gonzosc1

working on my Hamer blitz bass restore. I got the body striped down with the heat gun and ready for sanding to start. started to remove fingerboard and then my iron died on me at about the 7th fret(damn almost there).. my question,, I started on the fingerboard at the heel I had some small strips of wood fall out. maybe an 8th inch thick and 1.5 inch long. at first I thought I was digging into the wood of the neck, but after I got past that and was able to see under the fingerboard and the neck was fine. not a mark on it!!!!!!!! I'm assuming that these small strips of wood were shims for the fingerboard to help the fingerboard match the neck angle where the fingerboard rides up on the body. yes????? it a 86 Hamer blitz bass with a set neck!

ok, then it sounds like I can do it. I'm just it the tear down and stripping stage so I need to study this alittle more. but from just a quick look I think at most I will need to move them 1 inch back on the D and G string if needed. once I get it stripped down I'll figure out how close they will come to the control hole. I think as long as they don't break the 1/2 inch area I can leave them inline. I'm hoping to use the Hipshot single bridge pieces with the string thur option. Thanks Guys

just a quick question. I started tearing down my Hamer blitz bass restore project tonight. still debating top load or string through option. the scale is from the nut to the bridge? so would the placement of the string ferules matter? I see some guitars and bass with offset string thur placements. is this just for show? the reason I ask is that the string thur placement on the D and G string might come close to the control panel!! I may have to move the placement of the two...

I too was surprised about the rockbass line. but I never knew how big or small warwick was. I guess most of the higher end companies will do this, just a matter of time as theres just not a big calling anymore for highend guitars and basses. From what rumors I hear or have heard Hamer is about to maybe be sold to Fender???? I am a big Hamer fan and I would hate to see it go the way of Jackson when Fender gets there hands on them??

oh man the guy is insane,,,LOL

its all of the above, + a pick, would sound different if played with fingers

ahhhh,,been there done that..everyone has for sure... well just work together on sound. its hard to make the adjustments I'm talking about without a bunch of eq bands but it can be done on the cheap. I think boss or Digitech makes a bass eq pedal. that with the eq on his amp should work out fine. another route depending on money is a Boss GT6B pedal. this is the be all end all of bass pedals for poor bass players. on ebay for around $200 give or take..got mine for $185.. its got everything in it. the only downside to it is that you have to have a college degree to go through the manual,,,LOL the Warwick rockbass are a good playing bass but I don't know if you will get the Warwick tone out of it or not as the materials are different from the German models. go ahead and build that bass,,it would be cool. I'm starting my first restore project myself so theres alot to learn. one thing for sure and I hope this helps someone if there thinking about it. I won't be using "bell brass frets"..these things require a lot of cleaning as your sweat makes them turn a rusty red color. when I take the strings off for a cleaning or replacement I have to steelwool the hell out of them. its a 2 hour job taping up the neck and cleaning the frets................

cool, thanks....those crazy bass players,,,LOL I think it is a good starting point if your playing metal like I do. its bright but still moves some air. I'm betting that the Warwick he has is active??? so it will be a little different, but the lowend cuts(30hz-35hz) just make good sense in rock music. what kind of rig is he running? my rig is a fairly basic rack. TC electronic triple C compressor, Digitech quad 4 effects and a older then dirt Hartke 3500 stack. my amp has a 10 band EQ with a high and low knob, I use the amp eq to make the wide lowend boosts at 60hz, 125hz and keep the 30hz flat, cut at 250hz and 1khz a little, boost 2khz, the rest is flat. a little cut on the high knob(10khz) and a little boost on the low knob(100hz). the rest of my eq is done on the digitech with a 4 band parametic with 2 shelfs eq. shelf 100hz big boost, 200hz cut, 315 boost, 800hz boost, I think I might have a small 630khz boost on there, and shelf 16khz cut. we play covers so my effects vari alot. but pre delay is the alway running. its the best thing since ice cream. like I said it a bright sound with a little distortion as I run the output of the compressor in the hartke pre amp and then bump the pre amp up to 7. my guitar player freaked one day when he looked at my setup and saw my master volume set on 6-7...LOL he said he never saw any bass player run a full stack that hot while you can still stand in front of it and be comfortable with no feedback. he loves it but its a different story with the drummer..........LOL

