Kiwi

Stunning from scratch build! I'm slightly in awe of the fact that he has access to a CNC machine, laser engraver and pickup winder...

Westone Spectrum II - nowhere to rest my thumb, the ply body sound lacked depth and sustain. The only thing going for it was that it was a two pickup bass and black. My next bass was a Jaydee Supernatural MK which was a revelation by comparison.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1380556131' post='2227027'] Changing wood is the easiest thing to change though! Having said that, due to the nature wood, two basses made from the same wood, even from the same tree can sound vastly different. Wood is not uniform. Instuments may sound identical, similar or vastly different. Nobody can tell for sure what an instrument will sound like until it's strung up. Any luthier will be able to tell you that. Any luthier that says otherwise is a liar. Woods have characteristics yes but they can vary so much, sometimes it's not even worth talking about! People like Status have probably the best approach to getting similar sounding instruments - their construction is from a much more consistent material. Of course, the more active you go, the less important the choice of woods as the sound is coming more from the circuit and the pickups... Changing body shape, unless it's things like the radius of edges or similar, is a different kettle of fish completely. Changing scales, number of frets etc, can result in a lot of rework in the jigs... far more than just changing the wood of an instrument. [/quote] I agree in principle about the wood but there are some manufacturers out there like Chris Celinder, who get remarkably consistent results from passive wooden instruments. I don't think the pickups or preamp have much effect on the sound of a bass at all outside of very coarse adjustments. I've tested the outer limits with at least two pickup suppliers and preamp manufacturers and am pretty confident I know what can be achieved. Re: jigs, I'm talking about expectation management not build process.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1380553596' post='2226982'] I can completely relate to this. Even when the problem was resolved (and when I say resolved, the product itself was still not right), I felt no affinity with the completed instrument. [/quote] This is the main drawback of custom instruments. If a builder already produces an instrument that someone likes the sound of, its a relatively small jump for them to alter physical aspects such as body shape, string spacing and neck dimensions. Its a completely different ball park to specify a certain wood combination and expect the luthier to produce a specific sound from it that is unfamiliar to them. Sometimes that doesn't happen with some woods for any number of reasons. Finding a luthier who already makes basses that have 'The Sound' saves a whole load of hassle. Whether they are prepared to accommodate a specific set of ergonomic requirements at reasonable cost is another matter however. The more specific someone is about what they want, the more responsibility they relieve the custom builder of. It also takes a certain learning curve 'for a player to find their sound. It;s taken me 25 years, thousands of pounds and I'm just about there...and its got nothing to do with alder bodies and maple necks funnily enough. "My" sound is very different from that.

I've had the same reply from a very well known luthier when I suggested the pickups might be microphonic (after hearing myself speak through them at a gig). We all still have a choice about whether to proceed with the sale if someone doesn't deliver against their initial assurances. Be careful to distinguish between a quote and an estimate though. FWIW Jon Shuker gets my vote for incredible engineering. Just be aware that the more demanding and non standard an order is, the longer it will take for most luthiers to get parts.

[quote name='Scooby' timestamp='1380550414' post='2226906'] I have to agree with Molan's sentiments above about naming those luthiers who do what they promise. Although I do understand the desire to name and shame, I much prefer the 'Name and Fame' approach. In other words, celebrate those who do what they promise to do. Surely, those luthiers with frequent mentions will attract further custom and so on. However, and here is the rub, almost all of the luthiers are very small businesses with an obvious limit to their time. The more they go out to promote the less build time and, unfortunately, delays. I would really like to encourage players to help in a positive manner and, if they are genuinely happy/thrilled/ecstatic then say so - often! I have no problem in praising the work and commitment of ACG, Ritter, and Marleaux - hopefully add Douglas at Eve to that list too. The more promotion we do for these luthiers the less time they have to go out and promote themselves. Although, I also have to agree that, at times, a name and shame is necessary. Could I suggest that before anyone parts with any amount of folding money that they post a query in the appropriate forum? Any reply doesn't have to be public but simply a PM - unless you really feel that strongly C'mon folks, praise where praise is due... [/quote] Purely from a defamational perspective, I completely support this approach.

I know of a few luthiers who are dependent on pick up and hardware suppliers for builds. But they're also custom builders and it doesn't make sense for them to stockpile for custom options. Thats just how it is. I like Wal, Ken Smith and Jaydee - they are more manufacturers than luthiers although they do have the luthiery skills to fall back obviously. But they offer their product warts and all on a take it or leave it basis. This means they can pre order components and can be a little more accurate with delivery.

