Andyjr1515

As always, Ian, a wonderful result. I think we all hate using ebony, but it does produce the goods

While I don't fully understand the chemistry, Luke, I like the results I was also particularly impressed with your pickup routings - that separating piece between them is mighty thin. Great job

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1500330761' post='3337049'] hold up - he's got to do another month hand building a custom case for it first, including getting Adrian Newey to teach him how to mouldy carbon fibre... ... then he will post it to you [/quote] Two months....don't like to be rushed

ETA is the end of this week It's been a long build, this one... After the 'road test' and tweak on Chris S's gear tomorrow, I have: the final tidying up of the finish - generally where the finish is a touch too thick on the ebony and so makes it lighter; I'm on with the remake of the pickups cover - and the new one DOES line up; I need to adjust the nut a touch; re-polish the frets where they've got a bit of finish on them; sand a small area of the main cover flush; put some brass ferules that Mick wants at the bridge end. And then it's done! Oh, by the way, this is how the controls area came out in the end: And this has everything in place, all working and including the straplocks but still invisible from the front :

I've spent a lot of time doing some of the 'fiddling about' jobs. First off, the Dunlop straplocks are fitted: By the way, the ebony at the body join has still got a bit of varnish on it - the milky look will disappear when I've done the finish tweaks. How does it sit on the strap? Perfect How does it sit on the lap? Perfect The other thing I've done is added a trim pot to further attenuate the piezo signal. It's the blue one here: I'm borrowing Chris Sharman and his proper rig tomorrow to do the final tweaks of the various gain settings Through our band's medium PA, it already seems to have a significant amount of oooomph!

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1500284515' post='3336621'] If you really have to use screws for the pickup cavity (and i think it's a good idea as it's a cover that shouldn't need to come out very often) use small, black screws and fit them over the darker lines of wood. It should give a more discret, almost invisible, look to them. But you should have thought of this already [/quote] Yes, indeed. They will be four small black screws, countersunk into the ebony strips

Back to it this morning - the start of the tweaking and balancing of the magnetic coils and piezo process. Like the rest of the build, takes some thinking about... So where I’m starting from: [list] [*]Martin Herrick custom coils, going through [*]a John East MPM-02 preamp/mixer, mixing with [*]an acoustic-bass undersaddle piezo [/list] Starting point was a major (and not unexpected) volume difference between the piezo and the magnetic coils, with the piezo being much louder. This was even with pre-amp trim pots for gain on high for the magnetic and zero for the piezo. So step 1 was to take out the optional pin shunt to attenuate the piezo signal. The volume difference was much better but still there. Next was a mains buzz (again not unexpected) from the coils. They are not fully humbucking and there is quite a bit of pre-amp gain on them. I checked against my own fretless and, sure enough, the magnetic only volume was significantly lower than on the new build. The piezo, on the other hand, is completely buzz free and VERY bright (think acoustic bass with bronze strings). Again, nice tone but very different. Still, before I turned the gain down to see if it cured the buzz, this was a good time to balance the individual coils themselves, with the high gain exaggerating the volume imbalance. This was pretty straightforward with these three essential components: [list] [*]Alternative length slugs, supplied by Martin [*]Some various thickness foam pieces to place the individual coils at different heights inside their chambers [*]Tape to hold the positioned coils in place [/list] The slugs just screw into the back of the coils: So the good news is that now the coils are balanced with a pretty even volume across all four strings.  Nice tone, too, through my little electric guitar valve amp (I’m hoping that Chris Sharman will try it through his proper rig once I’ve done the main tweaks) So next steps: - Turn down the pre-amp gain on the magnetics to match a standard passive volume. - if the buzzing is cured, move to the piezo - if the buzzing isn't cured, pop a low value capacitor into the circuit to filter it out even when the tone is on treble - Pop a trim pot into the piezo circuit to further attenuate the piezo signal to match the magnetic signal

Just testing - just did a post that went skewiff...

Just in the nick of time - got to pack for an away day! All wired up and all working Still got to tidy up the spaghetti, but this is basically all of it in place On Sunday, I'll fiddle about with the gains and attenuation on the pre-amp and the balance of the magnetic pickups / string heights, etc.. But we have piezo, we have magnetic, we have blend, we have individual tone and volume

[quote name='naxos10' timestamp='1500016947' post='3335097'] A perfectionist you are indeed Andy. [/quote] Far, far, far away from that, naxos10 but ref the cover - it is so obviously squiff with the black and white lines either side on the neck - it's the first thing your eyes would be drawn to I suppose I am arguably a little further away, nowadays, from my previous justified descriptions of 'rough and ready', 'near enough is good enough', and 'as long as it does the job!' but I see some of the real life work of builders such as Jabba_the_gut, and many of the other great builders on this forum and know that I'm still miles away Having said that, I am pleased with this one so far...

As fretlessguy says above, putting a higher power bridge pickup would be probably the best way of keeping the thump of the neck while having better blend options from the bridge. There are loads of other ways of alleviating the problem, as above, but they will all have consequences and compromises - and most of those compromises will relate to the sound of your humbucker changing.

