Elwray Basses

[Marco.EB]

Hello there,

 

As I some of you may know, I am an amateur bass builder. I have no formation and I am self-taught. Randall Wyn Fullmer (may he rest in peace, he past away 2023) gave me a lot of tips and shared his knowledge without limits. Before presenting my basses I'd like you to take a look of the documentary made by Mike Enns, : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNACNx5UlR8&t=2092s&ab_channel=Restrung

Such a nice guy Randy, not like some others luthiers, if you check the Restrung channel you'll see he shared with Mike 16 videos "How to make a bass". It's really kind regarding the number of people who wants to "hide" their secrets.

 

Anyway, I almost always was the tech guy since my youger ages, from electronics, amps to guitars and basses... If a friend had a need he came to me for a repair, a restrung, or something else. I think there's only a few of my basses I didn't touch and keep them stock. I learned by making a lot of mistakes, and now as I'm 40 I realize that mistakes are almost the thing that make you progress the most amongst everything, even if I have to admit some tools are almost mandatory if you want to achieve very nice job and you are a demanding to yourself person like me (and also impatient) :') (SECURITY RULES APART OF COURSE). I have to skip all the mods I've made, there's too many of them, if you want to check my Youtube channel you'll see some refins, probably one of the thing I like the most when it comes to get my hands on a bass.

 

So after (a tiny bit of) thinking, I directly bought good woods to make my first bass. At the time I had one router (Elu MOF96) and some basic tools. For obvious reasons I made a fretless bass, 36" inches scale (why not?) with a flamed bubinga top, padauk back, and a hidden neck-thru construction (can't see neck from both sides) made of Wenge and bubinga. The fretboard was african ebony:

 

 

I still own this bass today, it is far from perfect but still 100% functional and my first attempt too... As you can see I've putted Hipshot, Schaller, Seymour Duncan so only good stuff on it. I called it "Infinga" which is a mashup between Infinty (Warwick) and Bubinga.

 

As a second bass one of my best friend just make me an order (to support the cause also) for a five strings. I choosed the woods carefully with a touch of "rare" wood ; a flamed ash top. Wings are made of ovengkol (or amazakoue) and the neck is 3 piece bubinga/mahogany with an amaranth fretboard. I fretted it by hand and hammer. I had a radiused wood bloc and a little bandsaw this time. Fortunately, I didn't screw up this one at all, and it is still used today. Originally pickups were SD SSB5 but my friend wanted more mojo so I've switched for Delano DCB5  quad coils with Glockenklang pre. Schaller tuners and ABM monorails.

 

 

Then I wanted to realize a new shape a start to carve the wood and I created the Amani, which was a sort of simple cutaway bass made of maple with a bubinga top an ebony fretboard. I went with wood covers for the pickups (what a pain...) and wenge inserts in the neck. Still a neck through design. But as you may see, I pay some attention to carve the rear of the body by hand to make a lightweight and nicely curved bass. On the stand it might look akward but in hand it was very nice IMHO. The fretjob wasn't perfect at all so after a period I changed for an amaranth fretboard, fretless. I really love this design but it's not easy to make and doesn't please everybody. Pickups were, again, Delano (at the thime I had a company and I worked with Delano directly). Schaller tuners and ABM monorails. I finally sold this bass in its fretless version to a belgian mate.

 

 

After this alien, comes the Infinga some of you tried, the one that made a passaround in UK. It was (yes it's dead) a birdseye maple body top with walnut babk, neck through contrsuction, and a neck made of walnut with maple inserts. It had this lovely Delano twincoil that remains, IMHO, one of the best pickups on the planet. It can cover a lot of sounds and has a nice warm and powerful tone. Despite the images below looking good, the fret job wasn't really good, I've made a mistake in measurements and the neck was thin too far inside the body. I broke a chip of wood and had to fill it with epoxy too. It went fretless for a long time before I recently burned it because I needed more room and I had too much unused basses and stuff. Routings weren't very clean neither.

 

 

After this one I came back to the Amani model for one of the finest build I've ever made ; I sold it on this  very website and if the owner is still here I'd love to have some feedback on it today. The recipe is once again a proven one ; flamed maple top with maple back, neck through maple/wenge neck with amaranth fretboard. The inlays were wood inserts of maple and wenge. I just used saddles from an ABM bridge and made a kind of string thru stop tail myself. Schaller tuners with custom amaranth keys, Delano DCB pickups, passive operation. I barely remind it so if it's somewhere it could be very nice to have some feedback on it.

 

 

Speaking of one of my most beautiful build, I made another Amani 5 fretted, this one featured on Notreble.com (just google Elwray Basses notreble). It is a freaking great bass. Sold to a french guy who, I believe, still play with it. Despite the used woods it was very light because of a partially hollowed body (I routed two cavities on the back so it can handle any preamp with 4 batteries if needed, even if I decided to use a passive mode with "coils blenders" (just a pot that blends between the coils of each pickup). It's in french but the test is the first video on my Youtube channel. The body was made in afzelia (Warwick used it for some very firsts Streamer's), afzelia neck with maple inserts. Schaller tuners and ABM bridge. The fretboard is a very weird piece of padauk really hard and with differents colors in it. I took inspiration in the Warwick Thumb for the pickups placement; but even if I don't use Delano no more, the cost of these Delano Times Square pickups with tofferite magnets was outrageous ; 200/pc at the time an now I believe it'es close to 300. But they have a unique character I'll let you judge in the Youtube video.

