I Finished Building My Custom Bass... Starting Another Some may remember the old post...

[Cerb 0]

About a year ago I described the bass that I was in the process of building. I believe I linked to a blog and there were a few progress pictures. Some may remember it, most will probably not. HERE (clickable link) it is anyways. Just click on the two links on that page to either see completion pictures or to hear a soundclip (plugged straight into soundcard, no EQ).

This is my first fretless instrument. I don't believe I will ever be able to go back to fretted basses again, though, at this point. My musical voice rests with the fretless bass now. I love not having those little metal speedbumps to slow me down.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the instrument. The tone is not what I was looking for, but now that I've had time to play it I've adapted my technique and note voicing to cope. Now it is my main axe. The tone is what I would describe as very growly with a lot of fretless mwah (any bassists will know what I'm talking about). That isn't the part I didn't like. The treble and high midrange are extremely harsh. Because of this it is definately an instrument you have to be aquainted with well to make it sound nice. I've yet to hear another person be able to make the harshness of the sound go away.

I believe at some point I will wind up swapping out the preamp for an Aguilar OBP-3. The preamp that is in the cavity at the moment just takes up way too much space. Another thing that I will do eventually is shield the electronics cavity. I've yet to do this simply because I got lazy at the end of the build and wanted to get the thing making music.

For any musicians that have trouble with neck-dive, I would DEFINATELY recommend the tuners which I placed on this bass. They are Hipshot Ultralites. They weigh about an ounce less than Gotoh tuners, thus taking 1/4 pound off of the headstock. Being as the neck on this instrument is made of wenge, it is naturally neck heavy. I still have absolutely no neckdive.

The neck profile is by far my favorite thing about the entire bass, though. From the front of the fingerboard to the back of the neck it is 1 1/4" thick. That is, as opposed to the 3/4" that most basses are. I have large hands, and because of that my hands always cramp up when playing production basses with small necks. This is the most comfortable neck I've ever played on.

Overall, I'm very happy with this bass. Unfortunately I've caught the bass building bug and now cannot stop. I am already planning my second, which will have many more bells and whistles.

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The second bass' progress and planning can be viewed HERE. The specs are as follows:

- 4 string Fretless
- Contrastling lines of veneer. 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc. will be a different color.
- Semi-Hollow
- Some sort of attractive soundhole (possibly just lines as shown in the image)
- 32 3/4" Scale - This was as long as I could make the scale without lengthening the body. This also helps with my reach while standing, especially considering I have back troubles.
- Horn that extends a good ways past 12th position, which will also help with my back troubles.
- Matching cavity covers
- Possibility of doing an inlayed tuner (link)
- Inlayed straplocks
- My first angled headstock
- Singular adjustable string holders rather than a nut (I think Scott French does this)
- Wipe-on Poly with oiled neck

Wood:
- Wenge Neckthrough (not centered at rear of bass, giving a nicer sitting position and also giving me much more room to work in the control cavity.)
- Flamed redwood top
- Padauk accent lines below the top and back
- Wenge Body Core
- Flamed redwood back
- ? Acrylicized Fingerboard

Hardware:
- All black
- ETS MK III headless bridge
- Either Duesenberg's string clamps or Le Fay's (still awaiting reply) string posts at headstock
- Wooden Knobs (Hey Nateo!)

Electronics:
- Aguilar OBP-3
- Bart Classic Bass J at bridge and an MM at neck position

As you can see, I've still yet to decide upon a fingerboard wood, but everything else is finalized. This bass will truly be a musicians instruments. Everything will be custom fit to my own needs. Because of my back problems, I have shortened the scale even more than I did on the first bass. The scale is 1 1/4" shorter than standard. This will help the bass balance perfectly while standing, and it will also help with my reach. I'm moving the tuning to the body end with a tunable bridge, and I'm simply putting string clamps on the headstock. This will take a considerable ammount of weight off of the neck end of the instrument, which is always good.

I actually won the redwood blank from ebay and had Larry Davis at Gallery Hardwoods resaw it for me. I got four pieces out of it, and 2 will be used for the top and back of this bass. The cool thing is that I will be able to keep the continuity of grain and mineral stains from front to back. Sadly, though, because redwood is so soft, I will need to use a hard finish rather than my preferred oil finish.

Really there isn't much more to say. I hope you enjoy what I've done, and don't mind reading what I had to write. I'm just overly excited about it all.

Thanks for your time,
Cerb; Taylor Baker

[lilemi 0]

:XD: I'm heartbroken. The link does not work! I read this bit, it sounds beautiful.... Im so jealous! And your sig rocks, I play guitar but I totally agree. I'd love pictures, but.... but.... the link Both links actually, the second one also doesn't work.I hope you will have audio files/images on a working website by the time your next bass is done; I'm pretty curious. Is there any chance you could put up price estimates for the bass (and future bass) at the end? Just out of curiosity, so we could compare the price to the audio files and the images. I really want to get into building my own guitar, so any info would rock on the building side. See, I have pretty much all the tools in the world (don't ask). All I need is the knowledge, the actual building materials and the time. Time I have, no knowledge and I need a price range for the materials. Of course, I also need to know what materials I want, which falls under knowledge because I need to know what each material affects what and how much it affects it.... Congrats on the build, though, and it sounds like it has a very original tone which I think is a great achievement when building your own instrument.

Edited August 19, 2007 by lilemi (see edit history)