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Bronco Project - "Sybil"

I thought I'd show off my first custom bass project based on a Squier Bronco. I made a couple of posts on here asking various questions concerning the dismantling and modification of basses, so I send thanks out to those who provided useful input. I have a predilection for aluminum diamond-plate - using it on various custom motorcycle projects, and thought it would be fun to use on some basses; my T-Bird Goth getting the first DP pickguard, and now the Bronco receiving one with much more complexity.
I always thought the 3 & 5 way switches on Teles and Strats are pretty cool so I wanted to have one on a bass. After asking a few questions, it was suggested that I use a rotary varitone set-up instead..........I figured why not use both?
I also like the very bright jangly, twangy sounds of Teles and Bakersfield country so I thought adding a bridge pickup to this Bronco would be an interesting experiment to see how bright I could get it to sound. I added a Basslines Quarter Pounder to the bridge and left the stock pickup in the stock position.
So, what we have is a 2-pup Bronco with a 5-way Strat switch wired with a Tele schematic running into 250K pot, choked by a home brew 6 position rotary varitone switch on a diamond-plate pickguard. This for all intents and purposes is a prototype of sorts, so please be kind on critiquing the appearance.
The tone goes anywhere from being as grumbly as my P-Bass, to somewhat piano-like, to something that's just about as bright as the top 4 strings of a regular geetar..........hence the name "Sybil" with such a range of personalities.
 

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I'll work on youtubing something tomorrow. I used some suggestions for cap selection from the web, but not for this particular kind of set-up. I suspected the order suggested wasn't linear, but used it since I am not a seasoned bass/guitar modder. As I suspected, the order wasn't linear, but I'm not gonna bother changing it unless I figure out some new cap values to use. The 5 way switch position for both pups in parallel is sorta dark and or muddy (depending on what you like) through the entire range on the varitone, with the exception for the "open" position and one of the others. Position "4" has a tone cap soldered in at the 5 way itself, and that seems to be one of the favorites with all of the (actual) musicians who've tried it so far. The bridge position (position "1") is the one that almost sounds like the lower end of a guitar, and the position 5 - both in series - is the most "normal". The neck position (3) is nice and mellow. Like I said, I'll try to get something youtubed.
Thanks again for the feedback!
 
Black pup cover for the stock position one would set it off though, I reckon. Or even a mini humbucking rail-esque one! =D

Agreed. The white pup cover certainly creates a point for improvement. I would've just as soon left it off but the stock pup is awfully ugly, not to mention the 6 poles looking somewhat out of place. I imagine I should be able to find a black one for a strat out there somewhere.

Glad you like it:D
 
OK, I jumped through all the hoops to get a youtube account going and loaded a video pulling open strings on all 25 positions. Some of the positions are too subtle to hear the difference through my Rumble 15 recorded by an iPhone. Perhaps those of you with a really good ear can hear it, but some are somewhat lost to me when watching the video.

YouTube - Bronco Project Sybil

This may not be all that impressive, but like I said, it was intended to be an experiment. I think I'll build a stomp box and try to work on spreading out tone a bit more. I'm just glad it makes noise for a first attempt.:eyebrow: