SamIAm

I drove out to Heathfield today (It's about midway between Royal Tunbridge Wells and Eastbourne) to visit https://luthierssupplies.co.uk/, it is an aladdin's cave of beautiful wood (and other luthier related stuff) run by David Dyke, the atmosphere is full of the most lovely aromas full of promise of things to come.

I'd visited once before, on the 8th of August to collect materials that were intended to be the basis of Flo, my second bass build.  Pictured below is Twiggy (My first bass build) and the block of maple for Flo as well as the truss rod, carbon fibre support rods and wood to form the skunk stripes.

Just 24h later it looked like this.

Today, in an act of amazing kindness and generosity, I was given (at no cost) replacements for many of the bass build bits I lost in the fire.

A lovely block of Idigbo (West African Hardwood), truss rod, two carbon fibre shafts and some strips of wood for the skunk stripes.

(S'manth pinches herself to make sure she is not dreaming)

S'manth x

Some years ago I required some cushioning for a similar problem whilst sat for a couple of hours on hard chairs.

I found that a styrofoam bead filled, horseshoe cushion (One of those sold to air travellers as a neck support for snoozing) worked amazingly well ... and was small enough across to fit on most any chair.

S'manth x

A delightful development!

After a phone call to the luthier who supplied the original block of maple for my second bass (Which was turned to ash by the fire) it seems that he is going to give me  a replacement block at no cost!  (I was stunned!).  I am hopefully going to pick it up tomorrow (Thursday) and it will mean that I can start the physical build of Phoenix!  (I'd best start drawing up the design plan!)

People are so wonderfully kind!

S'manth x

13 minutes ago, Random Guitarist said:

For use as a body or neck? Body would be fine, neck I'd be cautious unless it's going to be chunky.

(Or put in carbon reinforcement?)

Both.  Phoenix is going to be made from a single piece of wood (Like Twiggy).

The neck is going to be on the chunky side, with Twiggy I freformed the neck until it felt good ... I later discovered that I'd a profile that was quite similar to the .strandberg* Endurneck ... for Phoenix I aim mindfully crafting the profile in an Endurneck fashion, I plan to have a dual action trussrod and a pair (one either side of the truss rod) 4mm square carbon fibre rods; given the asymetric neck profile I want to reduce the risk of any untoward neck bending.

S'manth x

3 hours ago, neepheid said:

https://www.wood-database.com/sweet-chestnut/

 

It's pretty soft, but it's a little harder than basswood and that gets used for making solid bodies all the time. (Basswood for comparison - https://www.wood-database.com/basswood/)

OMG ... I'd missed that wood-database ... awesome info, thank you!

I've been offered a block of Sweet Chestnut for my bass build.  It has been aged about 50 years and does not appear to be twisted.

I've searched the web but not found a lot of information regarding its suitability for use in making a guitar.

I'd appreciate hearing your experience, info, views relating to this.  Is it a 'sweet' choice or a highway to dissapointment?

S'manth x

Looks fab!  I shall follow with great interest.

What wood are you using for the body/neck?

S'manth x

Some developments today.

My makerspace colleague informed me that he believes he has a piece of Sweet Chestnut suitable for Phoenix; hopefully seeing it on Wed or Thur.

I had been looking for a pup, my first choic was an EMG MM5TW ... but hens teeth are easier to find!  I did locate a pair of EMG 40TWXs here on BC and was invensigating getting those ... and then I discovered that Thomann had the EMG MMTW in stock!

They are a 4 string pup, but on Twiggy I used an EMG MMCS (Another 4 string pup) with great results.  She was setup with a 16mm string spacing at the pup and given the scale length of 30 inches this actually worked very well for me.

So ... I ordered one!  With paypal I can spread the cost over 3 months (Cash flow is a challenge at present).

So ...

Wood - Hopefully sorted.

Tuners - Arriving in the next week or so.

Pickup - Hopefully here also in a week or so.

I need to get a truss rod and a couple of carbon fibre stiffening rods ... but I'm almost at the point where I cn start the physical work on Phoenix!

Very excited!

S'manth x

Oh @Merton, that is a thing of absolute beauty! Shortscale and fretless OMG … rocking horse sh!t springs to mind!!

