ramp/finger rest

[wizay]

Hi. Im about to build my own ramp/finger rest to my bass guitar, just like Gary Wills has. Does anyone got some tips about what material i should use?
thx=D

[Liten]

I did my 2 out of acrylic.. easy enough to work with.. although Ive found that the ramp needs to have a radious for me to really like it.. my ramps are flat.. :/
Ill be changeing that pretty soon..

[wizay]

where can I buy acrylic, and how did you work with it? sanded it, or ?

[Liten]

I found some at the local hardware supermarket.. should not be hard to find... I used 4mm thick acrylic..

pics here

[ga_edwards]

A tip I picked up from a Billy Sheehan video. If you tend to play over the pickups, you raise them really high and use them as a ramp.

They really need smooth covers to make it viable, open pole pieces will play havoc with your finger tips. You also need to be careful not to set them too high as particualrly strong magnets will affect your tone and creat wolf-tones. Regluar pole piece types will also suffer from volume dips if they are set real high and you bend strings a lot, so rail types p/ups are handy here too. You may also need to pack out the cavity under the p/up so they sit solid, an old mouse mat works wonder here.

I do this on all my basses, and it has improved my playing a lot. My plucking dynamics are a lot more consistent and I can play a lot faster as my fingers don't get caught beneath the strings. In fact if I play a bass that doesn't have high p/ups it doesn't feel quite right.

[Liten]

Originally Posted by ga_edwards

A tip I picked up from a Billy Sheehan video. If you tend to play over the pickups, you raise them really high and use them as a ramp.

They really need smooth covers to make it viable, open pole pieces will play havoc with your finger tips. You also need to be careful not to set them too high as particualrly strong magnets will affect your tone and creat wolf-tones. Regluar pole piece types will also suffer from volume dips if they are set real high and you bend strings a lot, so rail types p/ups are handy here too. You may also need to pack out the cavity under the p/up so they sit solid, an old mouse mat works wonder here.

I do this on all my basses, and it has improved my playing a lot. My plucking dynamics are a lot more consistent and I can play a lot faster as my fingers don't get caught beneath the strings. In fact if I play a bass that doesn't have high p/ups it doesn't feel quite right.

+1!

But installing a ramp will let you have that same feeling on a wider part of the bass than just over the pu's..
I set my pu's pretty high.. and the ramps align with the hight .. Making the ramps radiused will alter the feel and there will be a edge between ramp and pu's.. this however might not be to big of a deal.. A ramp will also let you have vintage pu's with visable pole-pieces.. the tone won't differ that much if you play just infront/after the bridge/neck pu's..

[SPYD3R #9]

Originally Posted by Liten

I found some at the local hardware supermarket.. should not be hard to find... I used 4mm thick acrylic..

pics here

NICE!! this is mine, an acrylic ramp on my Ibanez BTB