Dom in Dorset

Or just get a guitar?

Weren't "Lemmy" and "Sting" their nick names long before they were performers? I recently did a stint depping in a tongue in cheek country band called The Johnsons. Their act is that they are brothers (and sisters) ,anything up to seven or eight of them. They all have stage names --------- Johnson. Clint, Garry-Lee,Zac,Elli-May, Johnny "Geetar" etc For the duration of my stay I was known as "Duke" (pronounced "Dook") Johnson.

I am happy with the pickups that I have but I may at some point want to make or adapt another bass using something similar. I was told that they came from a Lindo bass (under £100 I think) , I'm pretty certain it's one of these:

A while ago I built myself a cheap fretless jazz , for pickups I bought a set off ebay for £10, I was told that they were from a Lindo bass. They have no visible pole pieces. I wasn't expecting much but was actually blown away by them. A lovely warm rich tone, plenty of punch , exactly the tone I was after. The output seems to be slightly higher than my stock US Fenders on my fretted bass. I know what the inside of a standard Jazz pickup looks like but what is inside these? I read in a post here recently about cheap covered jazz pickups having a "bar construction" ( I presume that means built around a single bar magnet?) , are there any higher quality pickups built like this? What are they like?

So who actually wants this guy to be in the band?

"McCartney style bass" - Macca may have churned out some cheesy stuff in his time but not with one of these.

A good bass to hit other band members with, the crudely grafted viola body would shatter on impact giving a short sharp shock to the offending guitarist/drummer/singer/theraminist and ridding the world of an abomination of a bass in one go. I'm sure it's mother loves it.

Sorry mate! Lets try a visualization exercise : "close your eyes, relax...imagine a headstock, now take the machine heads off, saw a chunk off the end, neaten it up with a surform and sand paper, dismantle one of the machine heads and re-assemble it so that it turns in the opposite direction, agonize for hours over where exactly on the headstock to drill the new hole, drill the new hole,paint headstock, fit machine heads...." Maybe it is better with pictures. I hope the wiring picture makes up for it. As for the body that was about it, cut it out , rout, sand and paint.

Thanks Apa, I'll check them out. Thanks Paul, I'll keep the diagram for future use, however the cheapo Behrigner EQ pedal works a treat! It dosen't sound much like an acoustic bass but might well be very useful as it is now. i'll try it with the band ASAP. This is the wiring scheme that I went with for this incarnation of the MFSAFB:

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1343672399' post='1753521'] Amazing! Are there pics of the build? [/quote] Er... I thought I already showed them? The only thing of any significance I haven't shown were modifying the headstock to make it a 3+1 and hours of faffing about with sandpaper and spray paint. Apa - nice idea, if I can think of a neat way of doing it without too much fuss I might go for it. I only envisage changing it a couple of times a year, jazz bass in summer and P in winter (it's nice to have a P to hand in the studio or for pit band stuff.) I must admit the pictures are quite flattering, I could have done a better job but the whole idea was to be cheap and disposable , I reached a point where I didn't want to spend any more time and money on something that will be played until it falls apart then recycled as a future project (or lost in festival mud)

Things have moved on a little; I still haven't made any scratch plates for it yet, the fist one will just have a sound hole and output for the piezo, I'm going to try to use an eq pedal as an outboard pre-amp.You can see the choc block inside that will allow the change of scratch plates , the earth (and piezo) connects through that. It won't see much action until next year so the P bass scratch, the Jazz will have to wait. I'm going to try to sneak it into the car for this year's holiday. I can't find my Newton's spring scales thingy so no weight for you just yet.

I got mine here: www.yandles.co.uk

I had a customer who liked purpleheart : Whatever the instrument the results are striking! The yellow bits are boxwood.

No idea who the guy in the picture is but I did an image search and found lot's of pictures of white guys with those basses, that was the first one. I wouldn't be seen dead with it but that's nothing to do with race.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1342648239' post='1738855'] Nice work if you can get it. [/quote] The work's not bad the boss is rather strict.

Ploughing that beanfield as I type.

I've only got this one and I'm using it tonight.

If it's too generous I'll take it back.

Oddly enough I'd had a look at this wikipedia page earlier tonight.[i]" [/i]Wilkeson acquired a "Fenderbird" bass from [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Entwistle"]John Entwistle[/url]. The Fenderbird bass mated a custom made [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Thunderbird"]Gibson Thunderbird[/url] body to a [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Precision_Bass"]Fender Precision Bass[/url] neck. Wilkeson can be seen playing this bass in a 1975 [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynyrd_Skynyrd"]Lynyrd Skynyrd[/url] performance at the Old Grey Whistle Test" Thankyou Essential Tension , if I had a strap to give away it woulds be on it's way.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwWUOmk7wO0[/media]

I tend to play with my right fore arm flopped over the back end , Entwistle style, this will eliminate just about any neck dive + I have done a test (before routing) with the neck in place with a strap and it did hang nicely. I think having the upper horn , thus moving the centre of balance out to about the 12th fret seems to take care of it.

I've done some routing and contouring. I'm going to paint it black. the body cavity will also have a screw connector so that I can quickly disconnect the earth or piezo bridge should i wish to change the scratch plate/pickups. The weight of this body is 1.5kg or 3 1/4 lb.