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Billy Sheehan Bass?


wishface
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I had a Special, like Matt has posted a link to. It's still on my avatar.
The original owner did over 800 gigs with it. I did over 200 with it. I only sold it after I seriously bashed it twice in one night (clumsy). Coludn't bear to look at the damage I'd done.
Unlike the very high priced Attitudes 1,11, 111, these don't have DiMarzios, scalloped frets, detuner, push/pull treble cut or two outputs.
They do have a generally easier to play neck, at 40mm nut as opposed to the real baseball bats on the Attitudes.
The generic Yamaha pick ups are truly excellent, giving you from lovely smooth Bad Co with just the neck pup to more growl than a pissed off Rottweiler if that is your thing.
VASTLY UNDER RATED BASSES, imo.
And frankly at £300, you would be extremely lucky to find a more versatile, better built bass.

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From memory Billy's sig bass is scalloped from the 17th fret onwards but only on the D & G side of the fretboard, but it doesn't always come out in photographs, so the ones on the maple are harder to see than the ones on the black fret markers.

As mentioned above it's to reduce friction on bends so the string is only touching the fret & not the fretboard.

I've never played anthing with a scalloped fretboard, but I've heard you need a very light touch otherwise you can pull the string out of tune (by pushing it down past where the fretboard would normally be) just by playing with normal pressure. I'd guess that's why he only has scallops at the top end of the neck.

Edited by Cato
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[quote name='wishface' timestamp='1455054814' post='2975570']
But isn't Billy's bass scalloped on the black frets? Whats the point of that?
[/quote]

Google is your friend! Plenty of information out there


The bass is only scalloped on the top 5 frets only the D and G strings, it's not scalloped on all of the black frets, the scallops are to allow more freedom when bending.

I've owned an Attitude LTD II 25th anniversary since they came out, love it!

Looking to make a cheap-y replica from a P-bass or similar, but finding something with a similar neck is proving difficult.

Happy to try and answer any other questions you have on the basses.

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[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1455051221' post='2975518']
If I had to build a 'Wife' on a budget then I would probably start with a cheap P bass and fit a hotrail pickup in the neck position. Billy hasn't really used a mudbucker pickup for a while, and his latest Attitude design has a pickup that looks a lot like an old Dimarzio X2NB in the neck position. I wager it is differently spec'd though. The two pickups are designed to run on different circuits, so phasing issues and blending issues would be less of a problem.

Billy's basses, and the Attitudes, are wired with two push/pull pots. One pot mimics the original 'baritone' control featured on the Gibson EB2 and EB2D basses (and some Guild basses) that switched in an inductor and RC matrix to either cut all the highs or all the lows from the pickup. The other push/pull simply combines the two pickups so that the outputs become dual monos. There is only one tone control which, from memory, is on the neck pickup circuit.

The gist of the bass is to get a gnarly P bass tone (without tone control) and then be able to have a consistent dubby low-bass coming from the other pickup, even when soloing far up the neck. Quite idiosyncratic, and Billy often preaches about the dangers of worrying too much about gear; a tad hypocritical when he uses an idiosyncratic rig and promotes a bass, a pedal, and is a vocal proponent of Hartke amps...

The scalloped frets are a great idea. I've done it to a couple of basses and the low-friction bends up the top of the neck are lovely.
[/quote]

The neck pickup on the ATT III is a Yamaha designed pickup, it was their idea to use it in the neck instead of the DiMarzio, although DiMarzio still make the Model One and the Willpower Neck pickup. Not played an ATT III much but the neck pickup is a bit smoother, and "tighter" it's also not recessed so is a bit firmer sounding.

That's a long winded way of me saying it's not A Dimarzio/ X2N design. haha!

Yeah the controls are Volume + Tone for neck pickup (Tone is a push/pull with a high cut) and Volume for the P pickup (with a push/pull that combines the pickups to dual mono). The P-pickup doesn't have a tone as you get a bit more output / "push" from the Pup without one, and Billy wasn't using one so removed it on the older ones.

Apologies for nerding out hard, it's what I do. And I've been trying to plan an Attitude alike build for a while but never known what the best route to take is... I find anything with less than a 40mm nut very uncomfortable, 42mm is pretty good, but 44mm or so is my normal after playing the Yam for years!

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