The lack of a fifth string would not stop me snapping it up in an instant; However it would take me about 1,500 hours of work to pay for such a treasure …

I really hope you find a good home for her!

S’manth xx

3 hours ago, benh said:

No switching option though unfortunately!

I am particularly keen on the dual coil switching system.  I’ve found a used set but we have yet to figure out a viable shipping approach.

6 hours ago, Random Guitarist said:

GAK in brighton lists the MMT5TW as avaialble to order, might be your best bet

Tried them. After speaking with their supplier they said it could take months!

S’manth x

1 hour ago, bass_dinger said:

So good, that you won't be embarrassed to say "My name is Ambient, and I'm a ukulele player."

Or perhaps …

I am Ambient, a musician. Among the instruments I play are the bass and the ukulele … works for me 😊

Phoenix is going to be a 5 string, fretless, headless, shortscale self build bass.

She will be a celebration of life after I survived a fire in my flat.

Design Goals

• Not look too out of place in a Ukulele band (Hence short scale and with a general ukulele look to her)
• Lightweight (I've a bad back)
• Affordable as the fire has left me with a lot of expenses; I need to take as frugal an approach as I can, without compromising Phoenix from a playability or sound perspective.

So far

• Wood - A chap at my makerspace has offered me some Sweet Chestnut and I'm exploring this as an option, it would likely require a thru neck with wings approach due to the size available.  I'm also considering if I can afford a replacement block of Maple.
• Tuners - After building my own for Twiggy, I've decided to 'go pro' this time and have ordered a set from @Andre_Passini of NovaGuitarParts; these are B Stock (Slight cosmetic blemishes) to reduce the cost.  They should arrive by the end of Sept.
• Strings - I intend on using Rotosound tru bass tape wounds, I had a set on Twiggy and they looked, felt and sounded fantastic!
• Pickup - I had an EMG MMCS on Twiggy and loved it!  I hope to use an EMG MM5TW or 40TWX for Phoenix, the double coil will give me some sonic options.  Thing is they are proving almost impossible to source!
• Neck - Fretless. Headless. Zero Nut.  With Twiggy I basically free formed the profile, and ended up with a shape that felt really great!  Some time later I stumbled across the .strandberg* brand and realised that I had almost formed an Endurneck type profile; this time I will do so mindfully (With some tweaks), leaving enough thickness to accomodate the truss rod and twin 4x4mm carbon rods I intend to install using a rear groove with skunk stripe approach; the neck is to be a one piece.
• Body - Shape to be decided.  I love the shape of the .strandberg, with their double scallop in the bottom edge for comfortable knee placement ... but it may be a bit too 'unique' to blend in with the Ukes in the band.

More to come...

S'manth x

OMG

This looks fantastic (Thanks @Silvia Bluejayfor sharing details of previous events) ... and the stars have aligned ... I'm not scheduled to work that day and it's only an hours drive!

It would be downright rude of me not to attend (And I am not rude)

In my diary!

, 

Bringing ... Me, weird sense of humour, Stompz, Kala UBASS, As much of the Phoenix Rig as I can including Quinn (Harley Benton 5 String fretless long scale) ... depending on how I progress with Phoenix I may bring her.

S'manth x

Welcome from another Brightonian (Well Hovian but close enough for jazz! lol)

S'manth x

3 hours ago, bass_dinger said:

arrives at the interview with a wooden ukulele

You mention showing off ... perhaps turning up with a carbon fibre uke would qualify! 😉

S'manth x

Looks fab!

I shall soon be starting on my second bass, 5 string headless sans frets ... I look forward to seeing how yours goes (and learning from it! lol).

S'manth x

I am pulling together the bits for my next bass (Phoenix), I was hoping to use an EMG MM5TW or EMG 40TWX, but I'm struggling to find anywhere that can supply one.

Any suggestions?

Does anyone have experience of ordering directly on the US EMG website?

S'manth x

17 hours ago, bass_dinger said:

Otherwise, visit Hobgoblin, or  https://www.southernukulelestore.co.uk/

Totally agree!

Hobgoblin are more likely to have ... ahem ... afordable instruments, but in my local Branch (Brighton) they really know their stuff!

