songofthewind

Practice practice practice. The ear for pitch will come with that. If I pick up my fretless I find it hard to put it down, fretted basses sound limited in comparison. At least, the way I play them they do.

Ah! Thanks for that!

Then my memory is failing me! There was, I think, a Strat style six string version. Maybe the trapezoidal pickups appeared on those. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue! Weird to see one of these again.

Yeah, the pickups in the picture above this post looks different to my friend's. I'm fairly sure they were trapezoidal, and black. Does it weigh a ton, by any chance?

Ah, just saw your pic of the bridge pickup. It's got that moulded outline on top. I think the pickups used to be black.

I recognise these basses, a mate of mine had one back in the day. He went straight from that to a John Birch custom job. I don't think either of the pickups are original, not just the neck pickup. I am racking my brains to summon up a mental picture of the pickups on his. I want to say they were an unusual shape, not rectangular. When my memory functions I will get back to you.

I think I said somewhere else (crap memory) that I run both of them together, the B3n in front of the G3. This means I don't have to change patches up or down very often, and sometimes I like to add a dab of reverb or a short room sound with the G3. The short reverb/delay effect really makes an envelope filter pop out big time. Plus, the G3 has a DI, if I need one. I have a Nova Dynamics in front of the whole shebang. The only problem I have with the B3n is that it really needs its own isolated power supply, because it is a noisy bugger otherwise.

My old Zoom G3 duplicates many of the FX in the old B3. The corresponding FX in the newer B3n are far superior in my view. As Al says, they are not that far apart in price secondhand. I use the DI on my MarkBass combo, so no problems there.

I find the Pitch Shift or Bass Detune functions on the B3n brilliant for thickening fretless, without the mid honk that chorus seems to add. Just detune a few cents to taste.That and a wee bit of spacey reverb, or a short room reverb, and I'm away!

Zoom B3n, add FP02 expression pedal, download ToneLib editor, job done.

I’m guessing the slots are cut, with a circular saw mebbe, before the fingerboard blank is trimmed, and then filled ( with pieces of metal cut from a sheet of the correct thickness)? That’s what I would have done, except I would have stuffed it up spectacularly.

A man of taste, Cicero.

Fer cryin' out loud.

Check the FX loop jumpers inside the amp. They are held in place with a glob of mastic, and I think they can come loose if the have been changed previously from parallel to series. Also, try jumpering the FX loop external sockets, or clean them with switch cleaner.

Very nice looking guitar. I look forward to seeing how you did this. I refinished a Tacoma PK30 with Liberon Finishing Oil, so I’m interested to compare.

D Is he marketing those preamps, or does he have just one? My French is flakey ce matin..

I will watch this fretless stingray build with great interest, when your parts arrive.

Great work! I'm enjoying this thread very much. Not the pain and suffering part, obviously..

I think I recall one of them was an HH.

I had a look at these in GuitarGuitar in Glasgow last week. I didn’t play them, but I picked up each of the three that were on display. They looked absolutely lovely, and the finish on the roasted necks felt great. They varied noticeably in weight, and I was surprised to see a bit of a gap on the horn side of the neck pocket. Without playing them, I liked them very much, but I dunno if I would pay the asking price.