Simple bass lines aren't lost. They're everywhere.

Wow...what a history. You sound like an industry veteran! Welcome aboard!

But is the Brown Bass chambered as was suggested in 4000's post?

[quote name='4000' timestamp='1380451459' post='2225337'] Mine had rosewood facings, which were standard on the SCD. Bear in mind it was solid-bodied whereas the Brown Bass is hollow; I once played a BB and it felt far lighter. [/quote] The Brown bass is a Series bass and all standard/omega shaped Series basses are chambered to reduce weight. I'm not sure if other body shape variants (like the Entwhistle bass above) are.

cheers

Tsk...bass is out of tune at 2:13 (sharp A-string?) I can't like them no matter how good they are...

[quote name='TomRichards' timestamp='1357317590' post='1920981'] Since I have a relationship with one of those super high end builders, I can tell you that yes, to a degree, price is subject to the market, which is driven by the endorsing players. Fodera was probably the second boutique builder in, AFTER Alembic, who was clearly first. Fodera slogged until the day Anthony Jackson walked in the door, and then literally blew up after Vic Wooten came along. I know Jason, Joey and Vinnie and they really do build boutique basses with amazing amounts of attention to detail. Does it justify the price? To some maybe no, to me, yes. if they truly weren't worth the dough no one would buy them. [/quote] Pedant/ON I'm not sure your timelines are totally clear. I undertood Victor Wooten had #037 bass that Joey and Vinne made in 1983 and they gave it to Victor on the understand he'd pay them back for it when he could. Originally, Vinnie had started working for Stuart Spector and (according to Ken Smith) was also involved in Smith basses as they were getting established. Spector, Smith and Steinberger all worked out of the same co-op in Brooklyn for a while. Vinne met Joey there who was a local player and sales repping for Smith at the time. Pedant/OFF BTW here's my Alembic being played. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbEKzxu7MVU[/media]

The last job of the day, before I had to catch my train, was sanding the tops smooth. Jon borrowed an industrial orbital sander from a neighbour and I set to work with some 100 grit sanding discs to take out the rasp marks from the surface of the facings. [attachment=144767:DSC09467.JPG] A lot of dust was created so the shop vac came in useful but the orbital sander made short work of removing the markings. Hopefully I didn't chew too much wood away from the finished surface! So the end result looked something like this: [attachment=144766:DSC09468.JPG] And just to get an idea of how the instrument was developing, I decided to fit the neck as well. [attachment=144768:DSC09469.JPG] Jobs still to do - final carving of the contours into the top using a mini plane (which is what violin makers use) and final sanding, plus edge binding inside the f hole, rout and fit the special bridge assembly and holes for the wiring. I'm already thinking of how I might be able to improve the instrument. I tried Urb's Sei last weekend and loved the sound of the maple/wenge combination. So at some point may well decide to build a wooden neck from those woods just to see how it compares to the Moses necks.

So after the binding had been taken down to the finished thickness of the outside edge of the carved tops on the front and back, it was time to do the pick up routing and some rough shaping. THe pickup routing was, not to put too fine a point on it, a complete pain in the butt and took most of that morning to do. I tried doing both pickup routs in the same template but the working template shifted slightly while I was routing the master and it looked a complete dogs breakfast. So I stuck with the single template and while there was a shift of a millimetre or so, it didn't look noticeably out of alignment. [attachment=144762:DSC09435.JPG] We also routed the f hole template but discovered another boo-boo. The control cavity needed to be a certain size to accommodate the electronics and the wall we created between the cavity and the lower chamber ran directly underneath the lower f-hole. Of course, we only realised this after gluing the back facing on! We also forgot to route the control cavity lid out of the back facing to ensure matching grain. But in our defence, it was midnight when we glued the back facing on and we'd been working since 9am that morning. Our brains were fried and we didn't want to stay any longer in the workshop than we had to. So we dispensed with the lower f-hole completely since we couldn't make it work symmetrically. We also had to use a lid for the control cavity from the same piece of wood that was used for the back facing. The grain didn't match exactly but hopefully it wouldn't be too noticable once the colour coat had been applied. The next morning was the last day and it was time to do rough carving for the tops. For this, I used a half round rasp. The rounded side seemed good for getting depth quickly and the flat side seemed good for flatting out surfaces. So the rounded side was used to carve depth-setting channels that connected the outside edge of the body to the inner limit of the carve. [attachment=144757:DSC09452.JPG] After the depth carving had been done, I went around with the flat and joined the valleys together into a single, continuous surface. During the carving, a part of the edge binding came loose in the tricky lower cutway. So I had to reclamp that using a pencil to apply pressure in the right part of the curve before I could start on the back. [attachment=144765:DSC09458.JPG] The valley carving and flatting was done for the back as well and luckily the control cavity lid was a snug fit so could be carved in situ also. [attachment=144763:DSC09464.JPG] The lower horn gave a nice indication of what the rest of the top might look like on completion. The carve won't be as deep as a PRS but hopefully it'll be enough to at least catch some highlights. [attachment=144764:DSC09466.JPG] After the rough carving and flatting, we needed to route the underside of the f hole so that it at least had the appearance of consistent thickness even though, in reality, the top would be thinner at the edge and thicker in the middle. Jon set up a small router for me and I whizzed it around the underside of the f hole with satisfying results. I was in two minds about whether to edge bind the f hole so decided to leave it while I focussed on finishing the rough shaping of the tops.

