budget bassist

Took the bridge off and found some nastiness.. used a scotchbrite pad to clean up the body a bit and sanded the back of the bridge but I think I’d maybe like to replace it long term. Getting stuck into cleaning up the fretboard. The wood was thirsty as, and covered in crap. Nothing bugs me more than seeing someone else’s finger grime on a fretboard 🤮 I think I might also order a new nut since that’s not in great shape, and perhaps a truss rod cover. Otherwise it’s not looking too bad. Frets could use a file/crown but I’ll play it for a bit before I get into that.

You might recognize this from a thread I recently posted. I decided to pull the trigger, sight unseen. A friend picked it up for me because I have a broken leg. 2004ish Corvette standard 5. Active 2 band EQ. Paid $500CAD and it came with a gigbag, levy’s strap and Dunlop strap locks. I’m happy with that. Plugged in and it sounds remarkably good for what it is - certainly has that unmistakable Warwick sound, which is what I was hoping for. Very tight string spacing, low action. I’m happy so far. The bass itself is in great condition, it just needs a damn good clean. It’s obviously been well played but relatively well looked after. The fretboard is filthy, there’s some dusty gunky discolouration around the bridge, and the low b tuning machine has been spaced out weirdly which I’ll be investigating. Otherwise it’s in pretty great shape so the plan is to just clean it up, and I’m excited to spend some time playing it.

Hey folks, I'm trying to spend a bit more time playing bass and thinking about a punt on something with 5 strings since a lot of the music I'm interested in right now is fairly heavy/crunchy prog metal type stuff, think Tool, Karnivool etc. I've found locally here in Vancouver an old Rockbass Corvette, looks like around 2005. The used market (and the market in general) here is much smaller than in the UK, and things tend to be A. impossible to find and B. expensive, so I can't afford to be as picky as I'd like. I owned a german Corvette $$ and a Streamer $$ about 10 years ago or so and loved the neck, loved the sound. I tend to enjoy a really crisp yet dark sound that cuts through well and works well dialling in a little crunch - I found those $$s to work perfectly for that. My question is, am I going to find anything remotely like I'm hoping for, or am I going to be disappointed? I'd also like to add that I currently have a broken leg and so getting over there for a test run is a little difficult for me right now, so I'm trying to do as much research as I can I've attached photos from the listing Thanks for your help!

Hah, thanks. I do have another guitar, but I've been playing the LP more because the shorter scale length makes finding chords a little easier. I'll muddle on for a little and see how I do.

First off, this not a bass, but a guitar, but this is one of the more knowledgable/helpful/active forums around, and I always appreciate the help. I'm trying to spend a little more time playing guitar/bass (broke my leg recently and I don't have much else to do), playing my Les Paul last night (some of you might remember this being my project guitar - thread here) I'm really struggling with chords, more than I remember. While certainly my technique could use a lot of work, I'm wondering if it could also have something to do with the frets being pretty worn. I've attached a couple of photos - the heel end looks pretty good, but the nut end looks quite worn. My question is, how bad are they, and are they salvageable without a complete re-fret? Being that this is my project guitar, I've come so far that I'd quite like to try the work myself. Open to comments/suggestions. Thanks!

Yes, thanks.

I'm bringing this thread back to life somewhat. I've been playing the bass a little more lately - it didn't get much time last year due to other projects. For anyone that's actually interested, I built a squaredrop camper - thread here. It's becoming obvious that I like projects and building things then... While playing recently, I decided that the Chinese preamp is a POS and needs to be replaced. A colleague of mine I think might have an older Aguilar preamp to donate. I sourced a barrel jack so I can hopefully relocate that to the hole I drilled in the appropriate location. I also decided that I'm not a huge fan of the single pickup. Back when I built this thing I was mostly playing either metal or funk and modelled my sounds after the likes of Flea, Dave Ellefson of Megadeth etc. and really liked the aggressive, nasally bridge pickup sound. These days I'm playing a bit more dub, reggae etc. and really wish I had a neck pickup, so I might attempt to fit one. I'm thinking another MM pickup to keep things matchy matchy. I'll likely try to find a Fablab to laser cut a template for the pickup cavity and hand-route the hole with my cordless Dewalt router (that thing is really nice, recommend one to anyone doing this type of work). Shouldn't be too hard. Once that's done I'd like to source a nicer bridge and the body could use a fresh coat of oil, it's starting to look a little dry. Will try to keep this updated as I go. Now to start shopping for parts...

We have a winner. Still pondering purchasing it. Seems like a good deal but do I need it?… do i want a 5 string?…

Thanks! I did ask for a photo of the back of the headstock but the seller isn’t able to get one for a few days. if it’s an SR800 as you say seems like a good buy, I should probably go for it I did stumble across those and discounted it because of the lack of figuring but that’s the closest thing I can find so I reckon you’re right. Thanks!

Hey guys, should be an easy one for those that know, but after a solid Googling session I'm not any the wiser. I think it's an old SR700 or something with bartolinis but Google isn't showing me any photos in that burst finish It's on my local marketplace for $550 (CAD) and wondering if it's worth it. I'm thinking yes but would be nice to figure out what it is. Cheers!

Today I fitted the dot inlays. Little bit of a nerve wracking job, got a couple of them wrong where I drilled a tiny bit too deep and had to drill them out and redo them. The third fret marker looks a bit hairy but I’m otherwise pretty happy. I think the mother of pearl contrasts and complements the dark look of the guitar nicely.

Sold the SG to a dad buying it for his kid for $250. That’s a profit of $185 towards my house/car repair fund and a hopefully happy kid with a nice guitar. Win/win.

Some mother of pearl dots showed up today, test fitted one into a scrap piece of wood and was halfway through removing it before I thought I should take a photo. Much easier than I thought though this was a piece of soft wood. I used a piece of painters tape around the bit as a depth stop. I think I’ll try to make a neck rest out of some scrap wood before I try to do the real thing. edit: will try to get the photo in focus next time…

Finally got this properly set up, wiring finished and playing nicely. Ran into some electrical gremlins which the local shop took care of for me after I was ready to tear my hair out. Just need to get the intonation dialed in and the fret markers once they show up and I was waiting to sell the tuners to buy some nickel ones but I might just do it on my next pay check.

Well, I finally got it all together, strung it up and played it. It needs some work as far as setup and intonation go, but so far it feels good and it makes nice sounds. In my haste I realized I fitted the bridge pickup upside down and so it’s slanted the wrong way and thus very quiet… oops 😅 One other thing I’m thinking of doing is fitting some dot inlays on the fretboard, mostly because I like the look of them over a blank fretboard. I’ll try to get some nice photos of it when I have some decent daylight, but these will do for now