therealting

I had a beautiful one made by Bravewood, got stolen at the end of 2018 along with a Dingwall, a Godin and a Sadowsky. Really hope to get it back one day.

Yes, he does the P Retro. I have one somewhere.

You and me both!

I use an OC20 for playing octaves one the bass strings of my Godin guitars, but would also like to try using my GR33 for pads.

To send GK signal to two devices.

I love my Godins with synth pickups, my one annoyance is that the splitter is so expensive... £200 before import duty and taxes?!

It’s crossed my mind! Or do the Stu Hamm Urge thing and have a JPJ setup!

Another popular current option is to take a Variax with a Strat-compatible body, and put a neck you like on it. Again I don’t know what the body fit is like. Personally I think you’re better off having two basses, one a Variax.

You’d have to gut both basses and transplant it over. Warmoth actually used to make guitar bodies designed for this, and there were loads of guitarists doing this back in the day. It’s quite the operation to do otherwise. I’ve actually owned a Strat that had been modified as a Variax transplant.

It sounds very similar to the setup Sadowsky had with their Japanese partners.

I think the P pickup position is going to give you the P tone to some degree unless you go for something like a single coil pickup. If you’re willing to route the body, as it seems like you are, I’d toy with doing the Billy Sheehan / Callowhill LeFave mod with the humbucker right by the neck, to dial in some low end fundamental... or the Lee Sklar mod with the second P pickup by the bridge.

There’s also the Harley Benton Shorty at half the money (30”). https://m.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_hbp90bk_shortscale_ebass.htm

Ooh! Super J pickup! Must be an NYC Standard?

Do you have ground connections to your bridge and also to make contact with the shielding?

So you are looking for something less lively, less loud? Less P like? More vintage P like?

Ah, and body / neck / tuner weight of course!

Revelation.

You didn’t say what pickup is in the bitsa at the moment, and what it sounds like.

I think the battery compartment is in the middle of Soundgears because the edges are tapered and the neck is the thickest part of the body. I do love the way they look, I just wish their necks were thicker, my poor hand cramps on one after a couple of minutes 😕

I’m a tort guy myself... The previous owner of my 64 P had inexplicably put Quarter Pounders in it (?), which I didn’t like at all. Having said that, the Seymour Duncan NYC pickups in my new Sadowsky sound fantastic. It also has a Badass-style Omega in it, which I must confess I don’t like the look of.

New (to me) 1996 Sadowsky NYC Modern 5! Currently outfitted with Seymour Duncan / Fodera ‘NYC’ pickups and a Glockenklang 2-band pre. Run passive here, outer coils selected, blended towards neck, tone flat. It also came with the original EMG 40Js. Going to live with it a while, but I really love it.

It’s an Omega. I’ve never been a fan of the Badass bridge look, but I’m going to live with the bass as it is for a while and see how I gel with it before I start spending money on mods. If I really love it, I might get it refinished.

New (to me) 1996 Sadowsky NYC Modern 5! Currently outfitted with Seymour Duncan / Fodera ‘NYC’ pickups and a Glockenklang 2-band pre. There was some discolouration and screw hole repair damage from a previous pickguard, so I made and installed a pickguard to cover it up and I think it looks way better (before and after photos in the post). Run passive here, outer coils selected, blended towards neck, tone flat. It also came with the original EMG 40Js and the Sadowsky pre, which might find its way in again at some point. I have to say it already sounds great as it is.

Looks like you got a good one to start with! A few years ago I decided I needed a Precision and bought a Japanese FSR 60s Lacquer, which I liked so much I decided to jump right in and find a pre-CBS one. I now have two of those, and a Dingwall Super P, plus around five or six others...