Andyjr1515

Yes - that will look lovely when it's all finished

I got round to having a look at the oak shelf and cut it into body-sized lengths: It's a bit cupped, so I ran it through the thicknesser first to take the hump off, and then reversed to take the wings off. Once it was flat and straight, I thicknessed it down to the nominal 25mm starting point: It will be cut into two wings, either side of the neck and is presently around 30mm wider than needed - as such, I will take off the excess from the rhs in this shot, bringing the feature figuring pretty much into the middle. While the neck will break that feature up - and the back will be scooped - hopefully there will still be a continuity of figuring showing either side of the neck. For oak, it doesn't feel too heavy. When I cut the excess off, I'll thickness a length of the offcut and compare the weight with a similar blank of the sapele. The other good news is - do you remember I made a wrong cut on Tim's Alembicesque and had to re-make the neck (below is the remade one)? Well - I've still got the original neck. It's here: It only couldn't be used because I'd already cut the top for Tim's. And I haven't cut the top yet for Jane's . So I can use it! It even has the correct neck angle, etc, etc, already done

Excellent. I love the lines - and that walnut is just beautiful

Yes - I looked very closely at the B207D and, for full band situations, that's probably the better bet - but it is twice the weight. Because we were looking at this for open mics as well as medium duo gigs, we plumbed for the smaller, lighter one. As they say, it's horses for courses

Very good indeed. Hard to believe it's only a 4.5" (or thereabouts) speaker. Because I don't have a proper bass rig at home, I used to practice on my little Vox valve guitar amp. Now I use this because it doesn't have the high freq treble jangle about it . You could never gig with it, but as a personal monitor it works just as well as with the other feeds.

Or put another way....terrifying!

No - the truss rod is in its normal position. If you think about it, mine is no different to a bolt-on neck, but with no extra depth of the body underneath the bolt-on neck heel. The bending moment of the truss rod is pushing up in the middle of the fretboard and down either end so if you think of a bolt-on neck, unless the truss rod ends push their way through the slot floor, the neck will bend, whether it is bolted on or not. With neck-throughs, I think you can get issues if the body end of the rod extends too far, because the rod itself is trying to bend but the length that is held rigid by the body will not move at all. It took me a while to work out how this all interacted together, greatly aided by Tom's African build, if you remember that most unlikely of scenarios, where Tom's was basically a neck doing ALL of the functional stuff and the body just somewhere to fix one of the strap buttons onto ...and that's still going strong I understand

Hi I've recently posted this in TheFretboard forum but it might be of interest to a few of you here. For monitor and practice purposes, the comments pretty much apply to basses too Also, bear in mind that below are personal experiences based on my own band and other playing needs - so please preface everything with 'for our particular needs and facilities' and 'IMHO' Like many of us, I and my various band / other colleagues have varied needs for monitoring and have always ended up up a blind alley with one or more of the following stumbling blocks : Inflexible for the various scenarios Ineffective Impractical Unaffordable While it's not yet proven to be the holy grail, this below is nevertheless the closest that I've personally - after years of trying different things - found to something that: Can be configured (including, admittedly, some cheats) to be used from a full gig to an open mic Is affordable Is highly portable Works Yes - I know, being Behringer, this is probably a copy of someone elses concept (Mackie, etc, etc), but personally I'm a fan of Behringer products. Their products have never yet let me down and pretty much everyone elses have. And this is it (the Xbox controller is just for scale! : It cost me £130 new and it weighs just 7lb. It comes with a mic stand adapter and comfortably sits on that at just the right angle for its intended use as personal monitor. I won't go through all the features - there are plenty of ads and clips around - but will show these two shots to refer to in terms of the configurations we've been able to successfully use in our particular live scenarios, and thoughts for more in the future. Before I cover the scenarios tried so far, the key aspects that have given us the flexibility are: It has, effectively, four volume-adjustable inputs - one at the back (master volume controlled only - and this will, therefore adjust the overall volume of any other individual inputs) and three at the front (common EQ; individual volumes; one of the inputs has a switchable impedance corrector for instruments) It has two outputs - the speaker (remarkably good for its size); the 'THRU' XLR output at the back. They both output the same mix and are both controlled by the 'Main Level' master volume It is clear enough and controllable enough to have right in front of you as a personal monitor It is loud enough, in some scenarios, to use it as your practice PA or even to turn it round and play to an audience in a small venue You can use this as the mixer to the FOH, or as the receiver from your mixer and thru to FOH, or as the receiver from a mixer or any other sound source, and then add extra inputs to that mix and then to the FOH There is one more factor that has been used in some of the scenarios we've tried. For some of the scenarios, basically those where we are creating an individual 'more me and less of him, him and her!' mix, we have used various send feeds from the mixer. Some of those, because one of our mixers is small basic, have needed a bit of thinking and ingenuity. Scenario One The dreaded 'Open Mic Night' OK - maybe all your venues are well equipped with someone who cares about the challenges of the performers as well as the audience, providing balanced monitors and tweaking the mix during the performance. Yeah, right Tried solution 1: Vocalist, Electric Guitarist - mic into the B205; electric guitar into B205; B205 on stand between vocalist and guitarist with mix and master volume fully audible to, in control of, performers. Resulting mix sent from Thru at back to venue's PA Tried solution 2: Vocalist, Electric Guitarist, Backing track on Jamman pedal - mic into B205; Jamman output into phono input on B205, guitar into B205; B205 on stand between vocalist and guitarist with mix and master volume fully audible to, in control of, performers. Resulting mix sent from Thru at back to venue's PA. Both duo bands I am in had given up doing open mic nights. We now do them again - and enjoy them! Oh...and isn't it a lot of extra gear to take? Other than the optional mic stand (a cupboard, bar counter or bar stool would do), it all fits into this - including cables, power leads, extension cable, Jamman and mic! : Scenario Two Small Band; small to large venue Equipment: band's mixer; own or venue's FOH PA When Pete and I play or blues electric / sax stuff, we use this cheapo mixer (below) and send it to a small but adequate band PA, good enough for medium venues: The mixer above is cheapo but carefully chosen because, unusually for a cheapo mixer, it has a couple of 'Send' channels as well as Mon Send and FX Send adjustment on each channel. First time round, we tried my B205 instead of our normal wired in-ear buds. Just sent the 'Phones' output from the mixer to the B205 and it worked a treat. MUCH better than the poor-man's earphone set up we had been using. So much so that Pete went out and immediately bought his own B205D. And that gave us HUGE opportunities. Because: I, as the holder of the mixer, needed to hear the mix that the FOH was hearing Pete, wanted to hear the backing track and his own guitar more and not be blasted by my not-so-dulcet vocal or sax tones! So, set up was: Pete Guitar to mixer; my Mic to mixer; my sax condenser mic to mixer; Jamman backing track to mixer - all panned central From Mixer - Main Out Right - to my B205, giving me full mix personal monitor; Main Out Left to FOH PA. Additionally, I made up a small three cable snake - two of them with the 'stereo jack shorted across ring and tip' mod to allow me to use the Send/IO as outputs without cutting the signal to the main mix. So into Pete's B205 is: Mic send (jack); Electric send (jack); mon send turned on at the mixer for the Jamman channel and Mon Send output to a couple of phono plugs and into Pete's B205 Result: My 205 gives me the full FOH mix at any volume I need to hear myself and other inputs; Pete has individual volume control of the backing track, his guitar and my vocals, also with full master volume of that mix. Trust me - he can hear the sax without a channel feed needed! So - for us - live playing has been transformed. Further thoughts - we are going to try it with the full 5 piece band next time we practice. Every channel we use on the big mixer has a send / IO on it, plus two Mon Send outputs - and with a bit of ingenuity.......

