NtinyBD

[Owen]

I am trialing this. I will put metal strings on it BEADG. I will see how it behaves. If it settles (it has a truss rod) then I will get a magnetic pickup routed into it - probably one of those Delano Oval ones cos they are fit. I will also put a standard bass guitar bridge on it. It could benefit from a tummy cut and a forearm cut. We shall see. It was 200 all in from China. The woodwork is fine and dandy. The fret tangs are a bit sharp. It is vol and 3 band eq but a mag pickup would go passive vol and tone. All the pots have a center detent. Yes, all. Great for those half volume moments.

If it does not take metal strings I will flog it. 

As with all my projects, I reserve the right to take an inordinately long time about it. 

Edited January 13, 2021 by owen

[LukeFRC]

They built them to go louder - centre detention on the volume is 10

[LeftyJ]

Looks cute, and fun! Would be cool if it holds up to the tension 

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

They built them to go louder - centre detention on the volume is 10

Laugh all you want, but that is exactly what Gibson and Moog did with the Gibson RD series 

 

[Maude]

Any idea what strings you'll use to get a reasonable tension. 

I don't what scale length yours is but imagine putting a capo on the 5th fret (to get your scale length) and then down tuning so that it becomes B E A D G at the capo, the strings will be very loose. 

Won't they? 🤔

I'm intrigued to see how it works though. 🙂👍

[Owen]

I have a set of strings for F#BEADG tuning so I will use those first. It really is an experiment. I will do all that first. If it works I will think about modding it. If it does not I will flog it as a 5 string Uke bass.

[Owen]

I pur a set of bass guitar strings on today. The tesnion is ok. the nut is so high for the flobadob rubber strings that fretted notes on frets 1 and 2 are way out. 4 of the 5 machine heads only want to turn in one direction so I have had to reverse wind strings. I might have crushed the piezo to death. It is going well, and it is not going well. Structurally I think it might work. At the moment, it is not happy. I am not too bothered about the piezo cos I would change the bridge anyway.

[Maude]

The piezo will probably be fine, they respond better to high pressure. One of the issues with rubber strings can be the lack of pressure on the piezo element. 

Have you used the B to G, or gone for the F# to D for increased tension? 

[Owen]

On 18/01/2021 at 00:46, Maude said:

The piezo will probably be fine, they respond better to high pressure. One of the issues with rubber strings can be the lack of pressure on the piezo element. 

Have you used the B to G, or gone for the F# to D for increased tension? 

The piezo is currently sitting under normal bass guitar strings cut to size but tuned to pitch. My guess is that there is too much pressure. The strings have settled in and I think that it will work. I am going to get some proper machine heads, a cheap and cheerful 5 string bridge and a funky Oval Delano pickup. Passive vol and EQ for now but might put a pre in there later.