Beer of the Bass

I've been down to my brother's workshop, where we set about it using a bandsaw and a router, plus assorted hand tools. Now it needs the contours rounding in with sandpaper, finish sanding and finishing. The control cavity was drilled and chiselled (rather than routed) as I felt that neatness was less important there and it was quicker than making another template. There are some scorch marks from the router which I'm hoping will sand out, but on the whole I feel it's going well so far.

I'll be cutting out and routing the body over the weekend - pictures to follow. I've decided to go with the second approach, but i've rethought the body shape a little - it's now slighty elongated compared to the picture above, which gives a little more space behind the bridge and improves the control spacing. The control plate will be single ply tortoiseshell acrylic, backed with copper foil to make the swirl stand out. I'm going to experiment with finishing on scrap, but I'm thinking of some kind of oil finish, maybe with some grain filling if it needs it.

I've never quite got it. In any "hip" musical genre, those who play exactly what they want to play without caring what anyone thinks are considered to be the epitome of integrity and authenticity. Yet to do the same in a less fashion driven genre like jazz is considered self indulgence.

[quote name='silddx' post='1275882' date='Jun 20 2011, 01:50 PM']A question for those who get to gigs on public transport and have to take an amp and cab of some sort. How do you do it? Use a trolley of some sort?[/quote] I drive, but don't own a car at the moment. If the gig pays enough to cover it, and we need to move a lot of gear, I'll use a rental or city car club car. For public transport gigs, I have an EA Wizzy 10 cab and AI Clarus head which fit in to a cajon bag with a shoulder strap. I find I mostly use my larger amp in pubs and small venues where we're using our own vocal PA, otherwise I'll use the small rig (or house amp where applicable) and DI through an OLC Flipster preamp. I like using my bigger setup where I can, but realistically, it doesn't sound better than DI-ing into a good PA through the Flipster.

Is it just the tailpiece cable that's snapped, or is there other damage? If it's just the cable, that should be an easy and cheap repair. As long as the soundpost is still in place, you may not even need to visit a luthier.

I reckon it's one of these: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JOHNNY-BROOK-BASS-GUITAR-RED-/120738536738?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item1c1c93dd22"]Johnny Brook[/url] Which makes it a less than amazing price.

Yeah, fair enough, Pete, and the input of MM collectors is probably useful in this case. I just found a few of the responses in this thread a bit ugly considering that the guy appears to have been going on the information he had available and has been willing to alter the listing as new information came to his attention.

Has anyone considered that the seller might genuinely have received that email from EBMM, and that somebody at EBMM made a mistake or didn't give the pictures more than a cursory glance? It is unlikely that every individual employee of EBMM will be fully versed in the minor details of basses that may have been made long before they joined the company. Answering queries from people who are neither existing nor potential customers is probably not high on any companies list of priorities, so perhaps someone in the office at EBMM just had a quick look at the photo, sent a reply along the lines of "yeah, looks like one of ours", before going on to the next task?

The pickups do look like Ibanez. If he was to list it as an Ibanez, with no mention of the R-word he could probably get a decent price, though less than the starting bid at the moment.

[quote name='lettsguitars' post='1253298' date='Jun 1 2011, 11:02 PM']looks like he's havin fun to me. what was he using?[/quote] I think it's a Yamaha DX7, atop some sort of grand piano. That [i]was[/i] what you meant, wasn't it?

Not sure about the John McLaughlin comment though. Early on (i.e. the Extrapolation album) he definitely swung, and if his rythmic feel changed later on it was probably a stylistic choice rather than a deficiency.

A friend of mine had one which used to hang around our rehearsal space. This one had been partly stripped, seemingly using a chisel (!), and was very definitely solid wood. It looked a bit like the rubberwood they use for chopping boards and cheap furniture, so I presume it's a mystery Asian hardwood. It was nice and light though, and sounded like a respectable p-bass once we'd put in a decent pickup.

Even with the same amp, it could have been down to that bassist's technique, strings or EQ rather than any specific property of the Kay bass. So you're unlikely to nail that sound just by finding the same model, but you might get close by playing with the variables above on pretty much any Precision style bass. Edit: i've just googled the K1-B, and it's the short scale, SG shaped one, right? So looking at other short scale basses might be a good start if that's the sound you're after.

It looks like a relative of this amp; [url="http://www.chambonino.com/work/miscguitar/misc18.html"]http://www.chambonino.com/work/miscguitar/misc18.html[/url] So I guess it might have been labelled Gem.

I bought a set of tuners from Chris. They were in excellent condition, he responded quickly to messages and I'd cheerfully buy from him again.

I had an Ibanez rick copy, from the Cross Salesroom in Glasgow for £80. Unfortunately a previous owner had pretty much trashed it. It had moved at the heel joint which someone had "repaired" by drilling in completely useless dowels, and a big crack near the nut, which had been glued with epoxy which also locked the over tightened truss rod in place! The back of it had been oversprayed to hide all of this. It self-destructed about a year later...

I'm thinking that the first one would look good with a really garish pickguard material like this: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260786670319&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT[/url] A bit like the colour scheme on Prince's Hohner guitar.

I do play with a pick some of the time, but my pick style involves more wrist than elbow movement (i.e moving in a relatively small arc), so the position of the controls on my four string has never bothered me. I would probably have the contols slightly further back on the second option - the picture is just a rough mock-up. I'm thinking more of the aesthetic aspects of the two. The second option looks a bit less fender derivative, which could be a good thing. I tend not to like basses with plain wood fronts, as I feel like a pickguard or control plate of some sort can compliment the lines of the body and break up the coffee table look.

I'm about to embark on building a five string bass, using a swamp ash body blank and a maple neck which came from an OLP. I also have a pair of Jazz pickups from a Lakland Joe Osborn, and a set of Schaller tuners on the way. The bridge will be a generic Gotoh 201 lookalike from an eBay seller. In a couple of weeks, I'll drop in on my brother, who has a nice workshop with bandsaw and router etc. and cut out the body. I'm planning to finish it in Tru-oil, to keep the blonde look. I have built one instrument before, about 12 years ago, which I enjoy playing but it's somewhat crudely built and the weight (12 1/2 lbs) is starting to make my back ache after gigs and rehearsals. So the intention is to build something lighter - anywhere under 10 pounds will be fine. I've decided on my body shape, which will be based on my old four string but with rounded, jaguar style horns. I'm toying with the idea of using a little teardrop shaped control plate like my four string has, or a more fenderish pickguard and back routed controls. I've mocked up both configurations, and included a picture of my old four string for comparison. I'd be curious to see which people like better, the pickguard or control plate.

I modded a cheap precision copy to eight string a while ago, and used the existing bridge with additional grooves cut in the saddles. There are some pictures of it here: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=98333&hl=eight"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=98333&hl=eight[/url] Because of the position of the intonation adjusting screws, the strings have to travel at a bit of an angle behind the saddles, and I needed quite deep grooves to stop them from popping out. So the grooves in a threaded saddle may not be deep enough to work well. Admittedly mine was a bit of a zero budget, quick and dirty job just to see if it would work. The intonation is a bit rough higher up, but not totally unusable.