Geoff St. Germaine

The First Hack 8 String Bass: Specs: -3" Thick Chambered White Limba body with Curly Bubinga Top and Back with wenge accent layers -Curly Bubinga fretboard, abalone top and side dots, mandolin frets -7 piece maple/wenge thru-neck -24 frets, 35" scale -two dual-action truss rods, 3 graphite reinforcement rods -B E A D G C F A# tuning with string gauges: .128, .105, .85, .65, .45, .29, .20, .16 -Matching wood control cavity cover and pickup shells -Ziricote barrel knobs with 3/32" abalone dots -Nordstrand Fat Stack 8 Pickups -Aguilar OBP-3 Preamp -Electronics: Channel 1/2 volume and blend (big knobs), passive tone, bass, mid, treble with switches for channel selection, coil tapping, preamp bypass and midrange frequency selection (400 Hz/800 Hz) -Sperzel locking tuners -ETS Tuning Fork Monorail Bridges -Danish Oil/Wax finish Full body. Playing the bass.

I guess I missed the GOTM deadline. Oh well...

Thanks a lot. The B string looks to be over as it has no tension on it in that picture and isn't sitting on the saddle properly. The strings are Labella supersteps. Apparently the exposed core is supposed to help intonation of the heavier gauge strings somehow. I first tried them on my F Bass BN6 hat came with them and I just love them. Unfortunately I can't get them to fit my Dingwall bass (37" B ).

I think that we're agreeing but not realizing it.

Ah, but that's the sneaky bit. It will! Even if you put the 2nd-lowest string an inch away from the lowest, and the subsequent string only 1/8" away from THAT string, each of them will see its own scale length correctly. It's one of those wonderful times that math just allows everything to work out. Greg ← You're not getting exactly what I'm saying. It will work out as long as the graduation is the same between the strings. For example, if the middle string (assuming an odd number of strings) is halfway between the two outside strings at both the nut and bridge then you're fine. However, if it is halfway at the nut, but the bridge has some graduated string spacing that doesn't have the string halfway in between, then there's going to be a problem. Also, for your 1/8" string, the nut has to be spaced proportionally. All that I'm saying is that if graduated string spacing is done at the bridge, then care must be taken that this is mirrored at the nut.

Hey slick your in saskatoon!! We have to meet up some time and have A drink I would love to see that monster in person! I'll even release the impaler from it's chains and let it have A go at you You would be the 3rd guy from PG that ive meet so far Any way how long have you know Dingwall? Did he help ya with this bass !!METAL MATT!! ← Hey, No, Sheldon didn't help me with the bass. I've known Sheldon pretty much since I bought my first Dingwall bass in 1999. I didn't meet him in person until I moved here about a year and a half ago. I try to get into his shop every couple of months to say hi and check out what's new around there. He's a really nice guy. We should definitely meet up sometime. Cheers, Geoff

The bridges came to $160 US with shipping. They are the 60 mm ones. I love these bridges, they are very well built, very well finished and they look very nice. Also, ETS can customize them for a very reasonable price. I'll be putting these same bridges on the fretless brother, though I'll likely be using the piezo version. My problem was that I have two channels of vol/blend (for fast switching between two settings with a 4PDT switch) and one of the channels did not work correctly. This morning I was able to see that one of the volume pots is defective. Hopefully all is well now, once I get a new pot.

I guess I'll put this guy in the GOTM next month. Thanks a lot guys!

Thanks. Hey another guy from Saskatoon. Love the Impaler!

The thing is that as soon as you deviate from uniform string to string spacing it means the string may not see the same scale length the whole way down the string. In order to have graduated string spacing, there'd have to be a similar graduation at both ends so that the strings don't wind up seeing different scale lengths. That said most fanned fret stuff I've seen (and the Dingwall Prima 6 String I own) have the 7th fret perpendicular as otherwise there can be a lot of angle at the nut. Indi bridges or a custom milled bridge... I've seen an ETS bridge for a 12 string bass (not in courses) that is fanned and is a one piece. It's pretty sweet looking. Thanks a bunch for the compliment.

I actually have a little excel file that calculates all of my fret locations for me. I'll have a talk with Sheldon Dingwall about this the next time I'm at his shop (maybe next week). I recall thinking about this before... I'll have to think it over again.

The 10 is going to have fanned frets. It's going to be a slow project. So far I have the woods for it. The neck is from the same blank as this one, the fretboard is bookmatched pau ferro (it's hard to get pau ferro at 5"+) and the body is butternut with a flamed red oak top. The graduated string spacing is very interesting and a very good idea. Given that the string gauge will be so radically different (.165 - .010 or so) it would be a good idea to have the string spacing like this. I think that the Adler 12 string bass has spacing like this. The only thing that I'm worried about is whether this will mess up the fanned frets. I'll have to look into this. Cheers, Geoff

Then you won't like the 10 string I'm starting.

Thanks Phil. I love your fretless 6!

My tuners are just two sets of 2+2 Sperzels. My bridges are monorails, so I can just buy however many I want. The company I get my bridges from, ETS, also custom machines bridges if you provide a .dxf image and their prices are very reasonable for that. Pickups are the tricky part. For this bass I was able to get Carey Nordstrand to build me a set of his fat stacks for 8 strings, but when I emailed Aero and Seymour Duncan they wanted $800-$1100 for a pair of pickups. The Nordstrands were $350.

Well, what they're supposed to do and what they do are two different things. Anyway, here is what it is supposed to be: Two channels of volume/blend. The switch switches between the two. That takes care of the 4 big knobs. Both volumes are push/pull pots for coil tapping. The four smaller knobs are, from top to bottom: passive treble roll-off, bass, mid w/ push-pull mid frequency (400 Hz and 800 Hz), and treble. The problem I'm having is that I can seemingly only get one side of the volume/blend to work at a time. The switch is a 4PDT and it is wired so that it switches the hot pickup output to the correct volume/blend side and switches the outputs of the volumes to the passive tone control which then feeds into the preamp. For some reason when I have it wired up this way I get a ton of noise and the volume on one of the channels will not work (doesn't turn anything down). I've checked the pot and it isn't defective so I'm not sure what the problem is. I probably have to gut it and try redrawing the wiring and then rewiring it. Right now only one volume/blend are hooked up and it is working fine.

The bass is 3" thick. It is quite hollowed out and the top and back actually weigh quite a bit more than the more does. I need to get a bathroom scale to weight it, but I would guess that it is something like 4.5-5 kg (10-11 lbs).

Some completed photos. Full shot. Testing it out at a show. Thanks for looking!

Some shots of the finish. Oiled from the front. Oiled on the back. Waxed with the hardware in test fitting mode. The finished neck with strings. A picture showing the thickness of the body.

A few more progress shots. Neck glued in front view. Neck glued in rear view. Checking the pickup covers. Looks pretty close.

Here are some more progress shots. Test fitting the neck. Getting the neck depth correct. Contouring the neck joint. Rough contoured neck joint.

Well, I've completed my 8 string bass, with the exception of part of the electronics which are giving me some problems. Anyway, here it is. The specs are: 8 String fretted bass B E A D G C F A# tuning 35" Scale 24 frets 16.5 mm string spacing at bridge (about 21/32") 70 mm nut width (2.75") 108 mm at 24th fret (4.25") Paua Abalone front and side dots 3" thick semi-hollowbody Curly bubinga top and back Wenge accent layer White Limba body 7 piece maple/wenge neck Dual truss rods with 3 graphite reinforcement rods Lacewood/wenge/padauk transition block Matching wood pickup covers Matching Wood Control Cover Nordstrand Fat Stack 8 Pickups Aguilar OBP-3 Preamp with passive treble roll-off ETS Tuning Fork Bridge Sperzel locking tuners The top and back wood. The fretboard and neck with graphite and truss rods. The body is almost ready for the neck to be glued in.

I'm not a big fan of the shape, but that's just personal preference. My only suggestion would be that, depending on what combination of woods you use you could easily wind up with some neck dive. On basses I prefer to have the upper strap button fairly close to the 12th fret location.

That inlay looks great! Beautiful work.

uuuumm... you know this is extremely common, right? Maybe not in production instruments, but amoungst hand builders I think it's par for the course. ← This has been my experience. For my Dingwall bass Sheldon Dingwall sent me photos of various tops matching what I was looking for until we found something I was happy with that he could use for all the components. Also, there are a number of builders that have pictures of the various tops and fretboards that they have in stock so that people can choose the one that they want.