At this point it started to become clear that I wasn't going to be finishing both bodies by the end of the week. So I prioritised the fretted body to work on in the hope I'd have at least something to take home. We skipped gluing the back facing on the other body and went straight to the edge binding. Jon sawed the edge binding from plastic sheet so it was 6mm wide and long enough. [attachment=144737:DSC09444.JPG] I glued it in the routed channel and held it snugly in place with masking tape. This was done to both the back and the front faces of the priority bodies so took a while to complete. [attachment=144738:DSC09445.JPG] When the glue had hardened there were still a few places where the binding was loose so I reglued and clamped those. The tight radiusses and curves around the lower horn were the most difficult bits to stick down and the inside curves of the cutwaway needed some lateral thinking when regluing and clamping. When the regluing was done, it was necessary to take the edge of the binding down to the same level as the surface of the top. So I used a file to achieve that. [attachment=144739:DSC09446.JPG] A router was used next to take the binding height down further to the finished height of the top around the outer edge. This bit was messy as I was pelted by both the usual wood chips but also white plastic chips from the binding. [attachment=144740:DSC09447.JPG] The whole process was repeated for the back of the body as well so we ended up with a body with complete bindings and facings.

I think there's another three days work in the first bass. Probably another 4 in the second because the back facing and binding needs installing.. Most of the time has been taken up with making templates.

Well I'd better get on with the next installment then... OK so last time we were fitting the neck in the template and checking for ZERO tolerance before committing to routing a neck pocket. So we used the working template to rout a clean master template and then centred that on the bass body [attachment=144688:DSC09434.JPG] and routed out the neck pockets along with the control cavity. [attachment=144687:DSC09433.JPG] Then, it was time to look into routing a channel for the binding around the outside of the bass body but first the glue drips had to be sanded off and any flat spots smoothed over by hand. [attachment=144691:DSC09439.JPG] This was to ensure the glue bumps don't end up being repeated in the edge of the binding channel. Routing the edge binding channel was relatively straight forward but needed the use of depth stops to ensure I didn't go too deep. It was a bit tricky around the lower horn due to the lack of a stable platform to run the router over. While there were a few heart stopping slips, luckily there was nothing terminal! [attachment=144717:DSC09442.JPG]

The bass doesn't move if its in a thick gig bag. There is foam padding at either end of the bass safe. In fact, its better if there are some gaps inside because they will allow the safe walls to flex with any impacts without affecting the instrument.

As has been suggested already, don't bother with putting it in the cabin. There are so many things that could work against you at the last minute. Invest in an [url="http://www.amazon.com/SKB-Electric-Wheels-Clamshell-Design/dp/B0002GO864"]SKB bass safe[/url] and you won't need a hard case. I use one and have taken instruments from UK to NZ and back again via Thailand, Malaysia and Sydney as well as Dubai and Spain. Make sure you get the mark II version though as the mark I latches sometimes need bending back into shape if they've been closed on an over full consignment. I tend to use budget gig bags which aren't as thick as the super delux versions and have managed to get two instruments inside. It has wheels so you don't have to carry the full weight.

I just hope they have left the preamp section sounding neutral like on previous amps. Nice, clean tone and jaw dropping levels of undistorted low frequency volume is what has made Mesa's bass amps so good in the past.