Velarian

Just when you thought it was safe to venture out, we now have ‘tone pickguards’ to add to the mix!

A new revelation in the quest for perfect tone or emperor’s new clothes?

Discuss 😉

3 hours ago, rwillett said:

I'd love to commision a bass version of this, would £75 be enough, I could go to £100 if I push the boat out. I can try and sell one of the kids again, but each time I do this, the buyer comes back and demands a refund.

 

In all seriousness, I'd just hang it on the wall on a rotating peg and just look at it. Some people pay seriously silly money for art. To me, this is just as good. I'm very much in the form follows function camp, Bauhaus and all that stuff. This blows that principle out the water.

Rob

Ian Allison on SBL refers to this kind of thing as double art. The instrument itself is a work of art and it can be used to create more art. 

9 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

Stunning!  The contrast.  The contours.  The textures.

There’s something rather beautiful about the contours and textures, particularly that ebony top. Just begging to be caressed. 😳

4 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

Apparently in the 70s they did a whole collection 

The Antigua Jazz is conspicuously absent in that picture. 

There’s a lot of history at that venue. 
 

I remember going to watch a mates band playing there in 90s. We weren’t sure how to get there from the hotel we were staying at so we got a taxi. After 15 minutes or so and many twists and turns we forked out a small fortune to pay the driver. Turned out it was less than five minutes walk away. 😂

5 minutes ago, horrorshowbass said:

Weight?

1kg according to the tub. 😂

Designed by M. C. Escher perhaps? 😉

I just stumbled upon this quirky piece from the BBC archive.

Fascinating stuff from these pioneers. 
 

It’s amazing how enduring goth has become. I was in Leeds the other day and there was a goth girl, immaculately turned out in all her dark finery. She would be late teens/early twenties and my first thought was, crikey, it’s around 40 years since this look first took hold and her mother could have looked just like that. 

How about playing closer to the bridge to make tighter and less boomy?

I've PM'd @waldemar to enquire about making some control plates in chrome. He's not been online since October last year though so I'm not sure if I'll get a quick reply. We shall see.

1 hour ago, Beedster said:

Stingray plate won’t fit, I tried on standard Fender P. I’ve got two Precision versions somewhere, if I can find them you can have them 😀

Agreed. I tried a stingray plate on my bitsa precision and whilst you can position it on the body in a way that looks OK, when the controls are fitted and sitting in the routing, the positioning is way off and the only way to make it work would be to butcher the routing.

I looked everywhere for a chrome control plate based on the tail end of a precision pick guard but they just don't seem to exist. As mentioned by @PaulThePlug I ended up creating one by getting a mirrored acrylic pick guard (ala Phill Lynott) and cutting it down with a hacksaw and filing the edges (pic below).

I'd always intend to look at getting one custom made but just never got around to it. Much later I came across this post from a fellow BassChatter who does custom CNC work and it looks like he might be more than capable of producing the required part. Once again, I never got around to following it up.

I did wonder if custom work might be expensive and if there are any economies of scale to be gained by producing a few in one batch. If this is something the OP would want to pursue, I wouldn't mind sharing the cost of a limited run.

Go on now, go, walk out the door
Just turn around now
'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye?
You think I'd crumble?
You think I'd lay down and die?

Oh no, not I, I will survive

2 hours ago, simisker said:

Apparently, responding to a ten year old post... a decade old post... a post that is a TENTH OF A CENTURY old... with "they rushed it" is too dry for some 😜

I got it. Maybe dry humour is a Yorkshire thing? 😉

Perhaps resurrecting a decade old thread wasn’t such a good idea after all and I’m due a damn good thrashing? (Int’ shoebox, int’ middle of road like).

The only green thing I like is my lawn. 

Bongo prototype?

Is the lack of a date stamp on the neck a problem?

On 27/03/2023 at 05:31, Velarian said:

I used to use a Teac A-108 cassette deck which allowed you record left and right channels separately. I would have loved a 4-track portastudio but they were outside of my budget. 
 

 

My mate from back in the day recently sent me this photo, which was taken just a couple of years or so after the Teac cassette days.
 

This would have been around ‘85/86. By that time we’d pooled our resources and invested in this setup with a Tascam 38, which was a considerable upgrade from Teac cassette deck (which was still in use for producing cassette copies and is on top of the outboard rack).  

All I ever ‘ad were a bent bit o’ tin. Works well enough. 

On 10/11/2013 at 16:23, ChickenKiev said:

The next big thing is the Evertune bridge.

At the minute they only have it for guitar but I predict it won't be long until we start seeing an Evertune for bass.

They also need to develop some sort of Evertune tremolo system and we'll be set.

Zombie thread resurrection alert!

Looks like the future has now arrived. Emperor's new clothes or genuine progress?

On reflection I’m not sure it is exactly how I remember it and it maybe not a solution after all but worth a try perhaps?

7 hours ago, ossyrocks said:

I’d like to find that.

I managed to find the post but the picture is missing.

I think it’s referring to these things: -

I saw a post on here a little while ago which had a picture of a bass where there was a little cube with a hole in it which went between the string ball and the back plate of the bridge. This pulls the string back a bit to clear the silk from the saddle. I had a look for the picture but couldn’t find it. However, it’s academic now that you’ve solved it. 

It’s gone already!