 

 

Then I decide to "innovate" with a bolt-on model. A simple Infinga 4 made of 50 yo dry belgian maple top and padauk with maple stripes back, thuya burl electronic cover, and a maple/padauk neck with same maple fretboard. I went for a Musicman style with a single EMG pickup. All the hardware was the Schaller vintage copper from the passarounf Infinga 4... A unique bass for me and it was bought by the same guy who bought me the Amani 5 above !

 

 

Following this one I've made an exact same setup (Infinga 4 bolt-on with Schaller hardware) but this time with an afzelia body and a P/J EMG X configuration. The neck was excatly the same, with same woods. I can say today I prefer bolt on, it's easier to made for me, and I like the idea to switch bodies and necks. On the pictures you can see the Amani 5 fretless (the first one) that became a fretless amaranth one. This bass made me love EMG pickups. I still think they are a very good option for recording setup and wide tone spectrum with a big choice of different pickups in a same enclosure (EMG35,40,45). Sold this one to a guitarist friend for not much.

 

 

Then I used Leo Fender famous technique (joking, I don't know if it's true or legend) of "use chunks of woods laying around the workshop and make a bass with them", so I came with a bass with so many problems that it never has been finished and I burned it with the Infinga recently. The truss even crack through the back of the neck lol. Padauk body with afzelia and oak top, 9-ply neck (lol) with maple/padauk/afzelia. Nothing special about it, it stayed for many years like that. I retrieve the truss rod, although.  

 

 

Then I went in a period without real build, but I've made a lot of restorations in guitars and basses. Like a lot.

An honorable mention although; in a trade I get a Rockbass Corvette $$ I completly transform into in a "better-than-custom-german-made" Warwick ; that's the only picture I have of it stock :

 

 

Then I went a bit crazy and I completly made a new top in thuya burlwith a P/J configuration (Delano), all brand new hardware from Warwick, and a Crovette Proline '97 wenge neck :

 

 

After all this like I said I quit bass making due to house works AND not enough money AND time consuming job. I continued restoration and reparations. But now after 4-5 years I finally get proper tools, new big bandsaw, fret tools of all sort, a Mafell router, a design I've been working on since 2 years. So if you read so far I'll tease a little bit before making a video (or maybe not in video, my english is just okay-ish)

 

As I don't know yet when I'm goin' to make this video to introduce the "WN4" (stands for WalNut), I will try to explain briefly how I end up with the actual "classic" configuration of my very last one:

 

I mentioned I had the chance to put my hands on a lot of basses, with the restorations and my GAS syndrom, so I worked on a design for about 1 year to have a classic but modern style (whatever it means something). Here's my points:

 

- The body design is unique but still not too ostentatious, and small but ergonomic (small to avoir overweight, I didn't want to exceed 4Kg max, the proto is 3.5Kg)

- Even if I'm a 5 string player, I designer a 4 string as it can interest more people in a first time

- In my very personal experience with woods, I found that the type of wood is not the most important but the chunk itself is. I still wanted to go for walnut because it's rarely bad souding and it's a bit ecologic as it's coming from France.

- For the neck, flamed maple and walnut inserts of 3mm seems to me a great solution to nail a quality tone

- For the fretboard I went for an african ebony with stanless steel frets to have a "dry/clean?" tone

- I choosed EMG35 size routing as EMG offers jazz, precision, dual coils, ceramics, and all brands are available in this size.

- Despite the "classical" design, it is unique (I guess) because as a Warwick Infinity, (hard to explain here) the fretboard is starting where the body stops so the access is really, really easy to high notes and it's not a sort of commercial shitty argument.

- I'm still torn because I like abalone but for ecological resaons I think for the future ones I'll go for fake white pearloid inlays, 8mm.

- After trying a thousand bridges, I decide to use a Hipshot A style. But finally I went on the B style for two reasons: it's the same as MTD uses and it's simple and reliable (brass version)

- Tuners HAVE TO be Gotoh for me (I know some ppl prefer Hipshot), so GB350 Res-O-lite.

- I see no reason to not use a Graphtech nut. I had to replace a FODERA brass nut because it was poorly made (yes true)

- I choose a passive operation even if I'm reasonably open to active.

- Like I said bolt-on is easier to make and I like the idea of switching bodies/necks

- truss rod is reversed (nut towards bridge) and in the future should be musicman style, way easier to setup.

- 23 frets because not 24. 😅

 

Well, we will discuss all that on the appropriate post, but here's the prototype (in the video I'll introduce both proto and prod 1) for a bit of teasing :

 

 

 

I do not intend to make a business but maybe if I can sell some to continue making basses that will be okay for me.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Marco

 

Edited February 17 by Marco.EB

[Hellzero]

Glad to see you back, Marco.

[Marco.EB]

1 hour ago, Hellzero said:

Glad to see you back, Marco.

Long time no see  Thanks !

[Sambrook]

An excellent read, and a lovely reminder of some great looking basses. Well done, that man!

[Andyjr1515]

On 16/02/2024 at 21:18, Marco.EB said:

Speaking of one of my most beautiful build, I made another Amani 5 fretted, this one featured on Notreble.com (just google Elwray Basses notreble).

Yes - I remember seeing that one.  Lovely job.  Welcome back