Delberthot

My wedding band have a website here:

[url="http://www.firstclassmusic.net/"]http://www.firstclassmusic.net/[/url]

My first impression when I saw it was that we looked like a country and western band. That opening pic makes us all look we have really fat faces.

The samples on the site were recorded using a minidisc recorder about 20 feet in front of the PA so they're not perfect.

Here's our bebo site that i did

[url="http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=7627956407"]http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=7627956407[/url]

Thought I'd wait until tonight (this morning?) to go over this weekend's gigs.

Friday night - doing a charity ball with the wedding band.

Its a 9pm start so I get there around 7.45pm, guitarist is already there. We get the gear in although not the easiest. They've just got a new extension on the place and as usual the bands were the last things on the owners minds when they designed the place. Had to lift, amongst other things, the rack with power amps which comes in around 125lbsup to head height to get it over the stacks of chairs in the corridor. Luckily I'm a strong guy but its still a PITA.

The drummer arrives next and we get all the gear set up. Its still early so we go to the bar to wait for the keyboard player / singer to arrive. He also brings the subs and the box of cables for the PA with him.

Its gets to around 8.10 and we're wondering where the keyboard player is. We try calling him on his mobile but it goes straight through to his answering machine and there's no answer at his house either.

The drummer eventually gets him around 8.25. the conversation gos something like:

D: Hi, what are you up to tonight?

K: Just sitting in front of the telly with a hot chocolate and about to go to bed, not feeling too good.

D: You do realise we are playing tonight?

K: F*****************************

You get the idea.

Luckily the dinner overruns so when the keyboard player arrives and we get set up we are more or less ready to begin when the audience are ready.

I must say that I had the worst sound I've had in a long time. It might be something to do with preserving my fingers for the other 2 gigs this weekend, it might be the room or it may be that the last 3 gigs I have done have been with the rock band and my settings are completely different for that band.

I had one of those gigs where I played a lot of random notes that luckily sounded ok.

I've had better gigs but I've also had worse.


This afternoon's gig was a freeby for the Cancer Research 'race for life' at Grangemouth Sports Stadium. Last year's one was really good but we played later in the day and got really drunk after it. The PA was also fantastic as well. It was so substantial that there was a desk on the stage to mix the monitors and another out front for the main PA mix.

This year it was different guys doing it and they were DJs with a relatively large PA by DJ standards. They had the smallest desk in the world and actually ran out of inputs long before everything was mic'd up or DI'd. It didn't really bother me as, just like us, they were offering their services FOC for the event.

Half an hour before we were due to begin the drummer asked the main guy if everything was all set up and he repled that it was. And he added "how difficult can it be to mix a band" to which my drummer repled "how difficult can it be to be a DJ"

There was no soundcheck - most DJs won't know what that is.

We began playing at the back of 5. Our first song was Gary Moore's version of 'the stumble'. While we were playing this the Dj was mixing us through a set of headphones plugged into the desk.

Do you know the story behind why Chris Squire's bass is so prominent in Yes' recordings? It was because the sound engineer mixed one of their albums through a set of headphones and kept turning up the bass so he could hear it.

I can only imagine how loud I was through the PA.

Anyway, we begin playing and our drummer tried to get the Djs attention as he couldn't hear his vocals through the monitor but the DJ had decided to leave the stage and go out front to hear how it sounded even though one of the other Dj guys there was giving a big thumbs up for the sound out front.

The drummer went mental shouting at the Dj to come back up. I can totally see his point of view- remember it was the DJ who said 'how hard can it be to mix a band?". If he had asked us questions or offered his ideas instead of being so blaze about the whole thing the situation may never have arose. They both had a shouting match and the DJ ended up going home!

The gig ended up being cr@p as I was on edge and getting myself ready for a fight as I could see people talking to each other and pointing toward the stage. Would've been a pretty onesided fight anyway as the drummer and I can both handle ourselves, the singer was Scottish Karate champion and the guitarist was UK champion. Sorry, I don't want to act the big man or anything but that was the situation as I saw it.

Finished the gig at 6.20pm. Stripped the gear and was at this evening's gig for 6.30pm (just round the corner luckily)

Got in etc etc etc and began around 8.20

I decided to use my new '56 Warmoth P instead of my usual gold one (the gold one is normally for the wedding band and the '56 is for the rock band) the soundwas absolutely fantastic.

