tophski

turned out amazing man, congrats!

He heh, it's not that it's a huge neck, it's that it's a small body. the body is only 11" at its widest. Wide bass bodies seem to be the thing these days, so I wanted to try to go the other direction with it, and still create a really modern feeling design. And as far as neck dive, the body core is hard ash, and is quite heavy. That should help with the neck dive issue, but I guess we'll find out! personally, I love the small body and shape you have there. in my utterly unprofessional opinion as a builder, but professional opinion as a musician, you have a real winner there. I also loved your original design as well, regardless of the upper access. That open head design is great, after seeing yours I'd love to give that a shot on my first bass. (I'm also glad you're keeping them 4 string) Can't wait to see them finished. chris

I'm loving that top! too bad it's a lefty...damn southpaws awesome work man.

You did a great job man. I've always wanted a Ric...

I dont know if this'll help or not, but I happen to have my jem taken apart getting ready to do a fret job on it, and I traced the headstock and scanned it. You can grab the pic here. If you want I can snap some pictures and take some measurements for ya too. chris.

my point was: why not reuse the body, strip it, fill in the trem cavity and make it a hardtail, or fit a fender trem, then refinish the whole shooting match. If you like the guitar as it was minus the bridge, that's a pretty good project right there imo. c.

is something wrong with the body that it couldn't be used? if it's just the bridge that broke, why not try out a different bridge option instead? At least you know the neck will fit it.

Terry Bozzio's set?

yes, playability would be another issue. I like to play alot with getting my thumb or fingers under the strings. I was just wondering what is the max distance the strings can be from the poles that one could get away with? Anyway, just an idea I thought I'd pipe up with...maybe I'll try it myself whenever I get things going here. People have talked about doing that, but I don't know that I've actually seen it done. It's certainly possible, but if you were to lower the neck enough so that the strings are close enough to the face of the body for the pickup to work effectively you might experience some issues with the strings being too close to the body for good playability.

First I gotta say, I love this design, both with or without the lower horn cut away. Headstock works great too. Nice work. Second, and forgive my 'noviceness', but in keeping with the hidden controls type theme, has anyone ever tried loading the pickup(s) from the back of the guitar so as to leave the top unrouted? I realize that the distance between the poles and the strings is an important issue. I'm wondering if that could be compensated for with the neck angle, or height that the neck sits in it's pocket? It's just an idea that popped into my head when I saw your control shelf. Can't wait to see this done. Chris

yet another of your pieces that are inspiring. Beautiful job, thanks for sharing.

nice job man, turned out great!

that's a great looking guitar, very nice!

according to the fender site "2 Vintage Jazz Bass Single-Coil Pickups" I took a couple pictures for ya here. (sorry for the grunge...just got back from practice) c.

Actually you're both right, he plays both positions. I popped in the R30 dvd and noticed he plays alot over the neck pu or between the neck and neck pu on his jazz bass. On his Ricky he used to play alot over the bridge pu, but he's all over and uses the full area to achieve different tones. Over the bridge pickup you get a more tight treble tone, and over the neck pu you get a more full rounded bass tone. I own a Geddy Lee jazz and I must say its a very nice sounding bass indeed, and a pleasure to play. I've been playing bass in a disco/funk band and it sounds awesome. I can also get that grinding dirty sound on my original recordings as well (straight in and it sounds awesome). As far as the finger/pick debate, I'd definately go for fingers..you might not get the tone at first, but after you work at it through the painful experience of building up your callouses, you can get a wide variety of tones from your fingers. Definately more versitile. Can't wait to see your bass man, you're starting with some gorgeous wood. c.