durhamboy

That Elm is very nice, the paler wavy sections running up the middle are as attractive as the burl and a striking contrast too. Lovely.

Oh yeah! That body is as lovely a piece of ash as I've ever seen. This is going to be a beauty.

Yes, flat fingerboards do look a little odd, perhaps we are just so used to seeing curved ones? I've always had a couple of acoustic guitars around the house, one being an old classical, the fingerboard on that doesn't look odd, but then it's a familiar old friend... I like close to flat necks, 20 inch radius, so no radius doesn't seem much of a stretch. Maybe one day I'll try a flat one, or just stick to 20.

Absolutely lovely. I very partial to the organic roundedness (new word there?) of your builds. I'm a bit that way inclined, (though I'm certainly not claiming to achieve your standard of work) so I know how much work goes into getting it right and having the curves flow smoothly and evenly. Those lovely rolled edges really allow the beauty of the grain to show itself to the max.Great work. Noticing the fingerboard, is it flat, prior to being radiused, or is it going to remain flat? I keep thinking about doing a build with a flat board, maybe a fretless.? (If I don't like the feel it wouldn't take much to radius it.)

If you don't want to take a flame thrower to a body the stain mixed with grain filler route works quite well. This is an ash body, grain filled with filler mixed with dark brown stain to the desired darkness. Apply the filler, wipe of the excess and when fully dry sand the body.

I'm with Andy on this, though of course I haven't seen the issue, but from your description it sounds like it's a very minor imperfection. Weld the crack by all means if you want to insure it can't possibly spread. Curse the hell out of it, fix it if you can't not, then have done with it.

This build could be a real all blonde extravaganza with that flame ash and the flame in that maple neck. Looking forward to seeing the build progress.

I always use brass saddles on Telecaster type guitar builds, but no brass nuts these days, unless someone asks for it, though I used to cut my own brass nuts when I started out building electrics, but that was back in the late 70's, and brass was a big thing then. My first few builds had brass bridges, saddles, string retainers and nuts, some even had brass knobs! (Though necks, natural finishes, DiMarzio and Bill Lawrence high output pickups and brass hardware, pure 1970/80's.) There's an opinion that once a string is fretted any possible effect produced by a brass nut is taken out of the equation, that any effect from having one will only be apparent on strings played open. That sounds logical to me, but the main reason I stopped cutting them was fashion moved on and people stopped wanting them, plus they are a fair bit of work especially if you start from scratch with brass rod. The terrible old Kodak 'Instamatic' camera pick is of the first two guitars I ever made back in 1977, All Tasmanian native timbers, Mountain Ash, Blackwood and Myrtle and plenty of brass...

Sibob, project_c, thank you for the details and your experiences and knowledge concerning latency and recording. I tend to run pretty clean most of the time, old school I suppose? Not much in the way of effects to my preferred bass sounds, more about a fairly clean sound from quality pickups and the instruments characteristics. I'm a compulsive fiddler, tinkerer and builder, probably why I began building and modifying guitars and basses in the first place, so I'm quite looking forward to the journey into the recording unknown and if what i try doesn't quite work as I imagine, learning and changing might.

Thanks for all the valuable comments and information folks. Paul, I understand your concern about latency, a possible issue I was aware of, though only from having read about it, rather than any real experience. Some things will no doubt be a "suck it and see" approach as I find my way through a whole new field of music. At this point I'm looking towards a Prosonus Audiobox, which has direct out jacks, which I assume are for monitors, though perhaps I'm assuming too much? Still more research to do, what's the famous line, something about unknown unknowns?

Looks like an interesting build, love the ash by the way, maybe before you decide on stain or not just wet the wood and see how that grain looks, I reckon it will really 'pop' just natural. Stains are great, but they can dumb down some of the timbers natural highlights and subtitles a little. But then I'm a bit of a natural wood fan, so I'm probably biased... Either way it should look pretty special. Your choice of pickups and placements has my interest too, especially as I have been thinking of putting a Bart B-Axis jazz pickup I have laying around, at the 24 fret position ahead of a P in the standard mid spot. This is going to be an interesting build.

Thanks Ricky, I hadn't come across his videos before.

Good luck with your move and your new climate controlled workshop when the time comes. In the end, nowhere is perfect, but we compromise because life is always about more than one thing. I get why you wouldn't want to leave Wales. (I love the parts of Australia I have lived in, but despite having been here for 51 of my 66 years, I still miss things about the land of my birth every now and then. Though I suppose I only remember the good bits, as we all tend to do...) Can't wait to see the triplets finished, I know the time taken will be worth it.

Nice to see things are progressing, it must be frustrating having to wait months for the weather to improve enough to spray again. (Having been born in Durham I can remember real winters, but here on the south coast of Australia I reckon I'm hard done by if I loose a week to cold and rainy weather. Today is 17 degrees C and down to 7 overnight, though we do get a few cold fronts with overnights of 4 or 5 and days that only reach 11 or 12 during winter.) Anyway nice to see things happening, your work is so very top class.