That neck looks fantastic. I've always been a great admirer of Warmoth components and this reminds me why....

I cheated a bit - I managed to get the crops (or should I say 'clip's ) working fine, but the above is then more a series of clips pasted on top of each other - I have no doubt there is a better way of doing it

At the same time as I've been getting my head round the project, I've been trying to teach myself how to use Inkscape. To be honest, I've only just gleaned from forum discussions that such a package exists! First of all, this is one of the options for the top wood I may be using: An this below is my first attempt at clipping a photo of the amboyna with the shape designed on the package and overlain with the 25" scale-length component templates taken from a photo of my own Swift Lite prototype. Where I've been able to get the package to cooperate, I've incorporated a couple of Mick @TheGreek 's suggestions and also moved the lower waist back a touch. At this stage it's feasibility stuff so will need refining in any case. To a lot of you CAD afficianados I know this is kids stuff, but I'm well, well chuffed with the package and the results :

Some good lines there, Mick I'll be moving the lower waist back towards the tailstock. I'll repost the pic sometime soon (and explain why I'm moving the waist )

I know - madness! But the oak was a feature shelf that used to be over a large fireplace in the house she grew up in and which her parents lived in all their married lives. So, even with all the reservations about it as a building wood, I'm going to incorporate some in the build. Ideally, it would replace the sapele back - but that might make achieving the weight target impossible. As you know, @Jimothey, from your own builds, it's all about compromises (and trigonometry )

Yes - I know this might result in removal of epaulettes (or worse) but trust me, it'll be worth it because one day - I promise - I'll build some of the same design features into a bass! This project is still in early stages at the moment, but is planned as an evolution of the recently completed 'Swift Lite' below It's a commission from my brother-in-law's partner, Jane. Female and new to guitar, Jane ticks two of the boxes of the type of players I had in mind when I was designing this. Players who might appreciate a guitar that sounds good and looks good but doesn't weigh the equivalent of a sack of coal . Those types of players include: young players; learners; old players; female players; anyone else who has asked the question 'So tell me again...just WHY are guitars so heavy?' Will it be a copy? No But it will be an evolution sharing many of the same design features. This is what I have in mind (actually, with one more tweak to incorporate): Some of the changes, which to be honest are using this new build as a test bed, are simply incorporating my own thoughts and feedback from regular players who've borrowed my own Swift Lite to try out and are just about playability for a lead guitar player. This includes the slightly further back cutaways to allow a full thumb anchor at the top cutaway and full access to bend at the 22nd frets of the lower cutaway. Yes - I know...there are other places they could put their thumb : The other change you can see is that the top horn is longer. My own Swift Lite balances perfectly on the strap - but at 5lbs 14oz is still a touch heavier than planned. The new one is aiming for the original target of 5lbs 8oz max. My logic is that, if mine balances just right, then any lighter might send it out of balance. With the top strap button at the 12th fret, this will balance however light the body ends up. Oh..and this might have some oak in it. Yes - I know....madness on so many levels More details as I crystallise them Andy

Wow....just wow!

Sounds and looks absolutely splendid, @discreet

Oh, and if I wasn't already feeling completely inadequate... ...matching up the grain lines at the back, where no one's going to see it anyway, is just taking the p*ss!

My goodness, Jez, that's a tight join... I agree - the wood with that finish is just right. Andy

Lovely

2 for maple

I like that lots, @Jimothey

I think that looks great @Jimothey Great job!

My preference on these kinds of things tends to be to properly condition the fretboard which darkens it in any case but leave it dark brown. While I love ebony fretboards, I always think dyed ones look a little bit...well, dyed But in reality, this is nothing to do with my preference so whatever you prefer - it's going to look stupendous whatever!

Great job, @Jimothey Looks the business

It's OK - all the resources of that particular honour will probably be used up on me.