Beer of the Bass

So you've got no ground wire going to the bridge at the moment? I strongly suspect that the buzz will go after you've fixed that. The polepieces on Jazz bass pickups are not grounded, and your body acts as an antenna for interference. When you touch the poles this is induced into the pickup windings. It's worse on one pickup than the other because on most pairs of Jazz pickups one has the hot end of the coil on the inside (close to the poles) while the other is connected the other way round. When the bridge ground is connected, your body is earthed via the strings and there is much less noise when touching the poles. The same thing can happen when using nylon tapewounds as those are non conductive on the outside and leave you un-grounded.

0.6mm veneer does the job very well. eBay has lots of small packs sold as samples or offcuts for a couple of pounds and you don't need very much of the stuff.

He'll be lucky to find somebody willing to pay that much, comply with his unusually demanding terms and conditions and collect it from Dumfries & Galloway on one day only...

That's a lot better preserved than my German flatback of similar vintage. There's a patch on the back of mine where the dark brown varnish has flaked off that suggests it was once a similar colour to yours. It's a good sounding bass though, better than anything else that was within my budget. It's had a new fingerboard and bridge since this photo was taken. It's wearing Spiro Weichs now, which seem to suit it better than the Mittels.

The one I can recall struggling with is Billy Cobham's Stratus. It's a simple line and not that hard to play, but it's constant 8th notes without a pause and keeping that up for five minutes while people solo is surprisingly taxing!

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1406662891' post='2513571'] Is this unusual then, or am I missing something really obvious? [/quote] Not all that unusual, just a fairly classic disco bassline nicely done. I can see why he gets as much work as he does.

Just in time for my gig tomorrow, I've got it done. Frets being polished after levelling and crowning. I went back and bevelled the edges a little more after this photo, as I realised they still felt a little prominent. I levelled them with sandpaper over a long sanding block, crowned them with a three-corner file and polished with various grades of wet and dry paper and one of those little fingernail polishers from Boots. They're just several grades of fine abrasive on a foam block and I find them very convenient for this job! I checked the fit of the neck in the neck pocket and found that it had ended up a touch narrower than the old neck, leaving a gap. It was a small gap and I could have left it, but I chose to fit some matching veneer along one side of the pocket to keep things snug. I had to enlarge the truss rod adjustment cavity a little, as the old neck had a wheel adjustment and the new one is an allen key type. I may make I plastic cover for the cavity, I'm not sure yet. Here's the headstock with all of it's hardware. I used a Hipshot three-string retainer as I felt the old round button didn't give a very good back-angle on the G-string. I cut the nut from a piece of Buffalo horn. I probably won't choose this material next time as the dust smells even worse than bone dust and it doesn't look much different from black plastic once its done. I tried to keep the level of the top fairly low so that only about half of the string sits in the slot. The finished bass plays better than it did before, the truss rod works well to adjust the relief and I prefer the smaller frets. There are a couple of blemishes like file marks, the less-than-invisible glue line and some spots where I should have spent longer finish sanding, but I guess those are part of the learning experience. I [i]think[/i] the stiffer neck has helped the B-string response, though it's hard to be definite about these things. With flatwounds there is a certain amount of thump (especially higher up the neck on the low strings), but the B does sound like it belongs with the other four. Of course, the issue with projects like this is that I'm all enthused about building stuff and wondering what I'll do next. Perhaps a cheeky five-string Ric-inspired bass...

I've potted pickups at home a few times, after dabbling in winding my own. I used about 80% paraffin wax in the form of white household candles and 20% beeswax in the form of those little sticks they stock in hardware shops. This was cheaper than buying bags of wax pellets for candle making. I put the wax in a plastic takeaway tub, which sat inside a metal oven dish of water with a rack to keep the tub off the bottom, heated with occasional bursts of a hob on its lowest setting. The temperature you want is hotter than a hot bath but cooler than a fresh cup of tea, where you can stick your fingers in without pain but not keep them there for a long time. A thermometer would have been a good idea, but really as long as it's hot enough to stay fully melted but not so hot as to cause a fire hazard it'll work.

That's a very tidy job, quite Burman-esque with the tagboards and neat lead-dress. Neater than the guitar amp I did for myself (which was in Fender style on eyelets), so I can appreciate the work that went into that.

That's very cool. Transformers for a 200 watter can't have been cheap!

Some kind of piezo pickup (like the Shadow pickups linked above) will be a little less natural sounding but much more feedback resistant than a mic, and is probably the best option in a louder band with drums. They really need some sort of dedicated Piezo preamp or a good active DI box with input impedance of 1M ohm or higher, as straight into a line input or using the wrong DI box they can sound terrible!

I use drop-D tuning on double bass in just one song and it's a pain in the bum as the A-string always needs a tweak at the same time. I have creaky old wooden hatpeg tuners too, just to make re-tuning more fun. I don't do it to match the guitarist, but because a bowed low-D pedal note sounds good in that one song. If the guitarist messes with the order of the set list it can get really irritating! Some day I'll get a C-extension fitted, but they're not cheap...

