HowieBass

... not again... please!!!

That looks rather tasty! Happy NBD

Fret buzz at the dusty end always suggests a bit too much neck relief to me.

Excellent post and I think this is a really important aspect of performance. I think this is similar to public speaking - if you really believe in what you want to talk about then it's so much easier and I'm sure people can tell... it's all about attaching an emotion to what you're doing.

That'll look impressive under stage lights

I've read more than once that bone is the best material - not sure why this ought to be; might be that there's no 'grab' on the strings as you tune up/down. Brass seemed to be all the rage in the 80s, perhaps more of a fashion fad rather than for good reasons. Graphite is supposed to be self-lubricating and I suppose that would be my preference were I to swap out the plastic ones (called 'synthetic bone' - yeah, right) on my Squiers. I think the way it's cut has as much if not more influence than the material used. A poorly cut nut is going to make tuning difficult if it grabs the string windings - open strings might buzz with too wide a string slot. Getting the right nut slot height is really important as it influences action and intonation. These days I now think of the nut, frets and bridge saddles as semi-transparent mirrors - points at which the string doesn't (or rather, shouldn't) vibrate and vibrations within the string should bounce back from these points. The more energy you can keep within the string the longer it'll vibrate. Some vibrational energy does, of course, leak into and beyond these fixed points - transferring into the headstock, fingerboard/neck, bass body and it's the only way that I can see tone being affected (in a subtractive manner via leakage as parts of the instrument resonate at certain frequencies - you've already mentioned dead spots which is an extreme example).

I'm sure a lot depends on the complexity of design and materials employed - if you can do a complete refret of an old neck or turn a fretted fingerboard into a fretless using infill veneers for the slots then I don't see why you can't retrofit inlays.

I'm pretty certain Ben Crowe at Crimson Guitars in Dorset could do anything you want http://crimsonguitars.com/

You're not X, Chris Corner is X...

Have you tried boosting the mids on your amp to account for the natural Jazz bass mid-scoop you're hearing with both pickups on full?

I reckon the stiffness of that aluminium neck is what gives that Kramer its particular tone and responsiveness - sadly I chose not to buy one back in the 80s and doubt I'll find one at a reasonable price any time soon.

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1429294483' post='2750237'] The string might not be touching the board, but the fret transfers vibration directly to the board. The softer, more flexible or porous this board material is, the greater the damping effect on the vibration. Imagine if your board was made of sponge. The frets would wobble about, taking energy away from the string, which then gets dampened by the sponge. It would have a similar effect to playing with foam mutes. Since rosewood is more 'spongey' than maple, this is exactly why it sounds darker, it's just that the difference is a lot more subtle. [/quote] This is how I imagine board material contributes to tone.

From what I've seen in bass demonstration videos, maple sounds brighter than rosewood and quite rightly the question has been asked why this should be when rosewood is both harder and denser than maple (and we expect harder, denser woods to be brighter). However, rosewood has a more pronounced grain structure than maple; I see long open pores in rosewood whereas with maple it looks more uniform with small tightly packed pores and it might be this structure that influences string vibration and tone more than density/hardness.

The OP says they can't be re-potted so I'm guessing it's an epoxy job - am not sure they need rewinding as it's the microphonic aspect that seems to be the issue.

My thinking on this is that you want to keep as much of the string vibration stuck inside the strings for as long as possible if sustain is important to you - transmission of energy beyond the fixed ends of a vibrating string, at the nut into the headstock, and at the bridge saddles into the body are, from a physics point of view, just dumping energy into heatsinks. Effectively both nut and bridge should act as mirrors. Bridge rigidity is more important in this context than sheer mass. I also believe that neck rigidity has a big part to play in sustain. Again, all in my humble opinion.

A passive tone control is best understood as a treble cut - fully open in your example is 10, so all the frequencies make it through. As you wind it back to lower values you progressively take out the higher frequencies leaving only the lower frequencies - it's what's known as a low pass filter. The value of the capacitor that's connected to the tone pot is important as that makes a big difference to how much treble you subtract as you close the tone control.

You don't say whether you're using steel or nickel Dunlops (I believe they do both in the Super Bright range). D'Addario do 50 - 110 sets in both steel and nickel; in fact the EXL230 nickels look to be a bit of a bargain on Amazon at the moment at only £13.99 with free P&P http://www.amazon.co.uk/DAddario-EXL230-050-110-Electric-Strings/dp/B000OR8BP0 (in fact I'm tempted to get a spare set in myself) and the EPS230 steels are £17.99 with free P&P from Strings Direct http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/strings-c1/daddario-daddario-4-string-eps230-prosteel-stainless-steel-55-110-long-scale-heavy-bass-strings-p1201 HTH

Call it the Robot Bass?

You could try raising the pickups a bit to see if you get a bit higher output?

Bass Direct in Warwick? http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/G%26L_Basses_Stock.html

Maybe the extension cabs are a bit sturdier if Fender intend that the combo sits on top of them?

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1429000642' post='2746769'] Surely that's the one? I can't see a difference in the pole spacing? Thanks so much for that link, hopefully they'll sell me some [/quote] The bridge pole spacing is 15.5mm, the neck is 15mm so just a little different to account for the string gap increasing as you approach the bridge - give them time they might only have one person dealing with emails (and no doubt English isn't their first language). I doubt your bass luthier would have ordered more than a handful of 6 pole pickups so hopefully G&B will deal with small orders.

Don't worry, before I hit reply I had to check what I was telling you was right LOL

If the note is sharp you need to move the saddle further back - towards the back of the bridge not towards the end of the intonation screw.