I'm a Warwick player. got a 98 Fortress One R&B model which is all passive electronics. interesting read on this thread, but I must say first that "yes" the build of a bass does have a big factor in the sound of it, more so then it does with a guitar because a bass has a wider frequency range then a guitar. to just say its recording, equipment or technique is only half the truth. thats like saying a Fender P-bass doesn't have its own sound. so build is a factor for any bass! as far as sound goes for warwicks, point of view is everything. they market the basses as having a midrange growl, and thats where the point of view comes into play. what is someone's idea of midrange??? well with Rickenbacker's I think its a fairly high midrange that the bass really starts to get its bite. since I have had the Warwick I have come to the concludsion that it starts to get its bite in the lower midrange area. another point of view from a bass player stand, is I see a lot of new bass player that just don't know about using an EQ and compressor. they hear the word "Bass" and automaticly just "boom" the sound by boosting the bass EQ and this is where alot of people will say that this bass or that bass just won't do what they say it will. midrange is for tailoring what you "hear" bassrange is for tailoring what you "feel".. so what is a basses midrange and how do you find whats best? midrange is easiest to find if you start to uncover it first by cutting frequencies first. bass midrange starts around 180-200hz and thats your first cut on almost any bass setup out there. cut 200hz by 3-6 db's. next either leave it flat or cut 30-35hz by 3-5 db's, this is where every new bass play makes a mistake. they boost this frequency thinking it will give them more bass. but what happens is that the amp starts working so hard to push this low end theres nothing left in it, and another point is that there are very few speakers that will carry these frequencies with any volume unless you are running a major high wattage bass rig. 1000+watts want more bass? then cut these (30-35hz)bass frequencies to get it. as you cut you might need to add volume to get the speaker moving. these two cuts are a good starting point but there are more. now you have to consider the bass itself, in my case the Warwick and I play old sytle heavy metal. so you can imagine the sound I'm looking for. body, two peice bridge, wenge neck and fingerboard, bell brass frets and a brass nut, rotosound stainless steel round wound strings.. everything on this bass is screaming "high frequency" so theres your next round of cuts on the EQ. first, any amp I use I always get the air out of it by cutting 10khz and 16khz by 4-6 db's. next cut at 1khz by 3-6 db's, this is an anonning frequency on bass I think. so by this time you should start to hear the midrange of the bass and its time to shape it. up to this point I only use the EQ, no compression. now I kick on the compressor. compressors on bass will mess with bass frequencies so the compressor should be the first thing in the chain. bass to compressor, compressor to preamp, to EQ to effects to amp. my compressor settings,,ratio is always 4 to 1. thrushold is bass pickup dependent. attach 25-35ms, release is to taste find and boost midrange, start at around 300hz and work your way up through to say around 400 or so, but don't jump into the 500hz range as the guitars sit there a good bit of the time. try boosting between 315hz and 400hz. just play with it and find the frequency to "growl" so to speak. it is key to not overlap the guitar frequencies, you will never find your sound if you fight the guitars for the same frequencies, the guitars will win hands down every time just by sheer volume!!!!! as you see when I cut frequencies I never cut more then 6 db's cuz it will also cut frequencies close around the one you cut unless you have a para EQ. but boosting is a whole new game. after you think you have a decent midrange sound where the strings have a nice tight sound its time to pump it up. the weapon of choice "100hz-125hz" this is where you get that chest pounding, its the higher end of the lowend range. you still feel this frequency but it also lets you hear it as well. hit it right up to +8-10 db at 100hz-125hz. if you have a 350 watt rig the cops are at the door right now!!!!!!!! still wanta feel more? bump 60hz up maybe +3-4 db's, if it starts to get a little muddy with just a small bump at 60hz then cut 80hz by 3-4 db's if not leave 80hz alone. you should be thumping by now and I'm almost done with this long winded bass EQ rant. theres one more adjustment to make but I only make it when I'm playing with the band. your bass low end and midrange low end should be just about there. how to find the happy middle ground with the guitars? the band starts playing, you can feel the bass, you can hear the bass, but that last little frosting is missing, its not alive and sitting in its own place. two answers 800hz and 2khz. instead of trying to turn up, play with these two frequencies, both will be bumped up a little. 800hz is the high midrange and 2khz is starting to get in the low high end. over time I think I have found the 800hz works better for finger player while 2khz works better for pick player but either way use both and it will put you right where you need to be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! while I know it looks like I ranted on about EQ, I hope that you get the message that it truely is bass build related. I can't speak for guitar. but by making only one change on my Warwick build this whole EQ setup goes out the window and I would have to start over. pick one, change the wood, the nut, the bridge, the frets or the strings. any one of them would be death to my sound. its a bass, not a guitar. there a huge difference!!!!!!!!!! thank you

if you hold down Ctrl and then Prtint Screen, it will copy what ever is on the screen, then just open up Paint or another image editor and then paste it Then you can crop it or do what ever u want with it next question,,,when I do this , where does the picture get saved on my computer.. I went looking for it but can find it anywhere

on that Jackson tool, is there any way to save the picture?????????

wow. its been years since I have looked at prices.. I guess they are charging for the port tuning now...