Apart from a brand new lead cr@pping out on me the sound was fantastic.

I find that when I play too hard the pickup on the gold bass compresses the signal and makes it lot quieter whereas the Lollar pickup in the '56 comes alive when I really dig in.

The gig was ace and a sea breeze considering it was the third one this weekend - I could've gone on a lot longer.

One thing though - I'm not prone to GAS that often these days but one thing I would really like now is a good all valve amp. It would suit the bass down to the ground.

Not sure what to get though. I have thought about getting a Marshall VBA400 - those MBC cabs are stupidly cheap. An 8x10" for £399?

Bonkers

One thing I like is that Marshall use Celestions. There aren't many speakers that I trust but I used Trace cabs for years and they're pretty bomb proof, not like those nasty Fane drivers in my Ashdown ABM115 cabs.

Another one I fancy is a Schroeder 6x10" - probably about the same weight as the Marshall head!

They are good if you don't have time to tune down and back up between songs but currently I just mute my bass, tune down and then unmute. the whole process takes about 5 seconds.

I used to do a cool thing like on the Manring video (hadn't heard of him at the time) where the last note of the song was a low D. I'd do the run all the way down to the E then flick the lever to go down to the D.

I have 2 detuners in my parts drawer that i don't use - a Schaller Musicman/fender type one and a Gotoh GB7 type one.

Buce endorses Waterstone basses as does Tom Petersson from Cheap Trick and a few other guys as well.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I'm in Torremolinos then.

Always wanted to meet him. He seems very down to earth for a guy with so much blonde hair, I mean talent

My gold one has 21 frets and a gotoh 201 bridge as well. I made a mess of installing the Warwick JAN III on the gold one so had the frets dressed at the same time so don't know if the top fret needed filing down.

The pickup is surprisingly quiet. I didn't actually realise this until you mentioned itbut there was no sound at all from it. The quarter pounder on my gold one does buzz.

I have them both set exactly the same as well with both volume and tone controls fully on. I'm actually contemplating wiring the pickup directly to the jack.

After reading up on what and how to shim I decided to use the edging you get for kitchen worktops since I had a load left over after doing the kichen.

One piece cut to the shape of the heel and placed right up against the butt did the trick. (no jokes please)

Some kind of wood veneer was the best option after reading up on it followed by cutting up an aluminium can and finally thin piece of plastic.

You really don't need much to drastically alter the angle of the neck. If I look at the neck pocket from the bottom there is only the slightest of gaps.

I've just finished adjusting the height of the strings, intonation and have tightened the truss rod as there was too much relief. I'll leave it now until tomorrow to let it settle.

Thanks I may try that as I will need to take the neck off anyway.

I was at a rehearsal with the gold one today and I noticed that the action was completely different to the new one. On the new one, the saddles, on the G string especially, are bottomed out down as low as they will go whereas they are what I would call normal on the gold one.

I think that I may have to shim the neck on he new one as the action is still huge towards the top frets. Anyone have any tips or a good site to check out on how to do this?

It does seem weird that since they are effectively the same body and neck albeit made from different woods that the fit of the neck to body is so drastically different.

As I mentioned before, I thought that it was too much relief causing the buzzing on the higher frets but now think that it is because the neck needs shimming.


I had the bass out last night for its first gig bu took the gold one in case it wasn't ready somehow. I ended up using it for the whole gig. This has to be the most amazing bass I have ever played. It has the hugest, fullest sound I have ever heard on a bass.

It couldn't be much more different to the gold one:

The gold one is extremely tight and well defined making it ideal for getting a clean cut-through sound with the wedding band but this is absolutely dominating. It sounds like an organ. Its the only way I can describe it. It makes a bigger sound than my 12 string made.

Its gnarly and dirty and will steal your dinner money to buy cigarettes. It carries a wallet with 'bad mother*&^%$r' branded on it. Can you diggit?

It plays faster than the gold one despite the gold one having an unfinished Wenge neck which is meant to be one of the fastest necks hereas this one has a vintage satin laquer finish.

