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New Zoot ZB-1000 Custom


Bass Culture

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  • 2 weeks later...

A quick picture of the finished bass.  I'll paste more pic's tomorrow.  This bass has some freaking excellent tones in it, I wired the pickup with a 3 way on-on-on mini switch to give,  series/spilt coil/parallel  options for the pup, add this to the 6 way "Varitone" switch and you have 18 distinctive bass tones (all very usable), in-fact there are a couple that quite frankly immense.  I can't recommend the Rautia Aria pickup enough, it is the very best sounding Aria pickup I have worked with, and with the four core wire option is in my opinion superior in sound and clarity than the originals.  Add to this the new BB-NoiseKiller preamp supplied by Prostheta (which is also a great bit of kit) and the bass truly is amazing for a single pickup bass.

MN_20210126_165320058.jpg

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14 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

So so very nice indeed. Hopefully we will get to hear some soundclips at some point.

I've never heard an Aria SB1000 pick up in a non Aria bass.  

Dave

Me neither, Dave!  It may take a little while before I can take delivery of it but once I do I will post some sound clips, promise. :)

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1 minute ago, Bass Culture said:

Me neither, Dave!  It may take a little while before I can take delivery of it but once I do I will post some sound clips, promise. :)

Appreciate that and probably take a little while to get the ideal settings form all those presets.

Dave

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1 minute ago, dmccombe7 said:

Appreciate that and probably take a little while to get the ideal settings form all those presets.

Dave

Quite right.  Although Mike was telling me when he was having a test play yesterday there were several settings that put a smile on his face.  And when he's made as many basses as he has that certainly a statement to pique the interest!

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11 minutes ago, Bass Culture said:

Quite right.  Although Mike was telling me when he was having a test play yesterday there were several settings that put a smile on his face.  And when he's made as many basses as he has that certainly a statement to pique the interest!

Its been a fascinating project and the idea of using the Aria SB1000 pick up was brilliant. Having owned an SB1000 in 80's it had so many great tones to play with. 

Dave

Edited by dmccombe7
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Beeeeyoudiful...I've got a Shuker with a Nordy Bigman in roughly the same position, and it's wired single/parallel/single (series was too mental), and just that has a real spread of tones, add that Varitone and it's even more versatile. Brilliant.

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1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

Its been a fascinating project and the idea of using the Aria SB1000 pick up was brilliant. Having owned an SB1000 in 80's it had so many great tones to play with. 

Dave

The reason Mark mentioned I had a smile on my face whilst testing his bass,  was this:   I also have one of Darren Snow's original Aria SB-1000 in the workshop at the moment so I was able to compare the two side by side.  In Mark's case I have moved the pickup to a slightly different position than the original Aria.  The main reason for this is due to the 32" scale length on Marks Zoot ZB-1000.  I always work out the pup position from a quick bit of maths and where the closest anti-node would be to the position I'm looking at. If anyone has been to my workshop they would have noticed a one string bass I made myself with a sliding top nut to help work out precise positions of pickups given any scale length, so with a little bit of maths and a one string bass and you can pretty much nail the perfect pup positions for any scale length. Anyway, back to the smiles,  If you consider that Veijo Rautia wired the pickup for me to have four core wires, I was able to add a 3 way mini toggle switch that give the pickup series/split coil/parallel Thus, if you think about it you end up with 18 basic tones when using this 3 way pickup switch with the 6 way "varitone", way more than the original Aria bass.  Basically with the Veijo Rautia pickup and the new BB-NoiseKiller preamp plus the 3 way pickup switch, this bass is a killer in the tone department.  (who needs two pickups?) In all honesty there were some sounds in this bass that truly astonished me considering it's simplicity, and yes, it knocked the original out of the park (no disrespects to the original, because in it's day it was a champion of basses and still is really).  Gear used for testing:  Little Mark 250 head set dead flat, Purple-chili 1 X12" non tweeter cab, Marks Zoot ZB-1000 and Darren's original Aria SB-1000.   Regards, Mike. 

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2 hours ago, Cosmicrain said:

The reason Mark mentioned I had a smile on my face whilst testing his bass,  was this:   I also have one of Darren Snow's original Aria SB-1000 in the workshop at the moment so I was able to compare the two side by side.  In Mark's case I have moved the pickup to a slightly different position than the original Aria.  The main reason for this is due to the 32" scale length on Marks Zoot ZB-1000.  I always work out the pup position from a quick bit of maths and where the closest anti-node would be to the position I'm looking at. If anyone has been to my workshop they would have noticed a one string bass I made myself with a sliding top nut to help work out precise positions of pickups given any scale length, so with a little bit of maths and a one string bass and you can pretty much nail the perfect pup positions for any scale length. Anyway, back to the smiles,  If you consider that Veijo Rautia wired the pickup for me to have four core wires, I was able to add a 3 way mini toggle switch that give the pickup series/split coil/parallel Thus, if you think about it you end up with 18 basic tones when using this 3 way pickup switch with the 6 way "varitone", way more than the original Aria bass.  Basically with the Veijo Rautia pickup and the new BB-NoiseKiller preamp plus the 3 way pickup switch, this bass is a killer in the tone department.  (who needs two pickups?) In all honesty there were some sounds in this bass that truly astonished me considering it's simplicity, and yes, it knocked the original out of the park (no disrespects to the original, because in it's day it was a champion of basses and still is really).  Gear used for testing:  Little Mark 250 head set dead flat, Purple-chili 1 X12" non tweeter cab, Marks Zoot ZB-1000 and Darren's original Aria SB-1000.   Regards, Mike. 

What he said. 😁

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6 hours ago, MattW said:

Wow, don't know how I missed this thread until now - absolutely beautiful work there @Cosmicrain

@Bass Culture is one lucky guy!

 Now the question is, could you make a 34" scale 6 string version for me 😁

 

 

Hi Matt, I have just been asked that same question by another bassist.  The answer is yes, and the good news is it will cost no more than a 32" scale version.  Hope this helps, regards Mike.

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