NBD Shuker Fretless 5-string

[EliasMooseblaster]

Yesterday, I met Bassy (Nick) in a pub near Tower Bridge, and surreptitiously slid an envelope of money under the table in exchange for the beautiful Shuker he had up for sale.

This is new territory for me. Not just owning a Shuker; this is my first five-string. I've been through several fretless basses, I've owned an active bass previously, but this is the first time I've owned one with a B-string.

Isn't she lovely?

Macassar Ebony, apparently. I've really only included this picture to get the luthiers in a lather.

 

Head nicely bookmatched to the body, and what appears to be a brass nut. Your starter for ten: whose strings are these? The silk at the bridge ends is all blue, but at the top I have lilac (B), red (E), blue (A), black (D), green (G). They're rounds, and feel like a fairly standard gauge.

 

Here's where the fun really begins. The onboard EQ is quite gentle, but offers a lot of very agreeable variation, especially with the sweepable mid in that stacked knob. Combined with the coil tap and blend, I could be playing around with these controls for days...

The sound is quite glorious. I fancied something a bit more modern than my usual, and I certainly got that! I'm not sure whether it's the strings, the Wizard humbuckers, or that brass nut, but there's a wonderfully piano-like quality to some of the notes. I'm surprised how quickly I've got used to the wider fretboard, but I suspect the slender neck profile helps with that. (Now I just need to get out of the trap of going for the low F and accidentally hitting a bottom C...)

At some point, if you're really unlucky, I'll get round to making a demo video, so you can hear it in actionUPDATE: scroll down for not one, but TWO demo videos. Until then, is a NBD thread really a NBD thread if you don't include a hokey picture of yourself playing the thing?

Edited November 3, 2018 by EliasMooseblaster

[Happy Jack]

You'll never master the fifth string, Ralph. Quit while you're behind and just send the bass to me ...

[EliasMooseblaster]

Admittedly it is a little embarrassing to run down a scale and end up in a key a fourth below the one I started in. It's good of you to offer to spare my shame so selflessly!

[burno70]

Ooof - stunning bass - Jon's work is truly awesome!

[EliasMooseblaster]

On 26/10/2018 at 16:53, burno70 said:

Ooof - stunning bass - Jon's work is truly awesome!

Admittedly it's the first one of his I've ever seen in the flesh (in the wood?), but from the photos I've seen, it's clearly not alone in being a stunning specimen!

[EliasMooseblaster]

Anyway, I finally got round to recording a demo so you can all hear it. Just to really spoil you, I've turned it into two separate videos with different audio tracks:

Here it is DI'ed:

 

And here it is through a nice valve amp:

 

[Dood]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

 

and im not even embarrassed to type that  a Beautiful bass right there! Gorgeous sound!

Congratulations!

[Merton]

Gorgeous bass Ralph

[sprocketflup]

Was very close to pulling the trigger on this myself, it was on ebay I believe. Congrats!

[EliasMooseblaster]

Thank you all very much, gentlemen, I remain delighted with my purchase.

I've finally given it its ultimate test by using it in a band setting - not one of my usual outfits, admittedly, but it was nice to hear it in some context. Pleased to report that it sits in the mix just nicely.

I have, however, fallen into exactly the trap I feared: the temptation to keep tweaking my sound. I'm sure, as the novelty wears off, I'll regain the discipline to choose one or two settings and just stick to those for the duration of a rehearsal/set, but with so many options I can't help experimenting at the moment!

On the one hand, it's reminded me why I stuck to Precisions for so many years...on the other, it's hard to settle on one sound when so many of them are good and potentially usable.