Southern carry higher end ... I spent far (far) too much there a few years ago ... but the ukuleles I came away with did not dissapoint!

S'manth x

Very very nice!

7 minutes ago, Nail Soup said:

Bear in mind that tenors may not be the standard in schools, and soprano is the 'default' size of ukulele.

 

True, however tenors and sopranos are same tunings hence same chord shapes.

Regarding size of uke, I would suggest a tenor (I used to have several ukes, sadly all lost in a recent fire, the tenors became my goto before I started playing the bass).  The fret spacings are wider.  It is not uncommon to use a low G string, where the G is an octave lower than 'normal', it gives it a richer sound.

Regarding brand, Kala make good ukes and start at not silly money (High end ukes can cost thousands!).

S'manth x

Just now, rushbo said:

This looks brilliant.

 

I have no idea what you've done, or how you did it, but I'm delighted it works. I thought I was being super-technical when I hotwired an external patch selector switch to my Zoom B3, but this is next level. Or even the level above that.  My FX needs run as far as "a bit of chorus" on a song or two and that's about it, but I love seeing stuff like this and I'm a bit in awe of anyone who can bend their brain to configure a selection of bits from Maplins [citation needed] to make it work so well for them. 

 

Shouldn't you be working for NASA?

It is not working ... yet.

I am able to identify the pedals plugged into the Pi from my software.  I'm currently navigating the various online resources to collate the different MIDI commands that the Zoom pedals use (They seem to have slight variations ... and are not officially documented!) 

I am working on the best approach to represent each Zoom pedal in a similar fashion to the user (As much as they are capable) and have started work on the web UI.  I suspect it will be many hours of work to get it to a polished place to be usable ... but it is progressing in the right direction!

NASA ... lol, this ain't rocket science

Before I retrained as a nurse in 2015, I'd worked nearly 30 years in the IT industry ranging from developer thru to architect thru to CTO ... so I have a fair bit of experience to fall back on.  IT was interesting, it paid very well ... but it did not feed my heart; nursing (Especially working in intensive care) is interesting, the pay is criminal ... but my heart is full!

And this sort of project helps satisfy the geekette in me

S'manth x

9 hours ago, tauzero said:

It's worth reading the MOD Devices forum on their current situation. They have collapsed but are looking to get investment to be able to purchase everything from the liquidator and keep going.

 

You could always go Zynthian instead - https://zynthian.org/

Yes, I'm following the Mod forum closely ... I wish I was in a position to help financially (by either purchasing a Dwarf or investing) but I'm not.  I have offered my technical abilities to help in any way they may find useful as I believe their Dwarf and the Mod ecosystem are fantastic!

Zynthian is an amazing unit and it helped shape the way I was building EffektLada (Ditto the Patchbox OS and PiStomp Core systems).  The thing is that all of these are using Modep ... a slightly dated modified fork of the Mod OSS software (EffektLada was using the most recent official version and so provide better capabilities) and I would not feel right about using that for the reasons I shared before.

However, I am proceeding with a Stompbox project, it is using Zoom processors to apply the effects ... I've started a new build diary for it Stompz - A Zoom compatable programmable midi stomp controller

S'manth x

To help me "get my groove back" after losing my gear in the fire, the BC family was wonderfully generous in helping me out ... it's all about the bass!

I've received a couple of older Zoom effects processors and they are going to form the core of my signal chain (All the elements of the Phoenix Rig were gifted to me by generous BC members ... I cannot express how grateful I am!)

The Zoom units are quite powerful in the processing they can perform and can sound quite good, however there are a couple of "challanges" to the way I setup the effects and gig.

Configuring patches

This is done on the unit using the small display and controls.  I came across a free application called Tonelib that makes the process of building and configuring patches significantly easier; it's a funky bit of software!

Selecting patches when playing

Sadly this is suboptimal!  With one or two footswitches, it is hard to go directly to a patch, there is support for scrolling through a list of patches but it is not ideal.  After some research I found that a few clever folks had figured out that the Zomm processors accept MIDI commands to select and reconfigure patches and effects.

And so I am building Stompz.

It will be based on the Raspberry Pi that did not get baked in the fire.

