DiMarco

With its cousin. 😍

Did I ever drop this picture in here? I forgot... Bestest amp in the world this one, true story!

What if I told you ... it is my backup five string and I mainly play the Zon Sonus?

This was my earlier photoshop design on which the build has been based.

Sound clips won't be coming before next weekend, I have a busy week ahead @ work doing IT stuff. I will chime in and link those soon as they exist though... Cheers for all the positive feedback! This time I may have really found the one bass that will stay on. (gawd the numbers of instruments I have flogged after a while...)

Gotoh GB2L. Lightweight and adjustable with an allen key.

Yes, the guy works really hard but I figure he enjoyed this particular project as much as I did. In total he spent 118 hours. I'll see if I can link some video's he sent me while building. I still have to record some sound samples to share, but haven't got round to this yet. I have only owned the instrument for a week now.

Yes, I wanted a passive bass that is as flexible tonewise as humanly possible. I also play my Zon and Warwick five stringers which are active since I feel that makes the low B work better - but I really prefer passive basses generally. The price tag of my particular bass sits somewhere between 4900 and 5300 euro, but I am a long time friend of Vincent (we played in several bands together in the past 25 years) so I payed quite a bit less then this. I just asked him "what if you made the same instrument but without all the extras like the laminated neck and exotic top" and that would make the price drop to somewhere between 4000 and 4500 euro, depending on the prices of woodtypes used.

Roughly three weeks in total.

The building process was a blast too, whatsapp messages and phonecalls almost daily about ideas and things coming up. Seeing the progress from day to day of an instrument that is growing into a bass completely the way you want it is a nice experience!

Thanks guys, it is indeed a high gloss finish. Some people can't get along well with lacquered necks but I luckily do not have that problem.

I designed this thing in my mind, combining features of my other basses and then made this somewhat visual using my impaired photoshop skills. Once I was happy about how things looked in the digital world I had it built by Vincent Guitars in the Netherlands. Now it is real and here to stay. Two bridge pickups in one casing - the front coil is sitting at sixties bridge pu position. They can both be switched on/off and in series/parallel using the 'jaguar style' switches. Slanted neck pickup for a more even tone across the strings. It crosses the E string at the usual jazz bass neck pu position. Thick Bubinga lacquered fingerboard because my Rickenbackers sound so awesome with it. Red Cedar body, Black Walnut top, Purpleheart+Maple neck. The thing is very resonant and lively, deep sounding. The pickups were also custom made by Vincent, I requested a tone somewhere between my Ric v63 (which has high output and this really warm but tight bottom end going on) and a regular jazz. Vincent tried out the v63 and agreed that is one great sounding bass. The pickups he came up with seem to be spot on for what I requested. When switching between modes you get these types of tone: Single coil (either) - Really snappy treble and tight lows. Somewhat scooped compared to the other two modes. The treble slightly differs between the two coils, I use both depending on the stack I play through. Parallel - The treble becomes more gentle but is still there and the midrange comes through better. This makes the instrument punch through mixes better which is sometimes a hard task with Jazz Basses. Series - Humbucker mode makes the bass sound 'bigger'. It becomes a lot more growly in this mode and can compete with my Rics for excellent rock tone no problem. I was amazed the first time I heard this! What do you think? Me I totally love it!

LOL. Whatever. It is a baaaaad amp. Sell it. Whining pansies.

An 800 watt amp, and also a 250 watt valve amp does not belong in a bed- or livingroom. You're doing it wrong.

Yeah.

Gah. It beats the Mesa. Except for the HORRIBLE pre-shape circuit which I named "suckmode".

Imho, a Stage1 sounds more iroquai and somewhat looser in the low end. The thumb is all about tightness and sounds somewhat colder. If you miss your Streamer hard, I'd look for another Streamer of the same type. Both are awesome basses.

Then you get the low end from the d.i. and the overdriven stack tone from a mic. The soundguy will blend both to get an excellent bass tone out front if he knows what he is doing. They usually mic your cab up with an sm57 but that actually works pretty well. I always pack a non-scooped full range kickdrum mic in the shape of my AT atm250 just in case there's no proper spare mic avail for an oldskool sounding rockbassplayer. If you are serious about your tubey overdriven bass tone, do chat with the soundguy before the soundcheck starts. Introduce yourself and shake hands. Soundguys are human (who could have ever known...) and deserve respect, besides that he can make or break your gig..During soundcheck there usually is almost no energy going into bass tone this is why you want to get your wishes and expectations across before soundcheck starts. Or you can go about it as I did in the nineties - be louder then foh. I was young and a punkrock rusty bullethole thinking "this is my gig not the soundguy's". I have learned since then. Communicate with them if you are an fx using bassist before anything else. Better yet if most your gigs are big enough to have foh is making sure any soundguy out there is sure to get a signal they can simply amplify without further sculpting. Some take the sansamp route, others have profiled their amp or use modellers (the latter being the worst choice). I still refuse to, but most venues I play nowadays are smallish so only the vocals and kick go through foh mostly, as my rig sounds better then what most pubs here are using (behringer junk).

From his own viewpoint ebs maybe makes sense. What I am trying to get across that technically perfect sounds, utilizing computer tech and in ear crap is not what everyone wants and frankly is killing rock&roll. Rock is created in a dark damp sh*thole through loud drums and amp racks while drinking too much beer, but you won't understand. Rock&roll is dead apparently.