Hellzero

I will be in charge of the burial, Russ, don't worry.

Don't worry Owen, I've been through this kind of feeling more than often. Sometimes I have to admit that the one my eyes love is not the best one... And I like neutrality sound wise speaking.

Here are my favourite designs and the most ergonomically basses I've ever played. Ibanez AFR, designed by Rolf Spuler : Leduc L002 : Leduc U-Basse 6 fretless :

Number one and three lack of definition, number three has even digital noises and peaks, and an even worse lack of definition, whatever it is, throw them in the bin. Number two and four sound like transformers D.I., too mellow in the mid bass region and cutting all edge of the high frequencies, making your recordings a nightmare to cut though any mix, and with a mid scoop like all American products tend to have. Number four is compressing too much compared to number two, but these two have quite similar sound, number four being a bit more mid scooped. I would discard them for these reasons. Number five seems to be the most even across the whole range with harmonics being present and it will be the one allowing you to post EQ very easily. But they do all sound very different, the first four being non natural and having a strong signature. The fifth being the more neutral and even.

Here is my newly acquired Rybski 8 strings bass (octave), made in 2016 for the Wooten Bass Camp. It was originally a fretless bass that has been converted to a fretted bass. Schaller 3D-8 bridge (19 mm strings spacing), Hipshot Ultralite tuners, 2 Bartolini's MM42CBJD3 (same pickups as early Lakland basses), ACG EQ01 5K preamp, parallel/single/series switch per pickup, rear/front coil switch per pickup, brass nut, gold hardware, Rotosound RS668 strings set. Book matched walnut top and back, mahogany core, 5 pieces set neck made of rock maple + mahogany + 4 rosewood stripes, rosewood fretboard. Satin finish. Low action going from 1.5 mm under the G strings to 2 mm under the E strings. 4.4 kilos, so very light for such a bass. Perfectly balanced, absolutely no neck diving and such fun to play, even if you need a plane pilot licence to use the preamp and switches combinations ! And for once a lovely single cut design

Thanks @nilebodgers for that discussion that clearly shows that you can't make a proper frets levelling without having the neck under the strings tension. The debate is wether the simulated tension is as accurate as the real tension. There are other bench jigs than the Erlewine model with more plungers and even more accurate simulation. Luthiers often build their own bench jig. In fact, it's all about mastering the simulated tension and the radius of the neck, just like the Plek machine : if badly used, it's, urm, useless. Being a fretless player, I can tell you that very few luthiers are able to do a perfect fretboard levelling or more precely dressing. If I talk about differential dressing, to date, I only know two knowing what it is and able to it !?! And I've owned priceless basses with factory fücked up fretboard dressing or frets levelling. Very sad, but so true.

I had the Ampeg full monty for a while, so the 810 cabinet plus the dedicated SVT 300 Watts full tube head. A right in your face rig. After moving the 120 kilos a few times, I gave up and sold the whole thingies to buy a just newly out TC Electronic RH450 + RS212 + RC4 + bag rig weighting one fourth of it... and really good sounding. That said the sound of the Ampeg full monty is awesome at high volume especially with a P-Bass, but not much indicated in a jazz context for pub gigs... 🤣

Here is mine. A 32 inches Spoiler with flamed koa top and normal size (4/4) body. As I said earlier, I love this bass.

Say you needed a new fridge for the practice room. Your drummer will be laughing all night long and maybe until the end of the week. Now you need to buy a full tube 1200 Watts head weighting another 70 kilos. Are the dampers of your car ok ? 🤣

There it is :

And here is mine, a lovely Alembic Spoiler with a flamed koa top, now fitted with Alembic CX3-45L strings (not on this photo). I love this bass !

Because I'm fed up with self called luthiers, here are 11 "lessons" on how to make a real PROFESSIONAL fret levelling, recrowning and setup using the Erlewine bench jig. I'm not at all affiliated to Erlewine, but his bench jig (especially the new one) is a fantastic tool, very well thought. Here is the presentation of the new model : And now the 11 lessons (part one being the presentation of the faulty guitar) :

I needed to find this back, here you have all explanations about the correct use of a bench jig (mentioned by the guy of Crimson guitars at 3:40, that said) and why using this for a PROFESSIONAL fret dressing. Watch until the end. It's no rocket science, it's precise work done by a real luthier, not self proclaimed luthier. You can make one of this on your own too. No need to buy one. Just watch this: In a few minutes, I'll create another thread with 11 lessons to do a real PROFESSIONAL levelling, recrowning and setup... And it's not just setting your neck dead straight without strings, bad placing the neck support and flat levelling the frets without taking into account the radius of the neck...

