bassman

Before anyone points out the obvious...Yeah, Yeah I know- it is not all shiny and glossy like most of you guys would prefer, but I think the next one will have that going on. aidlook, dont let the size of that oversized chair fool you... the scale on that bass is 33.5". The neck itself is actually much longer than the most any bass neck-minus the headstock (even with the very slightly smaller scale length), it does not even make contact with the body until the 21st position- and then the neck even goes up to about the 30th position on the G string. Yeah, Yeah I know- it is not all shiny and glossy like most of you guys would prefer, but I think the next one will have that going on. Drak, I really dig the design on that one, way to go on the cool horns. The Fatboy is extremely professional looking. BigD- good job on the build- great looking guitar

if you dont want to joint the cup out of it,making it even thinner, then you can get both surfaces saturated with water then clamp it between some thicker flat material.

MKG, Your probably right and there is little chance if any that I would do that with this piece, however incorporating a natural edge into an instrument would be pretty neat. PUlling off cleanly would be pretty hard though, a natural edge with a more rounded shape could work as a sound hole?!?! If one was able to use the natural edge on the profile of the guitar it could be cool. All of this is just sort of brainstorming on something different, whether or not it is actually practical to do, or to look at is another matter.

the hole is not really in my way, I can either use it on my top, or flip the wood around and not use it on my top.

That may be the top for my next bass... Oh yeah, I got that top for $25 from Ebay. some of the figuring is actually caused by burls that are very apparent on the edges. Anyways, it just occured to me that this natural edge in the BM could be used as a mini soundhole- as they usually mini on chambered instruments. However on chambered instruments they are usually not in the middle of the body but usually along the upper edge. How do you all think this would look- like I used a piece of wood that shouln't be used for a top or- sweet because the natural edge has been put to a unique use?

make sure you buy some double ball end strings for planning... this will affect your scale length... good luck with 35"- you can use regular strings and use the locking set screw to pin them down- this will not work with Thomastik Infeld strings- they are to soft and have a bunch of silk in them , they will mash and unravel, same goes for tapewounds- th double balls must used for tapewounds. I am currently trying to see if I can have some custom lengths of double ball end tapewounds made for another hybrid bass- only five strings and 35"+ scal length.

here is a link for donations donations madhe here good luck with your first build and have fun.

change the string, that may take care of the problem. good luck. i have had this happen to me, changing the string can often fix the problem.

This is my hybrid fretless bass...from scratch-except tuners- head unit and fishman transducer/ preamp. I will post some higher quality- more revealing- pics if I can get some. Body- 2 piece maple, 1/4" book-matched amboyna burl top, big leaf quilted maple control cover, sound chamber in upper part of body, recessed strap locks and jack Neck- birdseye maple, cocobolo fingerboard with 16" radius, 30 "fret"-less access, pearl side dots, "filed down" zero fret, curved fretboard end, bolt on Bridge- cocobolo and bone with fishman matrix natural 1 undersaddle piezo Hardware- ABM headless - except for the bridge, which I replaced with my own Electronics- Fishman MAtrix natural 1 piezo, single volume knob- 9 volt fishman preamp Strings- LeBella double ball end, tapewounds. Finish- Sam Maloof's combination of boiled linseed, tung oil and polyeurathane Sound- as much like an upright as I have ever heard coming from an electric bass

I am really glad I didnt start routing... The fishman I have does use a 9 volt. I was not able to find a 1000k locally so I am going to try a 500, I do not want to pay for the shipping of a single pot so I will only orer one if i think it is necessary or when I order some other items i really need.

The problem has been solved!!!!! The sound coming out of this baby is fat and juicy now! I am so releived to find out that I am just a plain idiot when it comes to electronics, but at least I was able to find out what was wrong with my own mind. Despiteall of the suggestions I got, the real culprit came from a misunderstanding I had about the wiring of the piezo to the preamp. The bottom line, I had a 25k volume pot in there when it should have been a 250 or 500- yes, I pulled a Homer. When I ordered the piezo preamp combo I did not know how it wass wired together, so naturally I ordered a 25k pot to go with the active system. When the time came I just wired everrything up as I saw fit- I did not even consider the fact that I was not able to put the volume pot after the preamp without any major changes to the setup- so I easily put the pot between the piezo and preamp- which is where a 250 or 500 k pot should be. After all of the planning and time I put into this bass it is a bit amusing to run into such an error- and take a week and a half to figure it out. This bass sounds so f%$@ing badass.

"My assistant" is not working properly... it says that there are about 75000 new posts- which is probably all of the posts total. I am using MSN.