I have no idea what makes this one sound so different to the gold one as there are too many variables beteen them. I think it might have a lot to do with the Lollar pickup. I was expecting it not to be as powerful as the uarter pounder but i probably couldn't be any wronger.

Can't remember is I mentioned this or not but I am using Optima chrome plated strings, same gauge as the gold ones I use.

I had to adjust the truss rod as there was buzzing up at the top frets and thought at first I had the wrong sized allen key but in fact the nut as loostened all the way out and was just freewheeling

To say I'm happy would be the understatement of a lifetime. It looks absolutely fantastic and better than I even hoped it would be.

I am so looking forward to tonight's gig now.

At last my new bass is now complete and can reveal all.

Other parts that went on after the last series of pictures fitted pretty easily.

I used a Tusq nut whch just went straight in - in fact I didn't actually have to file it down at all. The pickup and bridge covers were straight forward as well except the top mounting ear of the bridge one which has some air beteen it and the body due to the body routing as these were designed for the slab bodied '51.

Everybody Dance isn't the easiest song I ever learned!

He was such a fluid player.

To elaborate on the John Taylor incident - Bernard left the Stingray to John as they had become very good friends through the Powerstation stuff.

One day he was recording something and went outside for a fag or something and when he came back the sound engineer had taken the strings off the bass. He didn't just take them off, he cut them oiff!

Bernard was famously asked what strings he used and his answer was 'whatever they come with' and they were the strings that were on it until that day.

There was nothing special about that bass, it was just a 2 band late 70s Stingray with dead old strings. Someone said it best when they said that 'the funk is in the fingers'.

If you don't have any luck with the superglue I would trace round the plate and send it off to Pickguardian in USA.

He does a fantastic job and has done several standard and non standard ones for me in the past.

How about a vintage white? He did this one for my Blueboy Rickenbacker

This is my second Warmoth build and as of yet I have to find another bass that sounds or plays anywhere near as good as my first one.

It is really important to get the right parts for what you want.

With my gold one the body was mahogany so I just used standard Schaller machines like you would find on any US Fender or Rickenbacker but this one is ash and a lot lighter so I wanted to eliminate any possible neckdive. That is why i went for the lightweight tuners on this one.

My gold one has a Quarter Pounder, 500k CTS pots and standard cap as I wanted a powerful sound whereas this one has a Lollar pickup, 250k pots, paper in oil cap and cloth covered wiring as I am looking for something a bit mellower and closer to the original.

I've used Gotoh 201 bridges on both basses really just down to money. I can get these direct from Warmoth for about £15 each whereas a standard Fender one I think comes in at about twice that. The Gotoh bridges are also very easy to setup.

Actually, the second best bass I ever played was my 2 tone sunburst '51 reissue and the basis for both of my Warmoth's as I just loved the sound and playability of the thing. The only thing I disliked and the main reason for selling was the lack of body contouring hence me going for the '54 style instead.

One thing that i will always say is that if you get one made and you don't like it, you will get washers for it as they aren't that widely known in the grand scheme of things and considered as merely parts basses. This is why it is very important to make sure that you are getting exactly what you want.

It took a long time to weigh up different components, read books on basses, ask questions on Forums such as this one and probably the most important part of the whole thing for me was to buy, play and then sell about 50 different basses to find what it was that I wanted.

An example would be that it took me about a month to decide on the colour. There were only 2 colours widely available at the time - Blonde and 2 tone sunburst.

I'm still contemplating getting a white scratchplate for it.

Its not the first time I've had to enlarge the holes on a control plate.

What I do is after I have screwed the plate to the piece of wood I drill a pilot hole right in the middle of each hole then get one of those drill bits that are meant for wood. I don't remember what they're called but they are really wide at the end with a pointy bit protruding. I find that the pointy bit helps the drill stay in the pilot hole so that I get a good cut.

I drill kneeling down with one foot on the plate to keep it steady leaving both hands free to drill with.

The metal is a bit rough around the edges but the trick is just to attach the pots as it flattens the rough edge out slightly and effectively becomes like another washer to keep everything in place

Hmm, can't find a website for Gotoh nor a distributor of any kind.

Bit strange for one of the largest manufacturers of guitar parts in the world.

