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What's this bass?


MikeStockport
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There was actually a BC member (whose name unfortunately escapes me) who built basses a lot like this for a couple of years. He did commissions for several member here, this was maybe 10 or so years ago, if I remember he abandoned it as a business because of the pressure & time constraints of doing so alongside a day job/normal life.

Can't for the life of me remember his name, and for that reason would guess he doesn't post here any more. IIRC his builds tended to be small-bodied, headless, short/medium scale & chambered to keep them light. This does look a lot like his basses in terms of design & timbers.

Was interested because I had ideas about a compact, lightweight fretted/fretless double neck for the band I was in at the time. Not much help, but hopefully someone else will remember who I'm talking about!

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18 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

You paid £311 for that and you don't know what it is?

+£7.92 postage!

Each to their own, but I’m not sure I like the look of the control cavity. Or the rear for that matter, but that may just be me. Listing states it has electrical issues as well and needs setting up. Hope it turns out OK for ya.

F6BE223C-5E0E-4AA1-82EA-2000DDBABE61.jpeg

0464A95A-5AAC-4F6F-BB4A-11E92B8EDEF0.jpeg

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2 hours ago, Bassassin said:

There was actually a BC member (whose name unfortunately escapes me) who built basses a lot like this for a couple of years. He did commissions for several member here, this was maybe 10 or so years ago, if I remember he abandoned it as a business because of the pressure & time constraints of doing so alongside a day job/normal life.

Can't for the life of me remember his name, and for that reason would guess he doesn't post here any more. IIRC his builds tended to be small-bodied, headless, short/medium scale & chambered to keep them light. This does look a lot like his basses in terms of design & timbers.

Was interested because I had ideas about a compact, lightweight fretted/fretless double neck for the band I was in at the time. Not much help, but hopefully someone else will remember who I'm talking about!

Was it Paul, @Prosebass ?

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  • 4 months later...

I've used it a few rehearsals now, after paying £35 for a setup and having the electrics sorted. It plays and sounds great, and it balances well, but there's one problem: while I can loosen the strings (to make the pitch lower) without any difficulty, the tuners are so stiff that to tighten them (to increase the string's pitch) I have to use a pair of pliers! @Prosebass

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On 09/08/2021 at 12:50, MikeStockport said:

I've used it a few rehearsals now, after paying £35 for a setup and having the electrics sorted. It plays and sounds great, and it balances well, but there's one problem: while I can loosen the strings (to make the pitch lower) without any difficulty, the tuners are so stiff that to tighten them (to increase the string's pitch) I have to use a pair of pliers! @Prosebass

It's just a badly-designed tuner unit, I assume Paul used these on his headless builds because there wasn't much available that was affordable at the time he was making these.

 

I had an identical unit on a bass I owned a couple of years ago, the flaw in the design is that the tuners use a geared system to wind the strings around a cam to produce tension, rather than a simple straight pull like most headless tuners. This means it's stiff to begin with & the more windings there are around the cam the higher the gearing becomes, making it increasingly stiffer & less accurate. It works best with as few windings as possible around the cams, but to be fair it's a stupid idea badly executed - and ridiculously over-engineered!

 

This is the bass I had:

CCHfinal01.thumb.jpg.a670d688d82951157f390f280eb13be9.jpg

 

If I'd hung onto it I'd have seriously thought about looking at fitting a different tuning system.

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On 09/08/2021 at 12:50, MikeStockport said:

the tuners are so stiff that to tighten them (to increase the string's pitch) I have to use a pair of pliers!

Don't the ends of the tuners accept a hex key ?

 

On my headless the knurled part is just to bring the strings to a slight tension, then you tune properly with the hex key.

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