Looks a nice kit, John

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1499975543' post='3334964'] How have you secured the pickups in place? Or do they just float in their respective holes? Well done by the way! Definitely on the home straight now [/quote] They will be seated with discs of soft foam, pressed down by the cover. That, and the effect of the magnetism, is why that cover will need to use screws rather than be held on with magnets. I'm going to remake that cover, by the way - not happy that the stripes are sufficiently lined up with the neck...

[quote name='nightsun' timestamp='1499957153' post='3334823'] LTRFTP.......I've been following this since day one. You sir, certainly have a talent. [/quote] Thanks!

[quote name='nightsun' timestamp='1499955530' post='3334807'] [/quote] It certainly is! I connected the bridge earth to the circuit which has had the expected result of quietening the buzz significantly. It is now already less buzzy than my P90 single-coiled LP Jnr. I'm happy it basically is working properly so tomorrow I'll be seeing if I can hook it up to the piezo blend and sort the proper earth and jack connections....

...and we have sound! Not great sound yet - then again, I am going straight into the amp and it's a guitar amp so I'm getting a lot of buzz, but there is a decent tone coming from each of the strings

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1499949088' post='3334740'] good luck!! [/quote] Thanks, cheddatom ! OK - they're in. So this afternoon, I'm going to pop the strings on, hitch up the jack and see if I've got any sound...gulp

Why do I post as I'm going along? Because in describing to others, I'm basically sanity checking to myself I've routed the new cable channels and, happily, found the hidden main cable channel in the right place! ...and done the next trial fit: I really, really don't want to move this around too much so next time I fit it, hopefully it'll be the final installation. The tasks are:[list] [*]Check out the top coil that isn't sinking into its chamber quite as deep as the others [*]Solder the four earth wires on [/list] My plan, once they are fitted is to try them out directly wired, temporarily, to the jack socket. Then I will have a base (or even bass!) reference before I start adding the piezo complication. Wish me luck

There are actually very few jobs to finish off. So, will it be finished very soon? Well, not necessarily! The remaining ones are going to take considerable care and lots of fiddling about. Not least the pickups. Here are customstocker's (aka Martin Herrick - have a look at the great stuff on his website [url="https://www.herrickpickups.com/"]https://www.herrickpickups.com/[/url] ) custom coils: They are wound individually with different resistances to balance the output of each of the strings. The pole pieces have been put in so that they can be adjusted from the back. And, by golly, this is a delicate, wibbly-wobbly, highly magnetic assembly! "Be careful with the blue wires - they are very delicate", Martin wisely advised... So probably Martin has to look away at this point - because the first thing I needed to do was get the soldering iron out ...and desolder the one stable thing on the assembly - the stiff copper earth wire running across the four coils. Why? Well, these coils have to go down into separate chambers so what I will do is solder 4 individual earth wires from the shields to hook up with the collective earth on the output cable. Having removed the copper wire (but not yet added the individual earths) I did a very careful trial fit: Looks good for a first go. I marked the position of the cable runs to rout some slots for them to slot into and the join up to the pre-routed cable channel that's sitting under that ebony strip: Next job is to get the router out!

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1499844426' post='3333938'] Halfway between marker pen and new board is wood dye; many DB boards are blonde but dyed to look like they're a darker (and more expensive) wood. Go careful! [/quote] As Grangur says, the best route is probably to do nothing - pretty much all mods will reduce the resale value assuming the bass is in original spec. However, if it really bugs you but you really like the bass and intend it to be a keeper, I suspect it's the position of the side dots that are the issue more than the board itself? If so, as Beedster says probably the aesthetic issue can easily be sorted with a proper dye (proper so that it isn't going to come off on your fingers!) The side dots, if they are set into the ebony only, would be a case of drilling out the old ones and filling with epoxy mixed with ebony dust (which can be collected while preparing the board for its dye or I could send you some for free) and then new dots installed in the new positions. Not a job for someone of no experience in these sorts of things, but not actually a particularly difficult or risky job. Hope this helps

Beautiful!

Thats looking really good, Bastav

Re-weighed it, by the way. It's going to end up around 7lb 4oz

The expression 'tight as a tick' comes to mind ...but the cover still fits! : ... and, perhaps surprisingly, the controls are not impacted. I think it helps that the pot nearest the jack has stacked knobs. From the front, it's all pretty discrete: I need to make sure there is no shielding anywhere near the hot signal parts of the jack or pot tabs and also have another look at the security and shape of the back cover. It is supposed to follow the curve of the back, but the magnets aren't really strong enough to hold the curve on the very thin and wide cover that - left to its own devices - straightens and curves depending on the weather! So I might have to rethink the best way of doing that. In the meantime, I need to take that all the above electrics out again and do a proper job of the relief channels at the back of the knobs and jack. Then a bit of re-finishing those areas Then a bash at installing the pickups!

[quote name='customstocker' timestamp='1499803848' post='3333779'] wow, the Bass looks totally amazing, the Osmo gear is impressive to say the least. There is a German product which is very matt & used for base coats but even this stuff darkens the wood . I need to try this stuff myself. really interesting thread, Ive had about 10+ pages to catch up on as we have just got a proper internet connection. [/quote] Great to hear from you, Martin and good news that you've finally sorted the internet Your timing is perfect - your pickups should be being installed in the next few days Andy