Yesterday I went into my makerspace and spent several hours starting the physical assembly.

The enclosure is the back of an offcast of an outdoor light a bit like this

Is is almost perfect for the job.

I drilled and filed a few holes for the foot switches and an expression jack socket.

Stompz has 5 footswitches, an expression pedal jack input and a small OLED display panel (I've yet to figure out the best way to mount this so it's currently just sticking out the top) It will be based on a Raspberry Pi that did not get baked in the fire and, apart from the foot switches, is made up of items that I have been able to salvage from the flat or are offcasts ... super economical!

The finished Phoneix Effects Chain will look like this

At present the only thing in Stompz is a USB battery that is powering both Zoom processors.

The foot switches are laid out so that it is easy to press two adjacent switches, so from a UX perspective it will be possible to have

5 x Switch press

5 x Long switch press

4 x Pair switch press

4 x Long pair switch press.

This will allow for some quite powerful manipulation of the unit during a gig, either turning on/off individual effects, selection of preconfigured pedalboard layouts and snapshots.  The OLED display (I might add another as it is quite small) will display what Stompz is up to and indicate what each switch will do.

Stompz connects to each Zoom using a USB cable, which provide both power and will carry the MIDI data; The Zoom MIDI message format is not officially documented, but there are various resources on the web from which I should be able to build a full list of available commands.  At present I have successfully been able to change patches on a Zoom but I believe it is possible to reconfigure patches as well as the various settings for each of the effects in a patch.  I'm hoping that I can do this without killing any audio tails as it will allow me to drive some of these changes using the expression pedal.  With the two Zoom processors connected in serial the rig will support a total of nine effects in a chain; I'm toying with the idea of running them in parallel which might allow for some splitting of frequencies for different processing ... not totally sure how I would wire this up yet.

I'll be writing some bespoke code to allow for:

• Defining the action of the footswitches.
• Configure/manage/select "Pedalboards" (A collection of effects and their settings used in a particular song)  This will let me configure which effects I want to use and their settings and (hopefully) link the expression pedal to the desired effects.  Ideally I'll be able to treat Stompz as a single effects unit and it will decide itself which effect to place on which processor.
• Configure/manage/select "Snapshots" (A group of the settings for all of the effects in a pedal board)
• Access to all of this via a web interface (Or maybe also a smartphne app) over WiFi.

The idea is that I can setup my pedalboards and tune the settings as I desire in advance and save them.  During a gig I can use the foot switches to select a particular pedalboard for a song and switch between snapshots as I play, to load the settings for the verse/chorus/bridge/etc.  All of this will be run on the Pi which will send the MIDI commands to configure the Zoom processor units.

With my EffektLada project (Now put on ice) I had intended to run a MIDI synth and sequencer on the Pi which could be driven by a MIDI keyboard; this will allow for the generation of sophisticed drum tracks as well as being able to produce the occasional "special sounds" that we have used in some of our numbers (Like shakers, cow bells, xylophone ... even some horns or organ snippets). I've a couple of salvaged microcontrollers that can do button/motion sensing and send MIDI over Bluetooth to the Stompz allowing for small handheld battery powered units to produce effects.  This will require the addition of an audio output from the Pi so is definately a Version 2 or 3 feature.  Other possibilities are to use Pi based effect plugins in the signal chain and even record on the Pi.

Now the basic physical assembly is complete I need to wire up the innards and start designing/writing/testing the software to achieve all of this.  Hopefully I can make a start on this later today ... I am starting back at work tomorrow and I need to sort out some shoes that will help me survive the 12.5h shift on my feet (I am so looking forward to being back bedside nursing, it feeds my soul) so my time will be constrained.

Stompz may not look as elegant as the all in one systems from the likes of Line6, Moddevices or the current gen Zoom units ... but it will get the job done and then some and I will be able to craft it to behave exactly the way I wish, which cannot be said of an off the shel unit which are generally very configurable, but only in the way the manafacturer determines.  And the things that makes it all possible is that the cost is mostly effort, the various elements have been donated by the amazing BC family, have been salvaged from the fire or scavanged from castoffs ... no significant financial burden and the time I spend to bring it all together is free!

More to come ...

S'manth x