Yes , I like the option of the amp sim options in DAW, so many options. I'm looking forward to entering todays world of home recording. (Back in the late 70's I had a Sony two track reel to reel about the size of a large suitcase for home recording of song ideas, oh how things have changed...)

Thanks for the reply, everything you've said sounds logical to me, hopefully not just because I was sort of leaning that way anyway.... I've noticed some good deals on headphones and monitors recently so it could be time to act. (There are times when having the monition option could be handy, my wife has a Yamaha Clarinova electric piano, so family jams are an option😉)

OK, so I'm intending to build a home recording system, possibly Prosonus Audiobox, or similar featured Scarlett, suitable software and a pair of reasonable powered monitors and decent headphones. I was also planing on getting a small combo amp, purely for home practice when a bright idea (or possibly not so bright idea?) hit me. Would I really need a small amp for practice, or would my recording system fill the same role? Does a DI/interface plus monitors/headphones negate the need for a practice amp? ( I'm retired, the kids have grown up and left us with the space for a dedicated music room, so I don't even need amplification anymore.) These days I try not to be the music gear consumer I used to be, so would I really need the extra piece of gear a new amp would be? Any thoughts or suggestions?

I've been toying with a couple of 3 pickup bass ideas and have almost decided on one of them, still thinking about the other. One is to do a version of the famous Lee Sklar P bass with double P pickups, the bridge P set behind where a normal P would be and the neck/middle P set in front, both reversed as with Lee's. A Jazz pickup will then go in the gap between the P's, (there's a roughly 3" space between the P pickups, which in Lee's bass is where the battery etc.for his EMG pickups is) which is pretty much where a J's neck pickup goes anyway. That would give 7 combinations, each pickup separately, all together and any two together. The other possible 3 pickup I've been considering is to have what is basically a Warwick Thumb placement of two J pickups back close to the bridge and a J neck pickup added to basically allow a Thumb type combo and a "normal Jazz bass combo. I think both concepts would provide distinctly usable sounds and some genuine usable versatility, but only building them will tell the story.... At least being own builds, it's only really wasted hours of work (and maybe a couple of wasted bodies) if it turns out the end results weren't worth the effort. 😉

I have an old Makita 3608B without a plunge function, it's 500w and is still going strong after close on 40 years. (Got it in '81 from memory.) I have a 20 year old "cheapy" Craftech 900w plunge router which has served me well too. The old Makita has a large knurled collar right around the body that adjusts and locks the depth and I must admit I like using it, I suppose I learned how to use a router with that little Makita and it was my only option for so many years. Prior to getting that router my only power tools were a Black and Decker drill and a Makita jig saw, all of my early guitars and basses were made with those and hand tools.

Thanks for the heads up and info on the Orange range, unfortunately I can't find any retailer of Orange amps here in Australia at the moment, (they used to be available) but I'll keep an eye out to see if they become available again.

Thanks for the tick for Warwick, their small combos are reasonably priced here, just no one within about a few hundred miles stocks them , so I'll be chancing buying untested.

Thanks, I hadn't thought about Roland, though I know their reputation for build quality and reliability. I'll see what might be available down here, due tour smallish population, it often means sometimes we have limited choice and importers often don't stock all of a companies product range, only the lines they see as big sellers.

Thanks for the responses, I haven't been able to find EBS gear available in Australia as yet, but All of the others can be had. Markbass down here are very expensive, only one importer by the look of things. But I've got some searching to do. Hartke HD50 , HD75 anyone?

OK, a little background first. It's over 20 years since I've played bass and owned a bass, or bass amp of any description. So to say I'm not up to date on modern bass equipment would be an understatement. I'm newly retired and aiming to get back to playing bass again, only for home enjoyment playing classical pieces on bass and composing, or jamming with friends, (mainly with piano, acoustic guitars). I'm thinking a small combo, around 20 to 40 watts may be all I'll need and have been considering either Warwick BC20 or BC40, or Ashdown AAA evo30. There is nowhere within reasonable traveling distance (a few hours) where I could try any Warwick or Ashdown amps here in rural Australia, so I'm taking a punt based on internet searches and hopefully so sage advice here. Will any of the options mentioned give me the chance of good sound reproduction and given that two of the options only have 8 inch speakers, would I be loosing out in bass response at that speaker size? Any and all advice or opinions will be greatly appreciated.

I'm 65, just picked up the bass again after twenty+ years away just playing those funny little 6 string thingies. So I'm building myself a new 4 string at the moment. I figure I've got as long as I've got to play and record at home and with friends. If I live to be 90 and didn't take it up again that would be a possible 25 years of extra enjoyment missed out on.