I've emailed the place I bought them from to see if they can point me in the right direction

I did drill pilot holes for the screws but they still managed to break.

As i mentioned, the holes for the pots were too small so I enlarged them.







I was really amazed how easily the soldering went. I'm not exactly the best at it but everything just seemed to work straight away.







Anyway, here's more pictures. I'm really amazed at how much birdseye there is in the neck as I only requested standard maple. I'm not going to post any more until it is ready and then I'll do some kind of grand unveiling or something.

Well most of the buld is going well so far.

a couple of things have gone wrong however: The scratchplate hadn't been cut correctly here it meets the control plate but after a couple of minutes with a knife I had it fitting; the other thing that completely baffled me is that he I was installing the tuners I managed to snap 3 of the screws. Luckily only one per tuner.

I found this really odd as I've fitted loads of tuners before but these ones seemed to snap with no warning and with no effort. I'm wondering if they are made of a lightweight soft metal to help keep the overall weight down. I'm going to email gotoh and see what they say.

I'm not going to be able to get the screws out so I'll probably just superglue the heads back on to preserve the look.









Getting the laquer off the frets was pretty straightforward as well. I couldn't find any masking tape so I used brown tape applied very lightly and used the steel wool to take the finish off the frets

I've been trying various parts against others and I have to say that the neck is a really tight fit - not so much so that it would cause a problem when fitting it but in that it is absolutely perfect. I've tried lots of basses and none of them have had such a tight fitting neck.

The cut out for the scratchplate where it meets the control plate hasn't been cut correctly so they don't meet. I'll neet to draw round where it should go and cut out the small amount that needs taken out in order for it to fit.

The CTS pot shafts are too thick for the control plate as well (neither part bought from Warmoth) so I'll get the drill out later and make the holes larger to accomodate them.

I've worked out an order that I will be approaching the building of the bass -


1 - Mask off the fretboard and take the excess finish off the frets with 000 grade steel wool

2 - Fit the nut

3 - fit the machineheads

4 - attach the pots to the control plate (after enlarging the holes)

5 - take care of all the soldering of the 2 pots and jack socket.

6 - Fit the pickup and solder it to the pots

7 - Attach the control plate to the body

8 - Fit the bridge

9 - Fit the straplocks

10 - Attach the neck to the body

11 - Offer the scratchplate onto the body and work out how much to take off so that it fits round the control plate

12 - Fit the thumb rest

13 - Fit the strings and tune up

14 - fit the string retainer

15- check the intonation and action and file the nut if necessary

16 - fit the bridge and pickup covers


There we go, 16 steps to get the bass up and running. I would normally be looking at a couple of hours to get it done but the strings won't be here until tomorrow so I have to stop after step 12.

I'm taking care of the soldering and attaching most of the body parts before the neck goes on because it was a bit awkward the last time to maneuvere it with the neck attached.

More photos to follow

Suppose i could've been clearer but if you look at my post saying that it was out for delivery with UPS this morning, my next one was me saying that I now had the parts after parting with £100 to the UPS guy.

Everyone else seemed to have got the impression that he £100 was an import charge of some kind and I did mention in my first post that the body and neck were on their way from Warmoth. I didn't mention any other parts.

To elaborate - the parts that i got from Warmoth came to £500 including delivery, taxes & duty.

These included:

Maple neck with maple fretboard finished in vintage satin finish

Swamp ash body finished in butterscotch blonde

black single ply scratchplate

Gotoh 201 bridge

Neck plate, screws, pickguard screws an string retainer.


Completely separately I bought:

Lollar single coil pickup

Fender bridge and pickup covers

Control plate

Paper in oil cap

250k CTS posts

Fender jack

Tusq nut

Optima Chrome strings 45 - 100

This lot came to about £100.

The other parts I had from previous basses

that was just for the body, neck, neck plate, string retainer, scratchplate and gotoh 201 bridge.

The machineheads, pickup, pots, jack, straplocks, wire, cap, nut, pickup & bridge covers were extra.

In total, including shipping and all taxes, it probably came to about £650 in total which is just slightly more than the gold one came to.

Yes, Warmoth charged my debitcard on Friday for about £400- the £100.38 was VAT, duty etc