Billy Sheehan P Bass Project

[BassApprentice]

Hello everyone

So I have plan that may or may not work. I've always been a fan of Billy Sheehan's tone and while the most obvious way to get this tone is to go out and buy a Yamaha Attitude I played one a few years ago and it wasn't for me.

I picked up a Squier P Bass body from eBay for £20 delivered so the plan is:

Dimarzio Will Power or Model One in the neck position

Dimarzio Will Power in the middle

Then maybe a Jazz Pickup at the bridge (might not be feasible though)

Not sure how the pickup selection process would go with 3 pickups without wiring it stereo....

I know this would require a lot of routing and I probably wouldn't do that myself but we'll see how it goes

Any advice will be welcome along the way as this is my first full project!

Cheers guys

[SlapbassSteve]

Funnily enough I was thinking along similar lines last night, in my case even the BB714BS seems quite overpriced, considered getting a beater p-bass and bunging in some will powers... great minds eh? I'd be inclined to wire it in stereo, a lot of Billy's tone seems to come from the woofer/tweeter approach... good luck with the build!

[White Cloud]

I did the same thing to a Tokai "Hard Puncher" P bass back in 1991 and it worked a treat. The bass is long gone however I currently own a BB714S and it is a top notch alternative to the Attitude (I had one of those too a few years ago)..

[BassApprentice]

[quote name='White Cloud' timestamp='1386599436' post='2301964']
I did the same thing to a Tokai "Hard Puncher" P bass back in 1991 and it worked a treat. The bass is long gone however I currently own a BB714S and it is a top notch alternative to the Attitude (I had one of those too a few years ago)..
[/quote]
Ah cool! Did you have a jazz pickup too? Or just the woofer and P pickup in stereo?

[White Cloud]

[quote name='BassApprentice' timestamp='1386601600' post='2301998']
Ah cool! Did you have a jazz pickup too? Or just the woofer and P pickup in stereo?
[/quote]
Sorry for the confusion - no it had a Kent Armstrong woofer pickup at the neck and a Bartolini P pickup.

The famous Jimmy Moon of Glasgow did the work and he strongly advised me against it beforehand, but once complete he admitted that it had worked really well. A great bass!

[fretmeister]

The Will Power P pickup has a lot of treble - you won't need a J at the bridge if that is what you are worried about.

My Attitude 3 has 3 controls. Vol and Tone for the Woofer and just Vol for the P.

But the P Vol is a push pull that joins the 2 outputs together, and the Woofer Tone is also a push pull that is a low pass filter on the woofer to completely knock the treble response out from the Woofer signal.

I often use it with the outputs combined and the separate volume controls allow really accurate mixing of the signals.


The woofer is a big unit and gets in the way for slap (if you do that) so a narrower choice might be better. A would think a Nordstrand humbucker soapbar would give you more room and still get you a deep and chunky low end.


I think the body wood has a fair bit to do with the tone - it's a chunky bit of alder, and although I've owned other basses with the same pickups, the alder seems to give it loads of growl!

[paul_5]

You'll need to rout/drill/chisel a big hole for the hum bucker at the neck, fortunately if it's not too neat a job then it's covered by the scratch plate, so that works in your favour.

Choice of wood [i]does[/i] make a difference to the tone - go for alder, and a maple fingerboard and neck to give you plenty of bright, grindy goodness