itu

Remember to put some grease to the rod thread and turn the screw from end to end before installation. It is easy to do it now before the unit is inside the neck.

Thin fretwire requires more attention from the fretting hand. If you are at Mr. Sklar's level, go for it. Otherwise some wider model is usually far easier.

I think Darryl Jones was endorsing Pilot basses years ago. Were the fretboards really interchangeable?

@tomread, it was the chorus of Happy, where the bass stays at C (we transposed it to B) for two bars, although it sounds decent with the Eb (D) in the second bar. Thanks for the Chaka's Tunisia!

If you compare MG's necks to Vigier's, they are different. Patrice has an idea of a wooden neck with CF bars. Genesis has a carbon spine, that carries the string tension and attaches to the body. Materials are similar, constructions not. I have had few instruments with and without trussrod and the biggest difference is if the rod is loose and resonates. Other than that I can not hear the rod nor its effect. What I like in a stable neck, is that it needs no adjustment no matter the weather. All CF necks I have or have had (MG Quantum, Genesis, and Vigier Passion II), are super stable.

Modulus has offered the chechen fingerboard option for their CF necks since 1990's. Modulus combined wood (back of the neck and the fingerboard) and graphite (the neck spine) in their Genesis range also in the late 1990's. At this time MG produced all necks with trussrods.

Dear @tomread, Your work raised some discussion a week ago in our rehearsals. The song was from your archive, and the g-word player and the piano man said I should play a D instead of B in one song. I just said: "But in the score made by Tom there is a B." We listened the song a couple of times and then they admitted that: "Yes, your Tom has sharper ears!" Thank you for your active effort, it seems that I will rely on your excellent work in the future, too.

Go ahead. Should work fine.

This is not against you, sir, not at all. Using terms like "P-sound" would probably be slightly less inaccurate than "authentic". Sure the context is there. I also think that my Passion II could have "authentic and organic" sound, although the terms have pretty different meaning here. Yes, we lack precise, comparable terminology. If simplified generalizations are all we have, we need to accept that, but do we have to?

Interesting indeed. Any idea of the weight? Oil/wax or lacquer?

These words puzzle me from time to time: authentic, organic etc. Is it possible to get some inorganic sound from a bass? I do get the idea of HOT pickup, it is just an HO (high output) pickup with an added T (temperature?). But those previously mentioned qualifications are a real mystery to me.

I tried to mix a Status and a bartolini pickup, but Status' magnets were split: G + D were the opposite to A + E. There was no way to get an in phase sound with that bart through all strings.

A Sadowsky, maybe?

Were the coils side-by-side or stacked in a single coil case? The first one would be my guess.

I had a MG Quantum 5 SPi Custom and tried to find that B for quite some time. First I thought that it has to be very thick, and started from 130 to 135 and so on. No success. For some reason I happened to try somewhat thinner strings (120 and 125) and the bass started to sing! It is not clear that any string would work with graphite.

You can use whatever you want. Try different strings and find the most suitable set for you and your bass.

Peavey bought the necks from MG. Modulus Graphite produced necks, also headless ones, but I have never seen other than BassStar (what a name!). There are pictures in the old advertisements of the selection, but I suppose they are very rare. Was Lane Poor Minima wooden? Phil Kubicki and Greg Curbow both used laminates in their instruments' necks. I think laminates is better from marketing perspective, than plywood... Bond was a revolutionary g-word but I think the fretboard was really different. Electronics were a bit like in Vigier's Nautilus. German Basslab has graphite instruments. The bow may be inspired from Jerry Auerswald's creations.

TBX = through body experimental SPi and most of the earlier models are bolt-on.

I have played similar bolt-on Aria.

A good start, and... all gigs on September are cancelled. I got 5 calls today! Maybe next year... The 15th is still valid, should I turn my phone off for this evening, just in case?

Monet, sorry, money is not an object. (A Monet is.) 1) a studio 2) needed equipment 3) a selection of materials 4) visiting luthiers, like Patrice, Rob, Nobuaki, Joe, Joey, Michael, Roger and so on. Extra material could be sold in auction every now and then, if the playability or any other feature was limited...

I would still check the battery. If you have a DMM, is the voltage present at the preamp? Is the output jack loose? Any wires loose, battery, pickup, ground etc. Low voltage capacitors are very seldom an issue on a unit like the preamp.

Rickenbacker 4000, it is painted. Some Alembics fill the bill, but they are practically all custom. SKC has produced a single pickup unit. Maybe it was a bolt-on. Spalt Viper. But no, it is a bolt-on, too. Gibson Grabber, EB-series... Meridian Aural II neck through + custom options... My custom fretless. Marleaux Diva. Kelvin Daly builds custom stuff, too. A talk to a local luthier is clearly your choice. Those specs mentioned are already limiting the possibilities quite some. At the same time you can adjust string width, woods, weight etc. to your specs.

That neck looks fab without front dots.