Dom in Dorset

"PASSIVE CIRCUITS ARE ALL ABOUT WHAT IS TAKEN AWAY FOLKS." - but do crappy pots take something away? Think of a hose pipe, think of a leaky or twisted pipe.

the bass in question is a new build, I wanted black knurled knobs, the cheapeast way to get them was to buy a loaded control plate from china. I used everything bar the plate itself. Compared to my prototype (plywood bitsa with pickups of a Lindo bass, same type of strings) it sounds oomphless, no vah vah voom, worn out. I was of the opinion that a pot is a pot, but I'm not so sure now, it's the only thing I haven't tried yet.

I used some cheap pots (they came with the knobs I wanted) my bass sounds a bit dull (I have Wizard 64 pickups and new Fender black nylon strings) and has a low output. Is it worth replacing the pots?

watching with interest (and something to show off)

Re: the pipes, you could lose 6" of cupboard space and box the pipes from floor level to ceiling allowing hot air to rise and disperse through a vent at the top.

Fender are my favourite but Status are good if you want more than four strings. I've tried Picato, very trebbly strings (on an acoustic fretless with piezo), I had two sets where the nylon bindings came off.

Are you sure she didn't mean "base cupboard"?

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1362740631' post='2004007'] oh yes, I will definitely have those! Not just one, but FOUR of them!!! [/quote] Steady on!!!

That's going to look stunning! What fingerboard are you going to put on it?

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1362501211' post='2000275'] I've come to think that the wood choice makes very little difference in electric instruments. Rosewood doesn't sound warmer than maple on a fretboard, they sound the same. The most important parts of an electric instrument are the pickups, the bridge and the nut. Tonewoods are a bunch of flim-flam i think. [/quote] + lots on that, strings are important too.

I once bought some machine heads like this: , they turned up 2 a side, it's easy enough to take them apart and make them 4 a side A +1 for the Westfield's own pickup, they are good, I always find that the studio is where having quality pickups really shows, and I haven't tried recoding with a Westfield.

Wizard 64's fitted , some observations: I'm unable to do a direct comparison with my fretted bass (2006 US standard Fender Jazz) as I've put them in a home made fretless with nylon wound strings. The 64's are probably more bassy then stock Fenders and the output is higher when you go up the neck (so much so that I'll probably back the pickups off the E string a bit). The overall tone is rich in harmonics, even though it's bassy you can still hear a metalic , bell like qualty. They are certainly as good as the stock Fenders , but different. Definitely high quality pickups. The service from Wizard was great, ordered Wednesday afternoon, turned up Friday morning. The price includes UK postage , mounting screws and foam.

I'll be putting a set of Wizard 64s in my fretless tomorrow, I'll let you know how I get on.

Are you still working on this?

So unless anyone has any major objections : 24 fret through neck , maple /maple and perhaps a wenge skunk stripe? Any thoughts on body shape? We'll talk finish later. I'm very boring and find the Precision body most comfortable.

Surely all of this should be thrashed out in rehearsals? By the time you get on stage you should be prepared to play everything on the set list. I once refused to play a song , the chorus went "I'm not gonna cry , I'm not gonna say goodbye" I was out of the band within the week.

4.5 strings:

"But the space between them would become vanishingly small as you got closer to the bridge" - certainly , but my point is that you can have as many frets as you like and then find a way off accessing them or not as the case may be.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1361983576' post='1994041'] You're doing this all the wrong way around. The number of frets is determined by the shape of the body (specifically the lower cutaway) and the position of the "neck" pickup and whether you want to leave any space between it and the end of the fingerboard. [/quote] The lower cutaway allows access to the upper frets but it doesn't determine their number. You could in theoy put frets right up to the bridge if it weren't for pickups getting in the way. In order to access these super high frets you just slice off the bottom of the body and put the controls at the top.

[quote name='Low End Bee' timestamp='1361982913' post='1994022'] [/quote] Build in some cheesy rhythm box buttons for bossanova etc and I'll have one.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1361980530' post='1993991'] Let's put a huge pickup right up against the end of the fingerboard to stop people from slapping. [/quote] Or a barbed spike?

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1361979674' post='1993975'] maple maple. No frets. [/quote] To keep things simple (or a least only less complex) the main design will be fretted, we'll run through any ideas for a fretless version at a later date. Bolt on or through neck? Good question, I've always fancied a through neck so I'll vote for that.

Sorry I couldn't get to a computer this morning , anyhow, a quick count up has shown a majority in favour of a four string. Lets turn our attention to the neck, how many frets? what construction? We'll look at headstocks and inclusion of block or other mounts later. Call me boring but I'd like a maple jazz neck with maple board. 20 frets will do .

In order that some day we might actually complete this project I'm going to approach it in this way: Unless an outrageous string number is most popular , well offer a four and five string version, the majority bass will be the one that I cost up. The same will apply to the fretted /fretless option. all of this can be reviewed in the light of future developments.

the purpose of this exorcise isn't to establish if one type of bass is better than another , it's to see what we will come up with by the process. We'll worry about what strings to use when we have a (virtual) bass to string.