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Musicman SUB bass project - 2012 update, actual progress!!


budget bassist
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Update!

It's a very minor step, but a step none the less. I managed to find some bridge anchor bolts, not chrome, not exactly the same as the original ones (not at all really!) but they do the job and i don't think they look too bad.



Now i'm just waiting to get some money so i can order the pickup screws and foam again (my order got messed up) and possibly a preamp, though i'm not sure about that one yet.

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only just come across this thread, looks good!

I did something similar not too long ago with an OLP body and stingray neck and added a Jazz pup to it

If youre not overly happy with the bridge arrangement its worth bearing in mind that a badass III will fit on quite nicely, though the anchor bolts might be in the way a lil bit.

Whats the control cavity like on the SUB?

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[quote name='budget bassist' post='286747' date='Sep 18 2008, 05:22 PM']I'm pretty happy with the bridge now i think, i don't think a badass would quite look right.

Also what do you want to know about the control cavity?

pics of your project?[/quote]

is there much of a control cavity is my only query, I had an absolute whore of a time fitting an East pre into the (passive) OLP cavity, lots of routing and swearing and its still not quite right.

pics coming right up!

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Oh wow that looks really nice!

And there should be a decent enough cavity, it fits an active musicman preamp in it, which is pretty hefty and there's a battery compartment on the back so it should be fine. Although the preamp i may be getting is 18V so i'll have to make that route even bigger and buy a double battery compartment.

By the way, where did you get the side jack plate for that OLP? I have one but it's a bit big.

Edited by budget bassist
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[quote name='budget bassist' post='286758' date='Sep 18 2008, 05:37 PM']Oh wow that looks really nice!

And there should be a decent enough cavity, it fits an active musicman preamp in it, which is pretty hefty and there's a battery compartment on the back so it should be fine. Although the preamp i may be getting is 18V so i'll have to make that route even bigger and buy a double battery compartment.

By the way, where did you get the side jack plate for that OLP? I have one but it's a bit big.[/quote]

thanks much, and you ou7shined

found another, better bridge pic



when i was routing for mine i was always worried about going over into the pup cavity (olp one is HUGE)

I think the side jack came from axesrus, but it was flat, so took bit of persuading to curve to the edge of the body, though they also have curve elliptical ones which looked like they would have worked better in hindsight

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Well here she is, the (pretty much) finished article, in that it works but there are some things i want to change about it in time, such as chrome tuners, chrome control plate and knobs, maybe a preamp and maybe a neck with a maple board. I might sand down the front of the headstock and maybe the rest of the neck and put gunstock oil on it, but that's for another post.

Basically yesterday, allparts woke me up with a phone call sorting out my order (turns out i typed in one of the digits on the expiry date wrong) and today in the post came my pickup sponges and screws! That's good service!

So today, i had mounted the pickups, but the sponges were too hard so on the neck pickup i chopped them in half to half the height so that the screws would go in (i don't use the neck pickup much anyway so that doesn't need to be too high), and on the bridge pickup i happened to have a couple of springs left over from when i swapped some pickups on another bass which did the trick nicely because with the sponges it was actually making the pickup casing bend around the screws!

So i got them in, soldered the pickups onto the respective pots (easy), slapped some strings on there, fiddled with the action and intonation and sorted! The easiest part was actually the hardest part! Oh well. I'm thinking of putting a blend pot in there instead though because i don't like volume volume tone, doesn't make much sense to me either consdering the control plate belonged to a single H OLP and i can't imagine either of the two coils would have sounded a great deal different. I'd quite like to get a preamp at some point too because a single tone knob doesn't give me the amount of control i'd like, it will do for now though. It does sound really nice though! very loud for a passive bass and that seymour duncan gives it a lot of bite!

Anyway, pics:



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  • 11 months later...

So there haven't been any updates on this for a while, and they've been a long time coming. So a while ago (it was before christmas i believe, getting on for a year ago), a very nice person, who wished to remain anonymous sent me a musicman bongo preamp and knobs for free, and a big thankyou to that person :). I don't think he visits these parts, but that's beside the point. Anyway i just ahd to get round to fitying it, as it required some *ahem*, modifications...

Anyway, on a spur of the moment kind of thing i decided to get cracking on it. I stripped the whole thing down yesterday (i had ripped the controls out some time ago and crudely made a big hole where the control plate had been right through the body.) I then got the router out today and neatened that hole up a bit, and set to drawing out a template for the hole for the rest of the electronical gubbins, batteries etc. I then routed out the hole. Not massive news but it's certainly a start.

Anyway, here are some photos, they're a bit shaky/crap qualty as i had to use my phone because i left my 'proper' camera at my mum's house due to the aforementioned spur-of-the-moment-ness:

The preamp and knobs:


The hole through the body after neatening up a bit, for those of you that are a bit eagle-eyed, i had a bit of an accident with a chisel... so if it didn't need a refin before (it did), it definitely will now:



About to cut out the router template:


Routing done, not the neatest routing ever but it was my first time, and i'm pretty pleased :rolleyes: it's certainly workable:


Now i need to get the right router bit to cut out the little step for the cover, i have some PVA which should hopefully be enough for a front/back plate. I also need a new jack socket and possibly a few pickup screws depending if i want to run two pickups or one, not decided yet. Might go for two as i will need a new pickguard otherwise. Anyway, i would like to have this finished before the SE bass bash, but this is unlikely, but i'll try!

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Another update, just cut and shaped the control plate for the bass, took me a good couple of hours! A friend of mine who works at rolls royce (aerospace, not the cars) has offered to make me up a polished stainless steel one, so this may just be a template, but there you go. I mucked up the countersinking of one of the screw holes, went a little too far, and it's not brilliantly shaped, but for a first attempt, i'm pretty pleased. All the screwholes line up near enough perfectly though, so i'm happy :)



The preamp fits it perfectly too, as you can see:



EDIT: you can see where i mucked up the top screw hole in that second picture. There are some scratches that i'm not happy with though, so i'm going to t-cut it as soon as i can find it.... sure we have some somewhere...

Edited by budget bassist
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[quote name='spree' post='286755' date='Sep 18 2008, 05:29 PM']as promised

[/quote]

Crikey! Three stacked pots and a single = 7 controls on that beastie, not to mention the mini-toggle.
Allowing two for either vol/blend or vol/vol, does it have God's own 5-band EQ in it?
The electronics geek in me just has to know!

Edited by NickH
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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...

[quote name='Mikey R' post='794934' date='Apr 3 2010, 11:34 AM']Hey, any news? :)[/quote]
Hi mate, it's coming along! I started prepping the control cavity ready for some stuff but i didn't bother posting, may be going into notts later to buy all the necessary electronic gubbins and i may sort out the control cavity cover later if it doesn't rain :rolleyes:
keep your eyes peeled! I'm hoping to have this finished relatively soon now

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