just my 2 cents on this old subject..... Whirlwind cables.... I have had the same 25' guitar cable for ""26"" years. thats "26".... LOL never have I even heard a crackle out of it,,never had to resolder or repair.............. thats all I have to says about that!!!

its an old post but what the hell. I'm new here anyway....... how much power is pumping through the cabs???? this is the key question sealed bass cabs are more acurate in the sound they produce but require more power to get the sound you want.. thats the main reason ported bass cab are so popular, they work better with less power. the ports produce false tones and volume but at the cost of the acurate sound.... save the money and get the ported bass cabs

yeah that was the type I was looking at.. good point on the match up, I will keep that in mind for sure. I don't have my heart set on it as I was looking for quilted to begin with, but I found the ebony and just got to thinking how strange that would be.

go for it. if you ever drop it, it will bounce back up to you...LOL

LOL, no I think we will pass on the rubber veneer.... the reason I asked this question was that I might use some veneer wood that is not a popular tonewood. of corase I don't know for sure if it is or not . some stuff I'm looking at just isn't mentioned as tone wood. been looking at alot of quilted stuff. but I did run across some real nice Ebony veneer. might been interesting,, Ebony top with Ebony headstock and Ebony fingerboard with maple neck and Mahogany body

looking at different veneer tops for my bass project. my question is, does the type of wood veneer affect the sound of the guitar any??? just thinking about it. I would think that it would not affect it any as the veneer is so thin. but I wanted to check here before I buy anything!! thanks

I don't plan on staining the bevels. the mahogany is a nice dark brown/red so I'll leave it natural. if I fill the dings with sanding sealer will they look right after the many coats of clear???????? yeah I think I got the stability thing covered. as far as the neck width goes. its 1 3/4" at the nut, which is the nut width on my Ibanes 5 string. so I'm good there. on the bridge,,, well I have narrowed it down to 2.. #1 a 2 piece Warwick bridge which is fully adjustable on the string spacing. and #2 the single Hipshot bridges pieces which can be placed at any spacing I want. but the question remains on the hipshots.. can I get them close enough together if needed. need to research the size of the hopshots more. will also convert to string through. I think the guys on the Hamer boards just want to see it stay a Hamer..but it won't..LOL the main reason for the conversion is that the necks on every 5 string I have tryed are just too uncomfortable for me.. too much wood!!! been playing bass for 25-30 years, always 4 string and always a 1.5" nut width when possible..

just to get some ideas here, I thinking of doing this. the stock fingerboard is pulling up off the neck at the heel end of the neck. I have to remove it anyway to do my 4 to 5 string conversion so I'm thinking of either a Wenge or Ebony fingerboard. I'm leaning towards the ebony as the black color will work better with the finish I have in mind. the finish I'm shooting for will be dark honey stained quilt veneer top and head stock, the back and sides will be black. now the blitz bass is an explorer style bass and Hamer beveled the edges alot, maybe about 5/16 or so. thats a huge bevel and I'm thinking of letting the mahogany wood show through on the bevel front and back so the black sides will look like a stripe all the way around the bass. the neck is maple and I will just do a clear satin on that. "question" the bass is trashed, lot of dings. I'm going to try to stream out as many dings as I can on the body. but in order to let the bevels show wood I need to get them all, if I can't rise the dings is there some way to fill them and make them look natural?????? or will the process of sanding sealer fill them good enough to look right and not show through the clear coat????? thoughts on my finish????????? on to the 4 to 5 string conversion. I've been talking to the only guy I can find on the web that does this conversion. but he travels alot so can't alway get a hold of him. so I ended up on the Hamer fan club board and of coarse everyone there says don't do it. the neck can't handle the extra tension without the extra wood mass in the neck. but my conversion guy says it the perfect bass to do it on. So heres my plan for that conversion. while I have the old finger board off I will get my local builder to reroute the truss rod channel a little deeper to add the two way truss from stew mac. also will route extra channels on both sides of the truss rod and add carbin fiber rods from stew mac. I think that should handle anything I throw at it. Thoughts???? Thanks

cool, thanks

Ah,, cool thanks ngaa,,,

just joined the site,,,whats up? I getting ready to start my first project. I got a hold of a 86 Hamer Blitz Bass that is completely trashed out. about the only thing its good for at this moment would be a boat paddle,,LOL I'm going off the beaten path for my first project. I'm going to do a full "custom" restore on it. it won't be a Hamer when I'm done with it. and also doing a 4 to 5 string conversion on it. I will have some limited help from a local builder but can't afford to pay him and restore the bass. so I will have questions for everyone here supplies are the first order of the day. can someone direct me to a site for pre-slotted fingerboards? I went to stew mac's but they only offer a 34" scale 24 fret board. I need a 34" scale 21 fret board. I emailed stew mac about getting one made but they said no!!! help!! thanks