It's getting perilously close to being a finished neck now! The headstock decal is on and I've coated over it with several coats of tru-oil. Hopefully that will be enough to stop it from peeling. I've roughly cut the nut too, which I'll finish during the setup. Next I need to level and crown the frets. I have a gig on Saturday, so hopefully I'll have it together for that.

Are these still going round? It's been a while with no comments on the thread.

Silicone products like Mr Sheen are best avoided, as they are extremely persistent and can prevent glues or adhesives from working years down the line if any repair or refinishing work are needed. It tends to creep and spread from where you've used it too. I have seen and heard more than one rant from luthiers on the subject! For rosewood fingerboards you just want a light oil which won't go rancid (i.e not most vegetable oils), used sparingly and not too often.

That sounds pretty good - it would perhaps benefit from a little EQ but as you say, it's an unprocessed recording. Is that the crackle you mentioned that I can hear from about 0.10 - 0.14? It almost sounds like it might be a mechanical rattle rather than an electrical crackle. Nice playing too! For my own gigs I've settled on an AKG perception 150 mounted like in the picture above, though it's smaller and lighter than the Rode. It's worked well so far, even on an outdoor festival stage. At that gig the sound guy had to do a little work with the EQ during the soundcheck to stop feedback but once that was done it was quite workable. At smaller gigs it's been surprisingly quick and hassle-free to get a decent sound out of. I still have the AKG C411 on the bass just in case the mic doesn't work out at a particular gig.

Out of curiosity, is this single or multiple plies and does it look printed or like proper marbled plastic? I'm eyeing up the brown "tiger" version of the same material from the same seller on eBay. It's hideous, but in a strangely appealing way!

Cheers! The decal paper was the clear laserjet version from this chap on eBay, though he seems to be out of stock at the moment. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-X-INKJET-OR-LASERJET-WATERSLIDE-DECAL-PAPER-CLEAR-WHITE-BLUE-BACK-/321461032416?pt=UK_Crafts_Other_Crafts_EH&var=510356810014&hash=item4ad89215e0"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-X-INKJET-OR-LASERJET-WATERSLIDE-DECAL-PAPER-CLEAR-WHITE-BLUE-BACK-/321461032416?pt=UK_Crafts_Other_Crafts_EH&var=510356810014&hash=item4ad89215e0[/url]

I've done a quick test of my decal using an offcut from the headstock. I've reversed the image and printed it to laser decal paper, then filled in the letters with silver paint pen. The decal is then soaked off its backing and applied to the headstock. Because the decal paper is used the wrong way round, I have added a drop or two of PVA to the water to help things stick. I've applied the decal over a couple of coats of tru-oil, allowed it to dry then added a couple more coats over the top and they seem to be compatible. I'm not sure whether I want to leave the decal as plain as this or perhaps add a couple of words in smaller text. I think I like this font though - it's nice and simple and not reminiscent of a particular maker.

I think the reverb on a Blues Junior is the weak link for that sort of style, as it just doesn't get the depth and splashiness of the valve driven reverb on the older Fenders. So I'm going to second the suggestions above for a Blackface or Silverface Fender of some sort (whether an old one or a re-issue) and choose the model to suit your tastes for volume and amount of dirt. Anything from a Princeton Reverb to a Twin Reverb will get you that basic sound, it just depends what size of room you need it in and how loud your band are.

I've been carrying on with the tru-oil. This is three coats in, and I don't think I'll go much further, though I think I'll use steel wool and Briwax for a bit of a sheen. The last time I used tru-oil, I left too much on and had to do loads of cutting back to get it even. This time I've wiped it on with a coffee filter and tried to leave only enough to barely wet the surface, which seems to work much better. The wood is looking quite pretty in an understated sort of way, much nicer than the yellow "vintage" matt poly on the old neck. I've also tru-oiled an offcut from the headstock to try out my decal idea. I was toying with the idea of trying to get it ready for my gig tomorrow, but I reckon I'd be better to take my time and do a decent job of the fret-dressing and nut.

I've done some more sanding and the first coat of tru-oil is on. Unfortunately my camera batteries are dead! I'm also doing some experimenting with decal paper. It's just going to say "beer" (my surname) in Helvetica Neue lt 75 outline font, with the centre filled in with silver paint pen.

Any particular height can feel different depending on how the fingerboard has been shaped, so it's hard to be too prescriptive. Some players go even lower for a steel string jazz setup, some keep it higher.

I gather that wouldn't unusual for orchestral playing, but for jazz with steel strings I'd want it lower. I have had incredulous looks from a general stringed instrument luthier when asking that my string height be no higher than 7mm on the G string - he shook his head and said "but that's a cello setup!" . This is why luthiers who play jazz bass are like gold dust! I'd be inclined to go back and talk about how you'd like it.

The Superflexibles are quite high-tension steel strings, despite the name. They're good strings but would be hard work for rockabilly slap unless you buy the solo-tuning version (designed to be tuned a whole tone higher) and use them at standard pitch. Innovation strings could be worth a look, as they make several sets designed for rockabilly playing and they're reasonably priced. Most bridges are higher at the E-string side than the G-string side, so a bridge shaped for left handed playing may need some work for a right-handed setup. It might be a good idea to have a luthier look over your bass to see if any setup work is needed.