistent tension, but it might take some trial and error. I've never played a bass longer than 34" before, so it might take some getting used to. Oh, and the perpendicular fret will be the 7th. Just copying Dingwall because they seem to know what they're doing - nothing more scientific than that!

In between bouts of “working from home”, queueing at the supermarket and my one form of exercise per day, it seems like a good time to build a bass (not least because it’s always a good time to build a bass). I’m craving a fretless so I can get jazzy in all this spare time, but, much as my last build is growing on me, it’s just not metal enough. So the plan for this one is a multi-scale, EMG-equipped, 4-string, modern-looking, vaguely Fender Jazz influenced affair. I’m not made of money and I actually quite like the simplicity of the ESP LTD “black metal” bass, with it’s single EMG soapbar, so I’ll be doing something similar. Single volume pot again, as I won’t be needing a tone control. Wood choice is a little weird, but it’s just what I could get hold of - cherry for the body and neck and African rosewood for the fretboard. The rosewood is very pink/red, so I might try a dark cherry red stain on the body. Scratchplate and hardware will be black. I like it when jazz-style basses have the scratchplate but no control plate, and was quite pleased that the warped body shape allowed me to apply that to the single volume configuration - happy accident (though not to everyone's tastes, I'm sure) I’m going to try a flat fretboard on this one. None of my other basses have one and I’m curious. Here’s a very rough idea of what it’ll look like. The headstock shape is a placeholder - I haven’t given it much thought yet. Also it'll have frets, I just couldn't be bothered to draw them in. So far, I've started on the fretboard slots. It's going to take a while!

It's all good - the guitar is important. After all, if the guitar hadn't been invented, it would have been impossible for us to go on to realise that it had two strings too many and was a few inches too short, correct said errors and invent the bass. Looking forward to seeing it unfold.

I'm making one at the moment - I'll let you know!

I know it would work in theory. I was just wondering if anyone had an idea of if/how it would affect the tone. I would just go ahead and try it if pickup winding wasn't such a tedious process!

What would happen if you wound a humbucker like this - in two squares instead of two lines. Would it make any difference at all? .

I did indeed. Now I've reworked the shielding, it's definitely improved.

It has a series parallel switch already. Parallel mode isn't doing much for me but I might find a use for it one day! Since my earlier posts I've re-done the shielding and the fret dressing, both of which have improved matters greatly. And as far as the sound goes, I'm used to p pickups so I think it was just a matter of figuring out the new amp settings I needed. They need a little more help from the eq controls - far too middy with everything flat, but I've got it sounding pretty good now.

Thanks, I really needed and appreciated that 🙂 You're absolutely right of course, it's all part of the ongoing experiment that this bass-building rabbit-hole is and always will be! I have learned so much from this project and there are aspects of it that are miles better than my earlier builds.

Despite endless measuring and checking the strings weren't aligned correctly. As I couldn't really move the neck pocket, I had to move the bridge. You'll see it now I've pointed it out. Secondly, the homemade pickups don't sound great (to be expected, I suppose, but I was lulled into a false sense of security/hubris, having made a P-Bass pickup that actually sounded quite good - beginners luck perhaps. Also it's a bit buzzy - I have read everything there is to read about shielding, grounding etc, but it really seems to be something of a crapshoot for me - sometimes they turn out absolutely fine! It's a strange feeling - I should be very proud of what I've achieved (and in a way, I am) - this is only the fourth bass I've built - but as you can imagine, I was really hoping to be happier with what I found when I plugged it in 😆

Ok, no more wonky stick, it's done. It's a lovely looking thing but I bit off way more than I could chew with this one. I'm going back to basics for the next one for two reasons - a) to get a real sense of my progress since the first one and b) because I actually need another solid giggable bass!