SpectaRayVibe Anyone????

[JohnDaBass]

OH Nooo NOT Another Lockdown Bitsa

Well yes!!

Last week I was browsing on Flea Bay and noticed a parted-out Spector body for a very reasonable price. There were three bodies a lovely, figured maple sunburst, a nice but badly marked red burst and the black “Ice” body which I purchased. If I had been a little quicker I could have nabbed the maple sunburst but got the Black “Ice” seen below. I had a Mex Fender Bronco neck (quite old & never ever seen a Mex one before) which I got some years ago from a Parting-out specialist dealer in the USA. I had previously used the neck on short scale Bitsa PJ which wore a Mustang decal.

Following my purchase of a Harley Benton MM 84A SB (See Bitsa thread) I had spare a couple of ceramic, high output Roswell MFR4 N/B Pups, having swapped them out for luscious Warman MM Pups in my Stu Hamm Urge Ray.

I picked up a great value high mass 3D bridge on Amazon for an amazing £18 and I plan to use a @KiOgon loom to complete the Bitsa.

So, I am all set to do some routering, fettling and assembly to, hopefully create a nice sounding short scale Bitsa to add to the herd.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by JohnDaBass
spelling

[BassTool]

Like it 👍🏼

[JohnDaBass]

UPDATE 

The MIM Bronco neck is a no go. The historical mods to the neck sadly means it is not going to fit the Spector Legend body.

So a Retrovibe 32ins scale neck arrived today and looks like the best way forward. Once I start the routering I'll post a few more photos. 

Edited February 5, 2021 by JohnDaBass
Spelling mistakes

[NancyJohnson]

8 hours ago, JohnDaBass said:

UPDATE 

The MIM Bronco neck is a no go. 

I think that was a given irrespective of whether it fitted the neck pocket or not.

In basic terms, if you'd put the Bronco neck on, you'd be losing 4" on the scale length, so you'd be looking at either some serious woodwork in the neck pocket and/or moving the bridge forward to make up the scale difference.

[JohnDaBass]

 

PROGRESS UPDATE

So as previously said the MIM Bronco neck was a no-go. Strangely enough the position of the bridge recess in relation to the neck pocket would have accommodated a 30 ins scale length. The MIM Bronco neck had previously been “fettled” to increase it’s overall length to suit another body, I was unhappy with the amount of neck pocket contact under the original neck. 

 

So I ordered one of these

 https://retrovibe.co.uk/product/retrovibe-bass-neck-32-medium-scale-20-fret-maple-blackwood/

 

Great Korean made neck at a very reasonable price. There was a little “fettling” to get the neck to fit the neck pocket but the finished result was great.

Manufactured a couple of router templates for machining the Pup pockets and enlarging the bridge recess. The curved body of the Spector Performer Classic/ Legend makes the job a bit more tricky but I made the templates with supports that were screwed to the bases of the Pup pockets holding the templates level.

 

 

 

Made a start on some screening and I plan to mount the Pups & controls early next week.

[JohnDaBass]

So made some progress with the control cavity screening and completed the wiring.

 Control is thro 3 position switch for Pup selection then through a @KiOgon  volume & tone loom. Each Pup has a series- single coil- parallel switch offering a broad palette of tones from 51’P’ish, to Neck Humbucker, to  Jazz’ish 2 single in parallel, to Jazz'ish single coil bridge, through to passive Stingray in series or parallel.

 

 

 

The body was advertised as an old Performer 4 Classic and was an unused second surplus stock from China. Following some research I could not find any reference for the “Black Ice” finish Performer 4 Classic, basswood, Spector bass with a curved body. Production of the curved body Performer 4 Classis ceased in 2008 and production of Performer 4 was moved to Indonesia where only flat body, basswood basses were produced. So I am a little unsure of the true origins of the curved body. The 32ins scale neck from Retrovibe was a real gem of a find it is a typical Gibson EB3 type neck and the maple fret board fits in with my preference for “Black/ Maple neck” basses. I finished the neck with Tru-oil and the feel of the bass is very satisfying, indeed the acoustic sound of the bass is fantastic, vibrant, resonant and quite loud especially with the s/h Labella Deep Talking strings care of @Osiris of

 this parish.

All in all I am really pleased how the Bitsa SpectorRayVibe has turned out I enjoy creating basses that are “out of the ordinary” with different tonal options.

That’s for watching