I really only want to have one jack. The fishman pre is wired to a 9 volt battery- I have looked inside the casing as I had to solder the pickup leads onto the board. I know that I could desolder the board from the jack and I might have to do just that. I have emailed fishman to see if I can safely run a passive magnetic pickup through their preamp along with the piezo signal, we shall see how long they take to actually get back to me on that. So does the BArtolini pot work by buffering the magnetic signal? and then working like a standard blend knob after that? My impression is that a piezo signal is mcuh weaker than a passive magnetic signal- so this is what makes sense in my mind. I beleive the fishman pre is eqing things-

If the jazz pup were active would I need to wire the blend pot after the signal of the two were boosted or before. There also exist the issue that the fishman preamp is built into the barrel jack/strap button (i do not use is as a strap button though- I recessed it) so it is basically a preassembled jack preamp that I would prefer not to take apart for fear of harming it.

This bass came out as I expected in all aspects except (I hate to have to say that) in the low end department. It needs an awful lot of preamp boosting to give it enough low end to my taste. The idea was to keep this bass very clean simple, I am probably going to add a jazz neck pickup (stacked coil- quiet). I would like to this but am not sure of the best way to combine it with the current electronics. The current pickup is a fishman matrix natural 1, it has an active 9 volt preamp. The jass pickup will probably be passive. I am not sure if I should or even can (without damaging the fishman preamp) run the jazz pup into the fishman preamp to be boosted in signal as well, or should I just blend the two together with the appropriate blend pot (as there are pots meant just for doing this). The catch is that if I do that I dont want a blend knob on the fron of the bass, i want a very small pot inside that I could preset to the dsired blend and leave i that way. Just rambling out my thoughts at this point, does anyone have any god ideas on this one?

im not sure but I will check it out and try is you your queestion implies I should. thanks

Skibum, I let the headless hardware deal with the spacing, the zero fret is only there to set the string height. The zero fret has been greatly reduced in height to bring it down to the appropriate action for a fretless. Erik, I may change the saddle material, at this point I am really considering the additon of a single stacked (quiet) jazz pickup near the neck. I would have to back up a bit to do this but I really wish I could pull some more low end out of this baby- I played in a reggae band for 5 years and I think the craving for very deep low end will always stick with me. The high end doesnt bother me- I can easily tame it with my preamp section. Taking away from certain freqs with an eq doesnt really bother me, what bothers me is really having to boost the freqs to much.

Thanks guys... I appreciate the help and kind words... I will try your suggestions Idch.

hopefully this will do it... I will mess around and try to figure out how to resize it smaller and still be able to upload it. I resized an image in Adobe photoshop 2 and now it is not in a compatable format with photobuck.

The fishman mounts under the saddle- it is extremely responsive to the nuances of fingering techniques. For a sloppy player this setup is not ideal. For a player who can play without producing "garbage" noise (some people think they dont do this until they record in a studio) the sound coming out of this bass is incredible, it has more swell than I have ever heard in a fretless and the harmonic content is very rich. It is has a very playable feel to it with a super smooth, not glossy, neck and board. That being said, it needs some help (in my taste) with EQ. I opted to use no EQ on board for this bass just to keep it clean and simple- beside my ampeg preamp rocks. The treble must be turned way down, the udersaddle transducer detects fingers sliding on even tapewound strings- but if you turn the treble way down it is remedied, and it still will have the woody treble associated with upright bass. I also like to bump up the lowend on my preamp. erik, thanks for the suggestions- I had considered doing that... we shall see.

I have my bass pics set up on a free msn page, while I have no problems posting alink to my photos I have had no luck putting pics directly into my posts. Whenever I paste the link to my IMG's I get a message that says "Sorry, dynamic pages in the (IMG) tags are not allowed." What approach should I take to resolve this?

I have mentioned it several times before... please check out Sam MAloof's finish, it is very kick ass. It is a mixure of poly, boiled linseed oil and tung oil. Wipe it on then wipe it off, wait 24 hours.. repeat a couple of times. It will give you a very smooth finish tht will protect your instrument fron moisture and beer. I have had it on a frequently gigged bass for two years, it still looks fresh. People look at the finish of my basses and then touh it, then say " Man I really like that finish, how did you do it?" You can order the stuff from www.highlandhardware.com I only use the poly/oil mixture- the wax/oil finish may give it more sheen, but the truth is tht you dont need it, and wax will actually trap dirt and leads to a vicious cycle of waxing frequently to keep it looking fresh, wax can also fog (as tables can ring) if to much moisture gets init.

You could inlay some stripes over the glue seams, if you route it carefully and put in the proper size filling wood then the imperfections could be completely hidden, and hey- if that doesnt come out so perfect either then you could paint it in the end to turn into your own masterpiece.

alway have all of the necessary hardware on hand before you start building something... or things could go wrong. The exception to the rule is that your are building something identical to something you have already done, and you know that it will work again.

My Webpage How about some funky horns like on my bass, I have never seen a guitar with this style of horns.