You can do a perfect fret job à la MacGyver, that's a good thing. Congratulations, really, and I mean it. In fact, it's even more complicated than what I've written, but I'll leave it here and won't take the responsibility for the slaughtered instruments.

Yep, you can do it that way. But what about the strings you use and their tension, what about the radius of the fretboard, what about a radiused sanding block, what about the different relief needed on the bass side as opposed to the treble side, what about the stainless steel frets that will destroy your cheap file within minutes, what about moving frets needed to be fixed, what about leveling the frets end, what about reshaping the nut height, what about the hours you'll spend doing this, what about taking more time re-levelling the frets badly levelled that you'll only notice when having restrung your instrument, ... Have you ever seen a real luthier doing this : he has a bench jig and will adjust the neck at many different points to simulate your string tension so you'll end up with a perfectly playable instrument. In fact, once your neck or full instrument, in case of a non removable neck, has been fully adjusted on the bench jig, it takes around 30 minutes to finish the job perfectly including perfect crowning (no flat frets), repolishing of the frets and complete set up. On a perfectly levelled frets neck you can have an action so low that you'll be amazed how easy it is to play the instrument. Have you ever played an instrument that has been in the Plek machine ? That's the exact same feeling. I can do it as I have the necessary skill and tools. And I've been doing it on hundreds of instruments as it used to be my job long ago. I've seen enough very badly levelled frets to tell you that it's not such an easy job... Following YouPuke video will end up with a disaster if you're not aware of what you're doing.

In fact, they are all out of tune. Maybe they are using a cow bell tuning. And as a fretless player that hurts my ears. Even fully set up, these basses sound like cow poo. The name is very well chosen, because all the people having bought one always told themselves : I wish I hadn't bought this ... urm ... thing. Now, there's the Ergo EUB case. I bought one (the personal model of the "maker"), and even played it live once (before reselling it) : simply awful on all aspects. The guy behind the brand suggests using a sewer pipe cut to the desired length with two screwed plugs to make a transport case, that summarizes it all : screwed by the sewer thing.

You can also buid your own house, or your car, or whatever you want thanks to YouPuke and Monkeypedia. Why bother asking specialists ? Ok, I'm a bit harsh, but doing a perfect fret dressing job will take a lot of time and knowing that a professional tool like the Gurian fret file (aka the Dunlop fret file for older people) will cost you half the price (or maybe the full price) a luthier will ask you, put it in balance... https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Types_of_Tools/Files/Three-in-one_Fret_File.html

Russ, is it normal that you now have a five years old boy voice ? Balls problem maybe ?

We want infinite reaction emojis or TLRT's as we call them now ! Or.. Urm, I don't know... I'll watch my smartphone upside-down, maybe.

Ok, as I've always listened to music, I'll have to divide it in two parts. The early years : (We are) The Road Crew by Motörhead (I was 15 years old when the album was released, what a revelation). Suburban Berlin by Japan (14 years old when it went out, I liked everything in that tune, took me some time to love the album). Eruption + You Really Got Me by Van Halen (a year earlier, that tapping part and this monster cover, wow). The uni years : Dirty Old Town by The Pogues (this was our drunken anthem that we used to sing very loud everywhere in response to the stupid students songs). Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus (we played it very loud after parties, waking up all mates at the same floor). We had Love by The Scientists (I was waking up with this single played to the max, that opening bass part was just fantastic).

Even if the song is a gentle poppy tune, the challenge is awesome : And it was done a year ago, so maybe already posted.

I bought an Alembic medium (and short too) scale hard case from Loz. All details discussed and agreed before the very fast shipping. A pleasure to deal with and to talk to. Will deal again with Loz for sure. Thanks for all.