Dom in Dorset

That's going to look stunning! What fingerboard are you going to put on it?

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1362501211' post='2000275'] I've come to think that the wood choice makes very little difference in electric instruments. Rosewood doesn't sound warmer than maple on a fretboard, they sound the same. The most important parts of an electric instrument are the pickups, the bridge and the nut. Tonewoods are a bunch of flim-flam i think. [/quote] + lots on that, strings are important too.

I once bought some machine heads like this: , they turned up 2 a side, it's easy enough to take them apart and make them 4 a side A +1 for the Westfield's own pickup, they are good, I always find that the studio is where having quality pickups really shows, and I haven't tried recoding with a Westfield.

Wizard 64's fitted , some observations: I'm unable to do a direct comparison with my fretted bass (2006 US standard Fender Jazz) as I've put them in a home made fretless with nylon wound strings. The 64's are probably more bassy then stock Fenders and the output is higher when you go up the neck (so much so that I'll probably back the pickups off the E string a bit). The overall tone is rich in harmonics, even though it's bassy you can still hear a metalic , bell like qualty. They are certainly as good as the stock Fenders , but different. Definitely high quality pickups. The service from Wizard was great, ordered Wednesday afternoon, turned up Friday morning. The price includes UK postage , mounting screws and foam.

I'll be putting a set of Wizard 64s in my fretless tomorrow, I'll let you know how I get on.

Are you still working on this?

So unless anyone has any major objections : 24 fret through neck , maple /maple and perhaps a wenge skunk stripe? Any thoughts on body shape? We'll talk finish later. I'm very boring and find the Precision body most comfortable.

Surely all of this should be thrashed out in rehearsals? By the time you get on stage you should be prepared to play everything on the set list. I once refused to play a song , the chorus went "I'm not gonna cry , I'm not gonna say goodbye" I was out of the band within the week.

4.5 strings:

"But the space between them would become vanishingly small as you got closer to the bridge" - certainly , but my point is that you can have as many frets as you like and then find a way off accessing them or not as the case may be.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1361983576' post='1994041'] You're doing this all the wrong way around. The number of frets is determined by the shape of the body (specifically the lower cutaway) and the position of the "neck" pickup and whether you want to leave any space between it and the end of the fingerboard. [/quote] The lower cutaway allows access to the upper frets but it doesn't determine their number. You could in theoy put frets right up to the bridge if it weren't for pickups getting in the way. In order to access these super high frets you just slice off the bottom of the body and put the controls at the top.

[quote name='Low End Bee' timestamp='1361982913' post='1994022'] [/quote] Build in some cheesy rhythm box buttons for bossanova etc and I'll have one.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1361980530' post='1993991'] Let's put a huge pickup right up against the end of the fingerboard to stop people from slapping. [/quote] Or a barbed spike?

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1361979674' post='1993975'] maple maple. No frets. [/quote] To keep things simple (or a least only less complex) the main design will be fretted, we'll run through any ideas for a fretless version at a later date. Bolt on or through neck? Good question, I've always fancied a through neck so I'll vote for that.

Sorry I couldn't get to a computer this morning , anyhow, a quick count up has shown a majority in favour of a four string. Lets turn our attention to the neck, how many frets? what construction? We'll look at headstocks and inclusion of block or other mounts later. Call me boring but I'd like a maple jazz neck with maple board. 20 frets will do .

In order that some day we might actually complete this project I'm going to approach it in this way: Unless an outrageous string number is most popular , well offer a four and five string version, the majority bass will be the one that I cost up. The same will apply to the fretted /fretless option. all of this can be reviewed in the light of future developments.

the purpose of this exorcise isn't to establish if one type of bass is better than another , it's to see what we will come up with by the process. We'll worry about what strings to use when we have a (virtual) bass to string.

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1361872210' post='1992072'] Design by committee usually only ever makes progress on the basis of consensus. On Basschat that means you could be here for years. [/quote] We have all the time in the world. As for the strings issue, we'll make a provisional decision based on the most popular choice by midnight (GMT) tonight.

"A camel is a horse that was designed by committee" With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to design a bass guitar by committee to see what monstrosity or piece of ultra bland averageness we can come up with. I'll act as chairman and put forward design elements to be considered, once an agreement has bee reached I'll publish the spec in post 1of this thread. Items already debated can be reviewed at a later date.We will also attempt to cost this project. We'll make up any other rules as we go . Item 1 on the agenda : Number of strings. I think that it should be four. Anyone else?

[quote name='apa' timestamp='1361745800' post='1990321'] I think the only reason I got mine from Canada was because CH didnt do the 5 string version. And yes you do, Ive seen one A [/quote] Ahah! the penny drops, I suppose another reason for the custom pickups was that Wizard don't do 5's.

CH Guitars do them too (I have a couple) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-string-Bass-Piezo-bridge-B41-/130818307588?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&var=&hash=item642495fccd

It's not over .... I had a day in the studio and because I've not had a chance to road test this bass I took the Mk2 as I know I can get exactly the sound I'm after from it. I ran into an old problem - cheaper instruments often struggle to produce a good sound in the studio (even if they sound fine live) , no idea why but it's something that I've noticed over the years. the Mk2 has pickups that came from a Lindo bass that was about £100 new. the Mk3 has some similar looking pickups that cost me £7.50 new! I bought them just to see how they would do. I've not really had much chance to try the new bass plugged in yet but I think it deserves some nice pickups , probably Wizard 64's.

having tried this bass i have to admit it's good despite having too many strings and active circuitry. Some questions: I take it that Wizard 74's are half way between 64's and 84's? Why did you go for that type of pickup? Did they charge you much extra for them? I'm thinking of putting some 64's in my new fretless.

I have an acoustic with a broken pickup, I think that if I was ever required to play it live and plugged in I would just mount a precision pickup in the sound hole. Not a true acoustic sound but I don't think that anyone would notice.

I think that the problem of softness was exaggerated by the the fact that the twin neck was my main bass for 18 months during a very busy period. It didn't fit into a proper case and was kept in a keyboard bag. Cherry isn't as tough as ash or maple. The oil finish is really what brings out the colour.