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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.

FX loop = Send/Return? Put an instrument cable there. Those connectors tend to oxidize.

That surely makes the sound of a gigant bee... you just have to play some Rimski-Korsakov!

The case has a nice V figure inside. Patrice = attention to details...

Then the impractical issue is that the string length is very long. You lose quite some of the string to the bridge end. On a longer scale (+34") or with the shorter strings the silk may reach the half-position. Not good. Soundwise it is up to you. If you believe it makes some difference, what am I to say. Many musicians (as well as marketing departments) tend to tell about incredible and magical enhancements made by changing some simple (but so magical) part to another. If something is superior, everybody will use it. You can start with words like: bolt-on/neckthrough, bridge, nut, passive/active, maple/rosewood, stainless/nickel, RW/flat... We are waiting for your findings for the ultimate instrument.

I have linked this video before, where Tom Kennedy keeps his right thumb on top of the pickup. His left seems to be most of the time behind the neck. How is it with Gary Willis? Mine (right) floats and left wanders somewhere in the space, so obviously I am not able to do the same things as they do...

By the way, a bass should be tuned slightly lower to sound exact with bigger bands. As an example my Peterson SAM tuner has adjustments for different instruments, like the bass! Yes we are talking about cents, but they do a difference.

Note: this is not only piano related thing. Piano is used as an example, and many pianos have been used and harmed to get actual results. Although we use the tempered scale, you can not tune a piano dead straight. It can not be. When you listen to a piano in different keys, it sounds, yes, different. You have to take this into account with accompanying instruments. 440 Hz is fine, but how about the harmonics? Second should be 1760 Hz, but you have to add 35 cents to make it sound right. This is not exactly tempered anymore. There are physical facts, harmonics, overtones and their behaviour, that tempering can not put aside. This is one reason for sound differences. Another thing is to tune an instrument to some other reference, like to baroque A (415 Hz).