New Zoot ZB-1000 Custom

[Cosmicrain]

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.

[Jimothey]

Oooohh now that is stunning!! love a bit of spalted beech!! 🤤

Edited January 2, 2021 by Jimothey

[Bass Culture]

@Cosmicrain- absolutely fantastic work, Mike.  It's going to be so frustrating having to wait until Tier changes permit me to come down to pick it up!

 

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Bass Culture

[dmccombe7]

Stunning and cant wait to hear this when finished.

Dave

[Cosmicrain]

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. 

[Bass Culture]

You might as well just open a packet of spaghetti and photograph that for all this diagram means to me @Cosmicrain! 😁  Still, I guess only one of us needs to know what you're doing! 😉

[GreeneKing]

Just imagine the fun if there was more than one pickup

The rear of the neck is stunning.

[SpondonBassed]

I'm liking what appears to be a seal around the cavity edge.  Is that right?

[Cosmicrain]

5 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

I'm liking what appears to be a seal around the cavity edge.  Is that right?

Well spotted that man  !!!

[Cosmicrain]

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.

[Cosmicrain]

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

[Merton]

Well that's quite tasty isn't it! Nice one

[dmccombe7]

So so very nice indeed. Hopefully we will get to hear some soundclips at some point.

I've never heard an Aria SB1000 pick up in a non Aria bass.  

Dave

[Bass Culture]

14 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

So so very nice indeed. Hopefully we will get to hear some soundclips at some point.

I've never heard an Aria SB1000 pick up in a non Aria bass.  

Dave

Me neither, Dave!  It may take a little while before I can take delivery of it but once I do I will post some sound clips, promise.

[dmccombe7]

1 minute ago, Bass Culture said:

Me neither, Dave!  It may take a little while before I can take delivery of it but once I do I will post some sound clips, promise.

Appreciate that and probably take a little while to get the ideal settings form all those presets.

Dave

[Bass Culture]

1 minute ago, dmccombe7 said:

Appreciate that and probably take a little while to get the ideal settings form all those presets.

Dave

Quite right.  Although Mike was telling me when he was having a test play yesterday there were several settings that put a smile on his face.  And when he's made as many basses as he has that certainly a statement to pique the interest!

[dmccombe7]

11 minutes ago, Bass Culture said:

Quite right.  Although Mike was telling me when he was having a test play yesterday there were several settings that put a smile on his face.  And when he's made as many basses as he has that certainly a statement to pique the interest!

Its been a fascinating project and the idea of using the Aria SB1000 pick up was brilliant. Having owned an SB1000 in 80's it had so many great tones to play with. 

Dave

Edited January 27, 2021 by dmccombe7

[eude]

That is simply stunning!

[Muzz]

Beeeeyoudiful...I've got a Shuker with a Nordy Bigman in roughly the same position, and it's wired single/parallel/single (series was too mental), and just that has a real spread of tones, add that Varitone and it's even more versatile. Brilliant.

[Cosmicrain]

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

Its been a fascinating project and the idea of using the Aria SB1000 pick up was brilliant. Having owned an SB1000 in 80's it had so many great tones to play with. 

Dave

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. 

[Bass Culture]

2 hours ago, Cosmicrain said:

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. 

What he said. 😁

[GreeneKing]

We learn all the time. I hadn't realised that the original Aria SB1000 was so highly rated. Aria have made some great instruments.

[james6]

Beautiful bass, has me completely besotted.

[MattW]

Wow, don't know how I missed this thread until now - absolutely beautiful work there @Cosmicrain

@Bass Culture is one lucky guy!

 Now the question is, could you make a 34" scale 6 string version for me 😁

 

 

[Cosmicrain]

6 hours ago, MattW said:

Wow, don't know how I missed this thread until now - absolutely beautiful work there @Cosmicrain

@Bass Culture is one lucky guy!

 Now the question is, could you make a 34" scale 6 string version for me 😁

 

 

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.