bloke_zero

There is a lot to be said for a bass that you can just play without worrying that you'll damage and that is simple and reliable to use on stage. I dropped a solder station on one of my basses smashing 4 chunks out of the finish and in a way it was a relief - I no longer have to baby it.

Lovely - I'll order some for the final build - that is pretty much bang on what I'm after - thanks!

Thanks! That is with a few coats of Crimson guitar penetrating oil on it. There is some of the original stain in bits of the end grain that I cannot get out, so I'm sort of on pause with the finish while I figure out what I can live with. In some ways like it as it has character, some sense of having lived a previous life. I'm interested in your wonder finish! My feeling is that I'll dissassemble it and have another go at the end grain and try and do a better job of the sanding. I like the really pale grain. Hoping will be better set off by the white pick guard and metal control plate which I'm going to cut this weekend. On the sound side it's zingy! Really bright - can't wait to get a pickup or 2 in there and see how that translates on to the real side!

So I tried a trans white effect. The Mrs said it was more IKEA than Habitat. And even Habitat was er, not very rock n roll. So I sanded it back and left it basically natural with the slightest white ghosting. Here it is with pick guard template

Interesting thought - like a low pass filter with a bump somewhere above the cutoff frquency? I think what's meant is lowpass with a variable resonant hump at the cutoff frequency. In synth land 'notch filter' has a very specific meaning - it's also called 'band stop' where you remove a narrow frequency range.

Awesome thanks! That clears up most everything as there is an email address too - I can ask about "Notch Filter Low Pass" - sounds like a low pass in parallel?

Please tell us more!

Dry run build. It’s playing really well. After a lot of thought, research and some I went for a low mass babicz bridge because who doesn’t like the idea of full contact?

I don't think I've ever seen a string tree required on the E string. If you don't mind me asking, what is that bass? Oh, I’m just asking about the higher strings, d & g - the neck is an allparts ‘chunky’ PJMO precision/jazz replacement neck with a smaller headstock. The e is fine - similar to a tele bass.

Thanks - yes, that’s what I thought - I bought an old school disc for them. I’m just wondering if I need it - I’m thinking about the MARUSZCZYK jake and Elwood I always wind the strings so they end up angled to the base of the tuning post so they are angled down anyway, so just wondering if it’s really needed or just one of those things.

Do I need a string tree here? The tuners are running pretty true to the string spacing on the nut. I guess the question is, will it improve intonation or anything by providing a greater degree of break after the nut? (this is a dry run build before I apply finish to it - hence the untrimmed nut etc.)

I guess that stuff is set and forget, I think it can be really useful for really tailoring the pre to the bass. But I do agree - too many options can be counter productive. Especially on stage where doing much more than rolling off the treble is a bit of a challenge for me!

Looks great! I really like my John East MM pre. John is a great person to deal with. I emailed a couple of questions, one of which was to do with an un documented jumper and he came back really quickly with a useful answer about how it was for non-standard MM pickups, so not just good communication, but also flexible design! I heard nothing but good things about the uni-pre.

Having just pressed buy on a Delano MM (the blade ones) I'm glad to hear you say that - what you describe is exactly what I'm after - clarity at the source. Though it sounds like I might need to get some flats with it to hide some of my appalling left hand technique.

Nice - I hear the overdrive sound is good.

Great video! I think he's referencing the acoustic properties of the bass and how it feels when played and then hearing how little that effects the actual sound through the pickups. I can hear some differences - it feels like slightly extended bass and dropped mids in the first two. But the finger style lick at the end sounds pretty much identical to me.

You're making me think that instead of endless "research" on the internet I should build a workshop and do the experiments rather than gathering opinions!

All parts neck arrived today from the US looking like a good pairing.

I don't think anyone is arguing against that: more referencing the bewildering number of factors that come into play. And that there is more to the sitaution than just the stability of the materials and resonance but also how the character of the material impacts the character of the sound.

Thanks - I'll check it out. Yeah - I was thinking with all this talk of high mass is why are gotoh and KTS selling low mass stuff for so much money - where is the HYPE!? https://www.k-t-s.com/en/products/bass.php But seriously I was interested in another approach that wasn't brass/highmass as I got a bass body that had hipshot aluminium bridge on it and it got me thinking about the whole subject, and why it might be that some people felt that the old style Fender bent L bridge sounded better.

I agree 🙂 - but it'll never happen! It's the spirit of enquiry! I think this is why high mass bridges are attractive as they remove some of the vaguaries of the wooden element. At the moment I'm trying to work out what I like the idea of better, and make a guess at the outcomes. I'm currently looking at a maple neck with a hard dense northern ash body and stiff low mass bridge, which I'm thinking will (probably maybe!) provide a bright but pretty rigid basis for experimenting with pickups.

Yes I understand - I think one of the fascinations of instruments is exactly this "sum of many things" thing, and coming to a balance between a technical understanding and acceptance that some of it is art not science. I'm just trying to get a clearer understanding of the factors and their weighting. I have a roasted maple neck with graphite stiffeners that I feel really helps the instrument sing. I'm about to experiment with a more trad maple p-bass neck on a different build. My feeling is that the neck is going to be the key part, but I'm trying to get a feeling for how the whole is going to interact. One of my drivers is getting a feel for how different body materials will perform especially if you keep them more part of the equation by not using a highmass bridge.

Yes - I was thinking of Steinberger and the resin bodies - seemed like an interesting trade off - higher density material to offset the smaller body. Can you point me in the direction of any literature on that point? I see gotoh do a CF bridge - seems like a nice pairing with a status neck.

So I was thinking about that neck dead spot thing, where the neck will create dead spots where its resonances will interfere with certain frequencies. Putting the neck out of the picture for a minute, I'm thinking that in some ways the best combination might be to have a dense body with a very stiff low mass bridge anchored firmly to body, that way the string would be free to vibrate without fighting resonances in the body? Obviously you'd want a really stiff neck too.

I have a pbass with a similar arrangement, but just for the tone and with trimmers. I like your sliders much more!