Pimp Yo' Bass

[TheGreek]

Stop dawdling man....get to it!!

[Doctor J]

A string retainer which brings some level of consistency to the break angle of all strings over the nut. Why Fender etc. persist with the A string having a substantially lesser angle over the nut than the other strings, for whatever reason, is one of the minor mysteries of life.

 

[Horizontalste]

More of a makeover!

[Owen]

11 minutes ago, Horizontalste said:

More of a makeover!

I am DIGGING that. Tell me more. How did you do it?

[Horizontalste]

15 minutes ago, Owen said:

I am DIGGING that. Tell me more. How did you do it?

I brought it from GAK I think when they were discontinued & going cheap & I wasn't sure I'd keep it but it played so good it became my main squeeze.

I fancied doing something different so I had the body hydro-dipped, the neck lacquered with a satin vintage tint, I dyed the fretboard do give it a bit of an ebony look then added the Hipshot bridge & string retainer.

Oh I took the pickup selector out & wired it VVT.

[Horizontalste]

I'm also not a huge fan of unfinished necks, I like how they feel but when they start to look like a weathered fence it's time for lacquer.

My 55-02 below looked pale & anaemic (& a bit cheap) but felt great, probably the nicest neck I've played. I'd already worn through the thin lacquer on my 55-01 & decided getting the 55-02 done to prevent wear through & make it look a bit better.

I went for satin to retain the soft feel.

I also had my Stingray neck lacquered by Shuker in high gloss vintage with stainless frets.

[Owen]

53 minutes ago, Horizontalste said:

I brought it from GAK I think when they were discontinued & going cheap & I wasn't sure I'd keep it but it played so good it became my main squeeze.

I fancied doing something different so I had the body hydro-dipped, the neck lacquered with a satin vintage tint, I dyed the fretboard do give it a bit of an ebony look then added the Hipshot bridge & string retainer.

Oh I took the pickup selector out & wired it VVT.

Who did the hydrodipping?

[Horizontalste]

These guys https://www.facebook.com/hydrodipdesigns 

 

Their website has disappeared tho so not sure if they're still trading.

 

[Frank Blank]

Quote

Pimp Yo' Bass

No.

[Maude]

A visually subtle but sonically strong change to my BB424X. 

 

Before picture (sorry it's blurry). 

 

 

After picture. 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Maude

[Maude]

And a sonically non existent but huge visual change of my Variax. 

 

Before, 

 

After, 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Maude said:

A visually subtle but sonically strong change to my BB424X. 

 

 

if I had (a) that bass and (b) the wherewithal to do things like this I would hide two more volume pots inside the bass and rewire the toggle switch to make the options neck / full neck plus some bridge / full bridge plus some neck.

 

Go on, you know you want to

[TheGreek]

13 hours ago, Maude said:

And a sonically non existent but huge visual change of my Variax. 

 

Before, 

 

After, 

 

That's the same bass?? Would never have guessed.

[Baloney Balderdash]

16 hours ago, Maude said:

A visually subtle but sonically strong change to my BB424X. 

 

Before picture (sorry it's blurry). 

 

 

After picture. 

 

Is this some sort of riddle?

[Maude]

5 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Is this some sort of riddle?

Reverse P pickup. 😉

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 14/01/2023 at 16:30, Maude said:

Reverse P pickup. 😉

 

Ah, of course!  

 

Thank you! 

 

Yeah, I never understood why anyone would have their high D and G string sound even thinner, and the low E and D string to sound even more boomy in comparison.

 

But then again it is a known fact that Leo Fender liked to be contrary and do stuff the complete opposite way of everyone else, P pickup orientation defying logic and common sense, insisting on calling vibrato tremolo and tremolo vibrato e.t.c.

 

And having huge success doing so I guess no one dared to question it and just mindlessly proceeded copying what he did.

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[fergs40]

I'm not sure this needs a lot of pimping...but perhaps I lack ambition!

 

[Waddo Soqable]

1 minute ago, fergs40 said:

I'm not sure this needs a lot of pimping...but perhaps I lack ambition!

 

Pimp.? . Hmm Maybe wear one o' them leopard skin trilbys when playing it.. 

[Trueno]

I converted my MIM PJ Mustang into a P only. Put an EMG Geezer into the P position and a dummy J pup cover into the J position. Put in a Gotoh bridge (cosmetic only, can’t hear any difference) and rolled the fingerboard.

[SamIAm]

My very first Bass Guitar (I owned a ukulele bass at the time) was a Greg Bennett Corsair MCR-1 mini bass (24.6 inch scale length).

Over the course of a few weeks, I made the following mods:

• Changed to a 3D printed black pickguard.
• Changed to a black high mass bridge.
• Upgraded to an EMZ Geezer Butler pickup, I shielded the electrics cavity with copper tape at the same time.
• Swapped in better quality (and black) tuning machines.
• Added in a diy passive diode based fuzz and a diy rotary multi-position tone control (Similar to the Tonestyler Bass 6 but much less expensive), this required enlargement of the electronics cavity (and reshielding!).

I later changed to an EMG active MMCS pup (no photo) with active EQ, which required further enlarging of the pickup cavity and a reprinted pickguard.

Being small and all black (nearly) I named it 'Ponty'.  I loved the sound and playability of Ponty.

 

It was the success with these mods (which just a few months before would have seemed impossible for me) that got me into building my first bass, Twiggy.

(Sadly both Ponty and Twiggy were destroyed in my flat fire)

 

S'manth x

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Smanth

[Waddo Soqable]

Unbelievably tragic that after all that they were burnt, such a waste..

[SamIAm]

1 minute ago, Waddo Soqable said:

Unbelievably tragic that after all that they were burnt, such a waste..

Yep.  The BC community came to my rescue and I was soon grooving again ... and, undaunted, I have the materials to build another better version of Twiggy (To be called Phoenix).

S'manth x

[Waddo Soqable]

Phoenix.. Perfect!... I'll be interested to see how it evolves, hopefully you'll do a build thread.. 

[SamIAm]

7 minutes ago, Waddo Soqable said:

Phoenix.. Perfect!... I'll be interested to see how it evolves, hopefully you'll do a build thread.. 

Check it out here.

S'manth x

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 13/01/2023 at 21:42, Horizontalste said:

More of a makeover!

This looks absolutely amazing! ❤️