Cosmicrain

Hi Joe, looking forward to meeting you soon at the workshop. Regards, Mike.

No worries, Wow accepted.....Thanks for that, I appreciate it.

Peter ask me for a few more pic's of the build. Here I've been working on the neck and fingerboard. The body has now had it's top coat of paint. I've also tested the neck and body join and it's perfect. Peter also asked me to make two scratch plates for this bass so he could decide on which one he liked the best....... In one of the photos, one image of the bass looks more creamy, that's just the light and camera angle, it's definitely the same bass in ALL the photo's.

Hanging up to dry. I've now applied the sealer coats and the first white base coat.

Here's one I made for Mark Newman, again, it's a 32" variant.

And here's Peter's Zoot Funkmeister 32" 4 string body now routed and ready for it's sealer coats before applying the final colour.

Nice rig Matt. Very "British".....

A very happy Matt Waller popped in to the workshop to collect his new bass. I think he was a very happy man. It was a pleasure to build your bass Matt, regards Mike.

Here's a couple of pic's I took earlier of the neck blank progress.

Decision made: Matt finally decided to go with the scratch plate, so I screwed it on and did the final setup. His custom made Zoot Funkmeister is now ready. Here a couple of quick shots taken early this morning in the workshop of the finished bass.

Hi Matt, I have just been asked that same question by another bassist. The answer is yes, and the good news is it will cost no more than a 32" scale version. Hope this helps, regards Mike.

Help Matt decide. As I'm now getting very close to finishing Matt's Custom build Zoot 5 Funkmeister, the question is does Matt go for a modern look (without a plate) or a retro' modern look (with a scratch plate) ? My personal preference is WITH a scratch plate, I feel it gives the bass a lot more character, so do I drill fixing holes in the body for a plate or not? Thoughts/suggestions please.

The reason Mark mentioned I had a smile on my face whilst testing his bass, was this: I also have one of Darren Snow's original Aria SB-1000 in the workshop at the moment so I was able to compare the two side by side. In Mark's case I have moved the pickup to a slightly different position than the original Aria. The main reason for this is due to the 32" scale length on Marks Zoot ZB-1000. I always work out the pup position from a quick bit of maths and where the closest anti-node would be to the position I'm looking at. If anyone has been to my workshop they would have noticed a one string bass I made myself with a sliding top nut to help work out precise positions of pickups given any scale length, so with a little bit of maths and a one string bass and you can pretty much nail the perfect pup positions for any scale length. Anyway, back to the smiles, If you consider that Veijo Rautia wired the pickup for me to have four core wires, I was able to add a 3 way mini toggle switch that give the pickup series/split coil/parallel Thus, if you think about it you end up with 18 basic tones when using this 3 way pickup switch with the 6 way "varitone", way more than the original Aria bass. Basically with the Veijo Rautia pickup and the new BB-NoiseKiller preamp plus the 3 way pickup switch, this bass is a killer in the tone department. (who needs two pickups?) In all honesty there were some sounds in this bass that truly astonished me considering it's simplicity, and yes, it knocked the original out of the park (no disrespects to the original, because in it's day it was a champion of basses and still is really). Gear used for testing: Little Mark 250 head set dead flat, Purple-chili 1 X12" non tweeter cab, Marks Zoot ZB-1000 and Darren's original Aria SB-1000. Regards, Mike.

O.K. Some final pictures of marks Custom build Zoot ZB-1000

A quick picture of the finished bass. I'll paste more pic's tomorrow. This bass has some freaking excellent tones in it, I wired the pickup with a 3 way on-on-on mini switch to give, series/spilt coil/parallel options for the pup, add this to the 6 way "Varitone" switch and you have 18 distinctive bass tones (all very usable), in-fact there are a couple that quite frankly immense. I can't recommend the Rautia Aria pickup enough, it is the very best sounding Aria pickup I have worked with, and with the four core wire option is in my opinion superior in sound and clarity than the originals. Add to this the new BB-NoiseKiller preamp supplied by Prostheta (which is also a great bit of kit) and the bass truly is amazing for a single pickup bass.

Well spotted that man !!!

I thought I'd show you guys the wiring schematic I came up with for the pickup and the BB noise killer preamp. This was one of the last jobs I had to do on the bass before finishing it.

Hi Joe, It's beginning to take shape now, I'm very pleased with the way it's looking.

The back of the bass is now in it's final colour (hi-gloss black) and I'm currently working on the top edge fade colour. Here are some progress pictures showing how the T.bird pickup routing went, and what the top will look like when finished, but like I said, I still have some edge (burst) fading to do to the top.

More work progress on Marks ZB-1000 Zoot bass. The neck is now finished and ready to fit and have the top nut cut. Here are some pictures and a quick mock up of the body and full bass. Not long now and this will be making it's way to a new home.

For info on Marks latest Zoot custom build (N0.4) see the Zoot ZB-1000 thread.

Hi, Yes original workshop was in Witham and now in SilverEnd, which is close to Witham & Braintree. Thanks for asking. Regards, Mike.

Matt wanted to see what his custom build Zoot Funkmeister would look like "Jaco" style without the Tort' scratch plate. I've not made the scratch plate yet for this bass, but I know what it will look like from Zoot Funkmeisters I've made in the past. With the plate it will look very cool and vintage, but with a very modern edge. Without the plate it will be as the pictures below. Any thoughts, Scratch plate, or no scratch plate?

In the pictures of the Rfi screening, at this stage I have not connected the earth wire/s to the copper foil. Always remember to connect the copper foil and terminate it at the main earth connection on the output jack. Also the three tabs for the control plate maintain a perfectly earthed plate. Hope this helps. Mike.

So, I have now finished all the flatting, polishing and waxing to the neck and body. I have started to build up the bass. The first thing I do is the "earths & grounds" with copper foil.