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Your fantasy signature bass?


Jean-Luc Pickguard

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Your favourite (non-boutique) bass manufacturer has contacted you. Due to your reputation as a bass player other bass players look up to, they want to make a signature bass model for you. This could be based on one or more of your existing basses or something you've always wanted which hasn't until now existed. You would have full control of every aspect of the specification and customisations. It will be distributed to the shops they usually sell in and you would get a royalty for each one sold.

 

In as much detail as you like, what would you tell them to build, and realistically how much would you expect it to cost when it goes on sale?

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Based upon Yamaha BB2024Mx

 

8C04EE3B-6DA2-49B7-ADAF-C43B9CC5DCE0.jpeg.2b7610d5e19458cac24b8130a600c6a0.jpeg

 

Reverse the P.

 

inlays white - not black, white Pearl pickguard…

 

VVT

 

2 Colours Available 

 

Orange Metallic (like my 414) 

Shelby Blue Metallic (like the late 90’s AES800b)

 

05C11BE9-9A44-4B15-A775-E5608DA0B87C.jpeg

 

it Would be made in the Indonesian facility (effectively a 1024)

 

would come with that ace yamaha gigbag, be about £799/£899 and I’d want £50 a bass 😉

Edited by AndyTravis
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Based on my cherished 1984 G&L El Toro, G&L finally listen to the (at least) half a dozen guys on forums that ask repetively for a reissue, and they offer it again. Exactly as they did in the 80s, same options, same woods, same colors, and most important, same pickups.

 

Actually they're not even that far from it, since they started to offer the L-2000 in the CLF Research series they have most of the specs on hand. The main issue is the pickups that they will need to retro-ingeener.

 

As far as a signature model goes, I don't even want my name on it, it'll just ask for my share of the royalities in the form of one of each of the different color options. And maybe a few in some custom shop colors such as the sparkles or the flamed maple tops. I'll be touring internationally in stadiums with them, I promise !

Edited by Sven
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A five string Sadowsky but with a zero fret and a neck constructed with the Vigier 10-90 carbon system in the neck. The pickups will feature a single J in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge that can be coil tapped (like the Sandberg TM line). preamp will be the standard Sadowsky. Bridge will be the big hulk of metal they use in the Excess. 

 

Roger Sadowsky and Patrice Vigier can then licence Warwick to manufacture the instrument at a cost of £30,000 and then the design will be amended against my wishes to include the Just a Nut iii and be made of solid bubinga and will weigh 13lbs. 

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40 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

Based upon Yamaha BB2024Mx

 

8C04EE3B-6DA2-49B7-ADAF-C43B9CC5DCE0.jpeg.2b7610d5e19458cac24b8130a600c6a0.jpeg

 

Reverse the P.

 

inlays white - not black, white Pearl pickguard…

 

VVT

 

2 Colours Available 

 

Orange Metallic (like my 414) 

Shelby Blue Metallic (like the late 90’s AES800b)

 

05C11BE9-9A44-4B15-A775-E5608DA0B87C.jpeg

 

it Would be made in the Indonesian facility (effectively a 1024)

 

would come with that ace yamaha gigbag, be about £799/£899 and I’d want £50 a bass 😉

 

This, but black with the maple board (some figuring would be nice) and no inlays... 🙂

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Before 2018 mine would have been exactly like the Daphne blue JMJ sig but without the roadworn treatment.

 

Since JMJ has nailed that bass and I can live with the roadwornedness of the one I bought, I would get Fender to build something based on my Squier SS Jaguar with a few tweaks for my own sig.

 

Alder (rather than agathis) body with Candy apple red Nitro finish

neck dimensions - exactly as the squier

Rosewood fingerboard

Fender High Mass bridge

Hipshot lollipop tuners

Fender Yosemite pickups with CTS/switchcraft loom including greasebucket circuit - these sound thunderous on my squier

Thomastic JF-324 flats

Rosewood fingerboard

chrome thumbrest

correct 60s style Jazz bass knobs

Chrome thumbrest on the bass side

Extra long comfort strapp and red grolsch thingies

 

This would be a MiM instrument with a target street price of around £1000

 

IMG_5864.thumb.jpg.5d3de92ee44947aedba429de4a490a2b.jpg

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Made in Yamaha's Indonesia factory

 

laminated neck an exact copy of their BB424 neck: 40mm nut, 22mm / 25mm thick at 1st / 12th frets

 

body an alder P bass copy but with Yamaha diagonal-through-body stringing

 

copy of the G&L split MFD pickup 

 

3 versions:

shell pink / maple / white 3-ply

lake placid blue / rosewood / tort

metallic candy apple red / ebony / no pg

 

sell for about £500ish

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Kramer Striker five string fretless. The modifications from stock... Kiogon loom with the magic sauce that makes the cheap stock pickups world beaters. I'd like an epoxy type coating on the fretboard. Maybe some better quality woods in there, but really for a cheap bass this is still going almost twenty years since getting it and I have used it in every band I've been in. The headstock shape makes it a bit lairy and not suited for everything but having said that I think that's part of its charm. It really looks out of place at an acoustic blues gig. Especially when you've just been told "it's 12 bar blues in *whatever key* you'll be fine" and expected to play competently for a whole gig....

 

FB_IMG_1635170555452.jpg

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A 6-string, fretted version of the Jaco Pastorius tribute Jazz Bass, still with his name on it instead of mine, just to p*ss off everyone that ever said "Jaco only needed four".

 

 

 

Seriously though: I'd love Rob Green to build me a lefty, headless 5-string version of the classic Status Series 2000 model, with the pickups in the Chris Wolstenholme positions but with the controls simplified with the mid boost/cut pot between the bass and treble controls rather than placed by itself, and with the mid frequency knob moved to the inside of the control cavity as a set-and-forget option, with a slightly more subtle and useful filter sweep. 

Edited by LeftyJ
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This might be weird, but here goes anyway ... I've always liked the look of the Yamaha SG-2000 guitar, and have sometimes wondered why they never made an equivalent bass, a SB-2000. So I would spec out a 5-string (SB-2500?) with a body of similar size or slightly larger, and a small headstock with lightweight tuners (since neck dive would be a risk). For electronics, I would want their nicest TRBX pickups, simple passive volume & tone for each , then to split outputs as on the Attitude. For woods and finish, I would look for something lighter than the SG-2000, maybe a quilted maple top or a light green tint.

 

PS I might want to spec EMG soapbar pickups, such as the 40DCX at the neck and 40TWX at the bridge.

Edited by bnt
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30 minutes ago, bnt said:

This might be weird, but here goes anyway ... I've always liked the look of the Yamaha SG-2000 guitar, and have sometimes wondered why they never made an equivalent bass, a SB-2000. So I would spec out a 5-string (SB-2500?) with a body of similar size or slightly larger, and a small headstock with lightweight tuners (since neck dive would be a risk). For electronics, I would want their nicest TRBX pickups, simple passive volume & tone for each , then to split outputs as on the Attitude. For woods and finish, I would look for something lighter than the SG-2000, maybe a quilted maple top or a light green tint.

 

PS I might want to spec EMG soapbar pickups, such as the 40DCX at the neck and 40TWX at the bridge.

 

They did - Yamaha SB-35.  I had one, should never EVER have sold it.  32" scale.  Sigh.

 

sb351.thumb.jpg.61a978df11c2a173ecdbe66ca0240130.jpg

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