Boodang

This build is an accidental byproduct of another thread where I was looking at the Seymour Duncan Weather Report pickups and contemplating a 'Jaco' style bass. So, I contacted my local luthier, who's done lots of work for me, to discuss the project and as an aside he showed me a body he had made a while ago but had never been taken further. However, I'm so taken by the body that I've decided to take it further but it's certainly not going to be a Jaco bass! The body is a mahogany core with a flamed black walnut top, plain back and two maple stripes with a very contoured shape. It's going to be a set neck of mahogany with a maple stripe, graphite reinforcement, double action truss rod and a slab rosewood fretless fingerboard with maple fret lines. 7.5" to 12" compound radius with a '61 spec 36.5mm nut width and slim C jazz profile and a 2+2 level headstock. It's going to have 2 jazz pickups, for now the Weather Report ones as they've arrived, but we'll see how they go and I've potentially got the Nordstrand warm and wooly's in mind for this. I'm a passive bass guy, so this will be double stacked volume/tone as I like the tone pot for each pickup and the passive interaction of the pickups. I play finger style and pluck mostly over the board around the 18th fret area. I prefer to have the board under my fingers, so for those moments when I pluck further back I'm having the fingerboard extended up to the neck pickup to act as a finger ramp.

I remember the klaxon event, I'm not sure what was more of a noise, the klaxon or the slap happys!

As these cables are low capacitance and as my main gigs are more jazz orientated where I'm sitting down, I'm going to use them live as well as the studio as it's not exactly a harsh environment (although I'll use my normal cables for the Sex Pistols tribute band gigs I think!). The biggest damage will probably be to the braiding from the coiling/uncoiling but I'm sure they are not that delicate. After all the only way to really preserve them would be to not use them.

Palmer PWT12 would power the lot. It also has 4 outputs that are variable between 9 and 18v just in case. I've got 2 of these on my board and can't fault them especially at the price.

At the next gig you can make, turn up with a bass guitar and go all 'Billy Sheehan' on them to see how much fun you can have with them. That way the decision to stay or not will probably be taken out your hands!

Wenge makes a great neck, not necessarily in the spirit of a classic P bass though! But that's not the point and would definitely make for something interesting. I was looking at the Warmoth site and there's certainly some interesting options but... I was in a similar position recently as there was something very specific I wanted neck wise, but fortunately I have a local luthier who is very good. Advantage to that over Warmoth is you can talk over every bit of what you want. See if there's someone local-ish who can give you that personal service.

So, all you have left is 90% of the bass?!

Hey, this could be a new BC game, identify the bass using only the pickup cover as a clue!

Yep, other than that incident it was a great show if a little noisy. The best bit about these shows is not the gear but the masterclasses they lay on, which are worth the entry fee alone.

Now the drum show is loud. Was at one of the shows in the Olympic with my daughter, went to one of the masterclass events, it was friggin loud! We were standing just in front of the desk when we heard a crash behind us and my daughter felt something brush her back. Turned around and there was a ceiling tile with a rather large transformer attached (for the lighting?) buried in the desk! The desk was one of those with just a large screen and was totalled but still working. An inch the other way would have had a different outcome.

Oh great, a room full of tippy tappy heros!

Hmmm, I can try out some new bass cabs... through headphones! Worth it though just so you don't have have to listen to the cacophony of dozens of weekend 'slap happy' heros pulling out their top 10 greatest chops.

Get a Cort A6 and that'll be a good compromise. I started off playing average instruments but eventually got a few customs. But despite that I still play Squiers and the like... in fact my favourite jazz is a Squier VM.

I always felt the same, so got a tc Spectracomp and played with the toneprint editor to get a grip on it. Now compression is one of my essential tools for my tone.

... and as far as compression is concerned I use two types; a single band which has a ratio control for when I want to compress the sh*t out of it, and a 3 band comp which I use to emphasise the bass frequencies by having a quick attack time in that frequency band and slow attack times in the mid and upper frequencies. The latter working more like an eq.

The primary factor in my tone, both fingers and pick, is where I pick/pluck on the bass. A lot of the time, players pick somewhere between the bridge and pickup but for those deeper tones I pick over the neck around the 17/19 fret. This also has a less defined attack to the note. I find compression is important and in terms of eq this has the biggest effect. After compression I might use a bit of eq if it's still not where I want it and mostly that will concentrate on tweaking the lower and upper mids, so good to have an eq with separate upper/lower mid controls.

Well, as I said in my initial post, I can't hear any difference between this quite expensive silver coated cable and my cheap Fender festival cables. However that won't stop me buying a Zaolla solid silver core cable to compliment it now that @lee650has reminded me I've always wanted one. Don't ask me why, I think it's just a 'I've got a fancy bass, so why not have a fancy cable' syndrome! Having said that, I do think it adds a bit of professional bluff when you go in the studio, get out your U5 di and connect up with a cable like this. Of course you have to back it up with your playing which is when it all falls apart!

I wouldn't say your perception is off, it's just common to think of pedals as 'effects' rather than preamps. I've come to the conclusion there is no 'one' perfect tone and variety is the spice of life, so now I have a pedal board with many tonal sculpting options and use active PA cabs instead of bass amps as I just need them to amplify.

The great thing about losing your top end hearing is that you can download the 'teen tormentor' app and have loads of fun where ever there's a gaggle of them hanging about. My favourite sport on business trips when hanging about airports.

On this score I do in fact omit the pots on my MM and P, but rather than adjust at the amp, all tone sculpting is done on the pedal board and happens instantly at the stomp of my clodhoppers.