8 String Bass In Progress

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Cool. I'll Czech it out when you return

Nice. It's a deal. I'll come and see you next week though.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Well, some more progress. The electronics are assembled and just need to be installed and soldered to the output jack. I need to come up with a solution due to a complication made by the bridge being quite low profile.

Anyway, here ii is as of a couple of minutes ago.

 

[Sheldon D.]

Holy crap that's looking good Geoff!

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Thanks a bunch Sheldon. I'm hoping a week or so until completion. I'll sort out the bridge issue at the shop with Nate on Sunday. I'll probably put the electronics in tomorrow morning, though I still have to figure out what I'm putting in to apply upward pressure on the pickups (like springs or something like that tubing that you use). Maybe some sort of foam, but I've found that stuff in varieties that are too soft and too hard.

I was hoping to have the electronics in it today, but a giant box of amplifiers and isolators showed up for my Masters project today, so that killed that for the afternoon. Oh well.

 

[Zetora]

Holy crap indeed

That looks amazing, when I saw the first picture I thought you had one large compartment for the pickups like I am going to do, then I had a proper look and realised not ......

Anyway that is one good looking bass.

Hope the compleation date holds out and everything goes well.

Zet.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Well, I sort of let this one drop off the map. Anyway, the bass has been done for a while and in the mean time I've finished the guitar and I'm starting on the fretless brother of the 8 string.

The specs for the new 8 are pretty much the same as the last one except the body is walnut with flamed koa on the top and back with a quartersawn flamed maple accent stripe. The fretboard is stabilized wenge. All the wood except the walnut for the body core, which I had lying around the shop, is from Larry and Gallery Hardwoods. Overall, the bass will be very similar to the last one with a few changes:

-Angled Headstock. I tried working out a stepped down straight headstock that wouldn't need a string tree for the last one but overall I'm not happy with it.

-Different Chambering. I'll use probably a series of 1" holes in the body rather than the large chambers I used on the fretted bass.

-Different Control Cover. The last one was sort of like an Elrick uses, but I'm not sure that I'm too happy with it. I may still stick with it and try to make it work better.

-Rather than matching the pickups to the neck laminates I may use the flamed koa straight across. I'm not sure on this one yet. Does anyone have any input on this?

 

[Sheldon D.]

That guitar is too sweet Geoff!!!

You've got to bring it by the shop for a test drive

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Hey Sheldon!

I'm still working out part of the electronics for the bass... once it's done I'll swing by with them both. One thing I'm still working on is a case or bag for this bass. It's so thick that I'm having problems finding a case. I'll probably have it all wrapped up this week so maybe sometime next week.

Cheers!

 

[Scott French]

That's an interesting guitar. What's it all about? How does it sound? Any idea how heavy? How does that bridge pickup sound so far away from the bridge?

 

[Worshiper]

wow..got enough control knobs on your bass? haha..seriously though, they both look amazing. What do all of those knobs do though?

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

That's an interesting guitar. What's it all about? How does it sound? Any idea how heavy? How does that bridge pickup sound so far away from the bridge?

The guitar is a semi-hollowbody. The mahogany is 1.5" thick and the padauk is about .875" thick. The chambers are 1" deep. Here's a shot partway though routing it out.

I moved the bridge pickup back a little to hopefully get a little bit fatter sound from the guitar. I think it worked. I was looking for a fat/bassy clean sound out of the guitar and it seems to have worked fairly well.

I haven't weighed it, but I had it at the jam space last week and compared it with his Les Paul Custom and it was almost exactly the same weight as far as me and the guitarist could tell (he thought it would be quite heavy since it is so much thicker and wider than a Les Paul.

What is most surprising to me is the volume of sound coming out of the sound holes.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

wow..got enough control knobs on your bass? haha..seriously though, they both look amazing. What do all of those knobs do though?

So there's two "channels" of volume/blend. That's what the four big knobs and the switch are for. The four small knobs are from outside top to inside bottom: passive tone, bass, mid (push/pull mid frequency), treble. Sort of an experiment on the "channels".

 

[nateo]

Man, those are some sexy, sexy instruments. I'll be back in town for Christmas and I wouldn't mind getting my grubby mits on 'em. Is it just me or is the carving on that guitar about the best that anybody in the world has ever done?

What did you decide to use for pickup mounting springs? I'm curious to see how that whole screw-through-the-back idea we had turned out.

-Nate

 

[wilser]

Hey Geoff/Nate, great work on that guitar!!! Can we see a snapshot of the back? (no secret I'm a booty lovah!) I'd love to see that neck/body joint.

 

[Sheldon D.]

One thing I'm still working on is a case or bag for this bass. It's so thick that I'm having problems finding a case.
Cheers!

You could pull the divider out of a Levys double gigbag. I have one at the shop you can check out. They also make an ABG gigbag, but I haven't seen one.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Hey Geoff/Nate, great work on that guitar!!! Can we see a snapshot of the back? (no secret I'm a booty lovah!) I'd love to see that neck/body joint.

Thanks a lot. I'll get a closeup of the neck joint tonight.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Man, those are some sexy, sexy instruments. I'll be back in town for Christmas and I wouldn't mind getting my grubby mits on 'em. Is it just me or is the carving on that guitar about the best that anybody in the world has ever done?

I think it might be and yes, you can play them. I'm actually building a wooden bridge for the guitar right now. There's just too much other wood on it to have that flashy chrome thing.

What did you decide to use for pickup mounting springs? I'm curious to see how that whole screw-through-the-back idea we had turned out.

-Nate

On the bass I used some foam I found at Canadian tire. I bought some surgical tubing as well as I didn't know which would work better. I tried the foam first and it worked fine so I never did try the tubing. The screw through the back turned out great. I love the look of no screws on the front of the pickups.

Also, you can check out my new wood from Larry.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

You could pull the divider out of a Levys double gigbag. I have one at the shop you can check out. They also make an ABG gigbag, but I haven't seen one.

Cool. I'll have to check that out. Thanks Sheldon.

 

[mahrous]

the guitar is exceptionally good looking

the bass ... not so sure about the body design. its too wide if u get my drift. the horns are as compact as other classic designs. basically what people said at the beginning of the thread.
but nevertheless, the craftsmanship is pretty good!

two thumbs!

btw, i would hate to know that u have contoured the guitar by hand ... so did you?

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

the guitar is exceptionally good looking

the bass ... not so sure about the body design. its too wide if u get my drift. the horns are as compact as other classic designs. basically what people said at the beginning of the thread.
but nevertheless, the craftsmanship is pretty good!

two thumbs!

btw, i would hate to know that u have contoured the guitar by hand ... so did you?

Do you mean that you think that it is too thick? I don't understand the width reference as it is the exact same width as a J-bass (14"). If you meant thickness, yeah, you're right, but that's what I was going for with the hollowbody approach.

You might get a better perspective from this: