BigRedX

Any Japanese Pico-Pop

I would want to know how much wood there is between the bottom of the truss rod channel and the back of the neck before even contemplating this. And find out from those who build guitars what the minimum thickness they would be happy with is. @Andyjr1515

I think Gus have the greatest proportion of their instruments produced in-house. On my black 5-string bass only the pickups (made specifically for Gus by Aaron Armstrong IIRC), the machine heads (Hipshot), the Schaller Straplocks and the electronic components are bought in ready made.

If I was an amp manufacturer for anything over 100W output I wouldn't want end users using Jack cables. It's all very well saying that heavy duty, high current jack plugs are available that will accommodate suitable heavy weight speaker cable, but you just know at some point a cheap and nasty jack to jack instrument cable is going get used because nothing else is available. At least with Speakon connectors the only leads available are going to of a suitable rating unless you deliberately make one up with crap cable.

For me the trick to make relic'ing look convincing is for it to match the wear patterns caused by the person playing the instrument. For instance in the photo of the pink bass posted earlier on in this thread I'm struggling to see how the finish has come to be worn off the inside curves of the cutaways, yet the maple fingerboard looks pristine. On the two basses which show worn fingerboards - the Crinson and the Sting replica, I hope the wear patterns match the notes the owners of those two basses use most commonly (they certainly don't match mine), but notice how the wear conveniently avoids the fingerboard dots. IME real life wear doesn't magically prevent the instrument being playable. In fact quite the opposite. The only bit of serious playing wear I have managed to inflict on any of my instruments wore away the fret on one of my guitars at one note only (E on the G-string). This was done because we had a song which during the middle 8 I hammered on the note with my right hand and then used my finger to bow the string against the fret for about 8 bars in duration. The result of playing and/or practicing this song nearly every day for 4 years resulted in my wearing the fret for this one note so much that the string no longer fretted properly at this position for normal chords or single note playing.

I've actually seen Rory Gallagher's strat "in the flesh" - well it was behind glass in a sealed cabinet, probably for health and safety reasons. It's minging! The bridge in particular is 50% rust 50% dead skin and other human detritus...

I've got the Helix floor, and it has what looks like a locking RJ45 socket labelled "Variax".

Is it? So what's the Variax socket on there for?

If I was using a Variax, I'd be running it into one of Line6's multi-effects units that sports a Variax input so I could synchronise my Variax sounds with the appropriate EQ and effects.

That looks good. However I never use any of the controls on my guitars or basses once I have found a setting that gives me a sound I like. Everything else is done via programmable effects controlled from a footswitch or automated from the backing track.

Would those who know like to comment, bu to me that neck construction seems quite unusual with the wood fillet between the truss-rod and fingerboard. Given how thick the fingerboard was, how much wood is there between the bottom of the truss-rod channel and the back of the neck? The channel is obviously much deeper than the diameter of the truss rod so it will need filling once the new rod is in place.

The "relic" wear is very much a function of the nitro finish. IME you'd have to be a very aggressive/careless player to get the classic wear on a non-nitro finished instrument. I used to own a mid-80s Overwater which was my main bass all the way through the 90s and got on average 20 hours playing time at rehearsals and gigs every week for a decade and showed almost zero wear apart from a couple chips and dings on the body and headstock. My black Gus G3 which replaced it 18 years ago has a couple of areas where the matt finish has polished up to a semi-gloss and few places on the pickup covers where the anodised black has worn off and that is it. At this rate it will take about another 18 years before the finish starts to wear through to the undercoat anywhere on the bass!

I'm going to look into the various options. However nothing is definite until I get my hands on the Eastwood and I know which of the 3 Bass VIs suits me best. Also as a long time user of multi-effects I tend to do everything via footswitch controllers, so I don't really need any controls on the bass, and in fact prefer not to have them.

For the Eastwood, I would need to take the whole pickup apart to move each magnet/coil assembly further apart. That's just too much hassle. According to the Boss SY1000 manual there are several manufacturers of suitable piezo systems, so maybe one of them will be able to produce the saddles I need.

Thanks for posting that. As I had suspected that looks way too fiddly for me to be messing with.

My understanding is the the Roland modelling system works by processing the audio from the individual strings rather than converting the pitches to drive VCOs/DCOs (which is always a problem on basses due the conversion time being a minimum of 1.5 cycles of the fundamental note) and therefore can sound as synthetic (or not) as you want. I think another problem is that these systems tend to get evaluated just by being played solo, instead of seeing how valuable the sound adjustments are in getting the right sound in the overall context of the band/arrangement/production. Have a listen to some isolated bass tracks on YouTube and hear just how different (and often how horrible) the bass sounds on its own, compared to how well that sound works in the overall song mix.

Thanks very much for that. The problem for me is that I'm hoping to use this with the Eastwood copy of the Shergold Bass VI (when it arrives some time next month) and that has a reported string spacing of 65mm which falls between the maximum of the GK-3 and the minimum of the GK-3B. The alternatives: The Squier Bass VI would be OK if it didn't have such a skinny neck (it's actually narrower than any of my guitars which makes it a bit of a struggle for me when fitted with bass VI strings), and the Burns Barracuda would need the vibrato mechanism re-engineering to allow the pickup to placed close enough to the saddles. I think ultimately I may need to look at piezo saddles if I can find some that will fit the instruments I want to use it with.

Haven't we seen this before?

Thanks!

But if the neck/thru body was starting to fold up at the pickup route then you would be able to see the centre section of the body coming away from the wings irrespective of whether it's been painted or not.

Are there string spacing specifications anywhere for the GK-3? I've scanned through the manual and there's nothing like the section in the GK-3B manual that Ped linked to. However it does say that the pickup must be no further than 20mm away from the witness point on the saddles, which rules out using it with the Burns Barracuda, unless I re-engineer part of the vibrato mechanism. The Eastwood looks more feasible, but until production models actually start shipping and I get mine, I won't know for sure. The alternative would be to use piezo saddles but I neither bass looks as though it uses standard types.

A photo of the back showing where the neck joins would be useful.

I don't understand how neck bow can be fixed with a shim...

Where would you like me to start? 😉 Unless you are under 10 or on holiday somewhere hot, no-one wants to see your pallid, hairy legs and knobbly knees. Keep the covered up in public, and while your at it go and tidy your bedroom. It's a mess!

Very much this! I've said the same about amp and cab sims. I really don't care if they are perfect reproductions of "the real thing". I'm much more interested in the versatility and range of tones available and the fact that they are all instantly and accurately recallable at the touch of a switch/button. After all there is no bass/amp/speaker combination that sounds perfect without some fiddling with the pickup balance, EQ and gain structure.