LukeFRC

Here’s the finished body and a few of it built into a bass... it’s a good instrument, obviously nails that stingray sound on the rear pickup as it essentially is a stingray (ie pup position and circuit are correct) on the neck pup it’s got more of a p thing going on, it’s got the brighter classic series pup on the neck which I don’t like as much tonally as bartolinis original series in the bridge... but select that pup and change your right hand attack and it gets to P bass territory. The single coil option gets towards jazz type sound, you have to majorly rebalance the preamp to get it sounding good, so it’s not quite as easy as turning it on, but it’s passable. Favouring the bridge pup with that switching option in single coil also sounds good so it’s great! The downsides for me is that: I Finished it slightly too dark to the point it looks a bit boring- I should have gone for a glitter finish! And ive got three other amazing basses that get played first, And like a lot of self builds the parts secondhand cost more than together... I’ve always bought basses kinda knowing that if you buy secondhand you can usually move them on and not loose to much. Building yourself, unless you are really skilled nobody will want your bass and you built it more for the joy of building. Different mindset. Currently a friend is borrowing this.

I’ll try

They didn’t crack open the Ashdown valve head. Had some new orange amp in that was ok and I think a rack mount ampeg SVT which had no headroom

I was in there before Christmas- it was odd but surprisingly liberating. It was quiet, the assistant was nice enough - I went in to try one jazz bass and ended up trying about six basses I had no intention of buying. I could point at the custom shop P and ask if I could give it a try. It was nice, though not £3k nice! Got to try one of the new rays and a sandberg too as the assistant suggested it and, heck you’re not telling me I can’t afford this then why not. (V nice Ray) the only odd thing was the lack of nice amps- but anyway... If I ran a shop that was always going to be undercut, but was the only place to try the real things then you’ll get s load of folk coming in to try and then buy elsewhere. The only difference you have is customer service- and by forcing the conversation about price you start the sales conversation- if I had gone in with money to buy a bass I dare say I would have bought that stingray - because it was nice and the assistant had facilitated a good experience for me...

Do you think that there’s much out there much better than the SFT? It essentially is a solid state SVT pre... beyond that it’s either a valve amp with valve power stage or something more valvey like a walkabout or a modern modelling solution ...

The fella has just finished a decade or so long project to come up with a tonal replacement to the walkabout, years of getting the opinions from talkbass... and you want an upgrade next year! Ps - if you’re throwing an amp away I can dispose of it for you...

My mental image was of some old 70s cab... then I realised that “almost 20 years old” could be from this millennium. 😶

Well written manual, is it aiming for a us made thing of a similar idea to a Lehle bassswitch?

You are in the north east aren’t you... as is that gumtree seller

Erm ... I’ll do that before building my channel strip type DI ... but given lack of DAW or plugins... is it something you’ve tried?

off topic a bit but ever used anything with an API 312 or similar? One of the best tones I've had was with my old Warwick Helborg preamp with the EQ turned off - "based on an Neve" they say- it's not at all, I've got the schematics but sounded nice. A DIY clone of a 312 would be within my DIY capabilities and on my "would like to try" list for a number of years now

I’m actually pretty tempted - the only thing that’s stopping me is that there are already several walkabout combos up for sale that don’t seem to be selling 😬

These look good if anyone near is interested- if I were closer I would think about buying and selling one on... https://www.gumtree.com/p/speakers-monitors/rcf-hd32a-active-pa-speakers-pair-inc-covers-better-than-art-712a-etc-/1325504973

Yeah. Been a while since I’ve been on a thread on here with a bit of a troll - reminded me hoe much I don’t like it. also - please for the love of all things good lets not have every thread knocking Barefaced. It gets boring. I find it depressing that as a bass playing community we will happily shell out lots to import various high end gear from the states - but for someone who’s home grown, who we’ve seen growing up so to speak and maybe know some of their flaws, we constantly keep knocking. Sure specific criticism like stevie was questioning the level of flat response etc, but less of the general negativity..... please

That’s annoying

The Fender precision bass wasn’t even the best precision type design Leo came up with - he perfected it with the L1000

When my Mesa Walkabout went pop Mesa sent me to David Gaffrey (01924 267142) Based in Ossett. Not really anyone to compare too but he did a good job and seemed to know his stuff. You could also ask on the west yorkshire music sales and service facebook group for recommendations.

Hence the headstock shape - evolution and survival of the fittest and all that

We need one of your videos

(The original stuff, these will have been built in a city of millions in China that I’ve never heard of and probably was a farm 50 years ago )

All cos I mused on them being built in Airedale...

If the barefaced fd800 is their take on a FRFR PA speaker... but with a low driver optimised for bass guitar - would the QSC or RCF offer much of an upgrade to be worth the switch? Edit: esp if we rule out the 15” RCF with the fancy hf driver

I read this really interesting article a year or so ago that was talking about Joanna Newsom and Kate Bush and how more individual singing styles if you are a man, and you can be a musical genius with one (Eg Dylan) but with women with individual singing styles they will always be written about a quirky, odd etc

Airedale then surely?