My very own DIY jazz bass configurator... lots of Fender custom colours...

[LukeFRC]

MY D.I.Y. Jazz BASS CONFIGORATOR!
Last year I got my first ever 5 string. I don't know if I'm actually loving the bass, but it looks beautiful in a lovely metallic red. I'm cooped up, and doing the thing we all do where we we imagine what we would get instead... or if I refinished my main bass to look nicer.
So we all love a good configurator don't we? Two of the best are Maruszczyk and Sandberg where you can play to your hearts content. They are great. 
The only problem I have is some of the colours are, well not what I want to see... They obviously are making and selling basses and showing the colours they have.
I read something @wateroftyne put on facebook was how he get a Limelight precision and asked them for this lovely aged Lake placid blue... which is a lot softer than his brighter Maruszczyk... This is what I wanted to see - find a way to mock up my bass with a range of bright custom colours... including "new and aged tones." 

Originally starting with something a bit cartoon like I found the photo of MY bass the shop had used... so used that as a base... its a Metro Will Lee 

So I started at ManchesterGuitarTech's supply of paints (ie what's available) and then armed with the internet looked up a whole load of Fender custom colours from the 60's, then a few more whacky 50's colours too. (and thanks to @gareth writing something about it, the 1981 international range too) - I can't promise any of the colours are "accurate", and some of them ended up being tweaked multiple times based on internet trawls of dozens of finished guitars... 
At the end I've stuck in an aged dark Lake placid blue that I had seen Sadowsky use on @AndyTravis's Metro PJ, a couple of G&L colours (one I own in a transparent colour, and one I love), and some glitter metal flake, cos who doesn't love metal flake?

They are all my quick bodge together on photoshop. I really haven't spent long on these so some of the shadows look a bit odd on some colours.

I've got a couple of pick guards... so I stuck them in, plus a few more for the craic...
and then stuck some filters on to badly mimic different neck woods... and then bodged a painted headstock... So hopefully fun to play with.. I think there's somewhere like 2,500 different combos available!

The other reason I wanted to do this was to learn the switching technique for a PDF. HTML is a better way to do it like Maruszczyk have, but I'm not a web dev and it would have taken me more than a couple of evenings looking up vintage Fenders... 



Enjoy. Feed back any glaring mistakes or colours that are way way off.... 

 

v1.1 - bug fix on "black" button disappearing when you clicked on desert sand

NEEDS TO BE DOWNLOADED AND OPENED IN ACROBAT

Bass_config_SadowskyWL_v1.1.pdf

Edited May 18, 2020 by LukeFRC

[LukeFRC]

there's a bug - something is making the button for black disappear... hold on I'll fix it

 

 

done!

Edited May 17, 2020 by LukeFRC

[Baceface]

Brilliant! Lovely bit o' work. Will enjoy messing with this immensely. Thanks.

[ead]

Great job.  That's the rest of my day sorted  

[LukeFRC]

my current fave...

[LukeFRC]

ps open it in acrobat on a desktop... - should have learned the HTML option!

Edited May 18, 2020 by LukeFRC

[itu]

Have you ever used a ColorMunki or similar with your computer? Colours change drastically after the first calibration. I suggest a check every 6 months. I did work with photos and the Monkey was really worth its price. But if your white is bluish and so on, there is no reason to concentrate on colours.

The colour reproduction is not related to the price, or size, or brand of the unit. Not at all.

[Merton]

This is awesome!

[LukeFRC]

53 minutes ago, itu said:

Have you ever used a ColorMunki or similar with your computer? Colours change drastically after the first calibration. I suggest a check every 6 months. I did work with photos and the Monkey was really worth its price. But if your white is bluish and so on, there is no reason to concentrate on colours.

The colour reproduction is not related to the price, or size, or brand of the unit. Not at all.

That looks good. With my work computer I bother about that, but not used anything like that - looks really neat solution.

this was done on my personal laptop so colour calibration could be way off - but if you see how quickly I did the reflections and shadows accuracy wasn’t really the aim. Half the problem is that my monitor could be calibrated but there’s such a range of setups for the source images I’m grabbing off line to act as a sample! 

[itu]

To be honest, I love the work you have done @LukeFRC.

My humble point was, that colours tend to look quite funny on an uncalibrated display. Take a walk in a TV store and see it yourself.

[LukeFRC]

5 minutes ago, itu said:

To be honest, I love the work you have done @LukeFRC.

My humble point was, that colours tend to look quite funny on an uncalibrated display. Take a walk in a TV store and see it yourself.

Thanks - you’ve now got me wanting to either buy one of them things, or work entirely in Pantone inks! 

[LukeFRC]

44 minutes ago, itu said:

Take a walk in a TV store and see it yourself.

All the brightness all the time??

[LukeFRC]

On 18/05/2020 at 11:45, Merton said:

This is awesome!

thanks

[LukeFRC]

wow that's a lot of downloads

[Sibob]

Weird, doesn't seem to work for me. Mac with Safari or Chrome, or even if I download the PDF onto my desktop.
Fingerboard changes and thats it.

EDIT: Sorry, just seen that it needs to be specifically used with Acrobat! All works fine

Mmmmmmm, Walnut finish with black scratchplate 😍

Si

Edited May 23, 2020 by Sibob

[LukeFRC]

4 hours ago, Sibob said:

Weird, doesn't seem to work for me. Mac with Safari or Chrome, or even if I download the PDF onto my desktop.
Fingerboard changes and thats it.

EDIT: Sorry, just seen that it needs to be specifically used with Acrobat! All works fine

Mmmmmmm, Walnut finish with black scratchplate 😍

Si

Pictures or it didn’t happen!

[Noisyjon]

Hey @LukeFRC,

This is a great thing to have made, thank you.

I've gone for Charcoal Frost Metallic, BWB 'guard and a Rosewood 'board:

Edited July 27, 2020 by Noisyjon
spelling!