That wood combo seems nuts. I can't seem to picture it, but it looks like it will be a one of a kind.
Congratulations on your venture! lol
Congratulations on your venture! lol
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I received my Birdsong about 2 months ago #7C-106. It's front routed, African Mahogany with two pickups and Varitone. Scott also made a thumbrest for it. I love it...one of the best basses ,shortscale or not, that I've played but unfortunatelty it will be going up for sale on TB soon. I ran into some financial situations and the bass has to go. Maybe someone will find a good home for it.
Here we go again....
Ok... 'splain. whyfore? what is the diff? do you have both? TELL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, Scott has been using one varitone kit since the first Cortobass. Bypass+5 additional positions. When he started working on my Cortofusion prototype, I was asking for something that sounded different, so he tried a different varitone with different frequency cut-offs. While he was building Cortofusion #1, he started making BBoxes. He put the 2nd varitone type into the BBoxes.
I have The Cortofusion (volume+Bbox varitone), my 2-pickup fretless (which has two volume knobs and no tone or varitone knob), and my BBox, which serves as "outboard tone knob" for the fretless.
I can honestly say I've never played with the original varitone. From what I understand, it's 6 distinct and usable tones all within the normal tone range one would expect from the bass and pickups. The BBox varitone - uh...not quite so normal. Position 1 is still bypass, but you reach "low dubby or upright-like" by 3 and 4 and 5 is WAY cut off with some mild crunch to it, while 6 loses some bottom end but adds a bit more crunch. Think "passive overdrive."
That said, it cuts the volume on those last two AND the volume taper is skewed so that while with 3 and 4, I still have a working volume knob, with 5 and 6, if Volume isn't all the way up, I lose almost my entire signal to the amp. Which is okay, because the volume is always all the way up on at least one pickup. The cutoff is because of what frequencies are being subtracted from the overall sound.
I LOVE setting 5. I use bypass (for cutting through), settings 3 (for more traditional classic sound), 4 (for just a bit deeper), and 5 (for anything I can get away with) in roughly equal amounts all the time. I never use 2 or 6 except to screw around.
With the BBox, I'm not sure any future Birdsongs I get (I'm being optimistic here) will ever have a built in varitone again, BUT if they do, it'll be the BBox kind if Scott will go for it. I'm curious what setting 5 ("the heart") sounds like on the one of the hot Lace humbuckers at the bridge position.
I pray I've answered more questions than I've created.
C-102? The crazy walnut cortobass? Nicely done!
Post a picture or two and consider yourself #19 in the club.
MM#s for the Birdsong 77 have been posted in the Easter 100 thread for 12/14...Think Positive !!!
Just got email receipt from Jamie...
"Your serial # is 8C-117 and you can watch the progress of your bass on the client page. The custom body will put the build time around 6 months, so it'll be in the woodshop phase for a while. "
See? It has a name!! 8C-117... Just let that roll off your tongue a few times...
lol.
You guys get to listen to me babble for another 6 months...
"Your serial # is 8C-117 and you can watch the progress of your bass on the client page. The custom body will put the build time around 6 months, so it'll be in the woodshop phase for a while. "
See? It has a name!! 8C-117... Just let that roll off your tongue a few times...
lol.
You guys get to listen to me babble for another 6 months...
The BBox varitone - uh...not quite so normal. Position 1 is still bypass, but you reach "low dubby or upright-like" by 3 and 4 and 5 is WAY cut off with some mild crunch to it, while 6 loses some bottom end but adds a bit more crunch. Think "passive overdrive."
That said, it cuts the volume on those last two AND the volume taper is skewed so that while with 3 and 4, I still have a working volume knob, with 5 and 6, if Volume isn't all the way up, I lose almost my entire signal to the amp. Which is okay, because the volume is always all the way up on at least one pickup. The cutoff is because of what frequencies are being subtracted from the overall sound.
I LOVE setting 5. I use bypass (for cutting through), settings 3 (for more traditional classic sound), 4 (for just a bit deeper), and 5 (for anything I can get away with) in roughly equal amounts all the time. I never use 2 or 6 except to screw around.
With the BBox, I'm not sure any future Birdsongs I get (I'm being optimistic here) will ever have a built in varitone again, BUT if they do, it'll be the BBox kind if Scott will go for it. I'm curious what setting 5 ("the heart") sounds like on the one of the hot Lace humbuckers at the bridge position.
acleex,
I'm glad you posted this. I wasn't sure if the overdrive I was hearing in positions 5 and 6 were normal or not. I feel alot better knowing that it's part of the sound and not a defect.
I've got the Lace humbucker in my Sadhana and the "heart" is my guitarists favorite position. He described it as the "woodiest" sound. To my ears, it's a nice vintage gritty sound.
I'm still playing around with the different settings. I mostly use the bridge humbucker soloed on bypass, it just cuts through! Setting 4 "waves" I really like in combination with the neck single coil for a deep mellow sound. Setting 5 "heart" is the other one I gravitate towards when playing around.
As a side note, I get a tad more output with the humbucker than I get with the single coil.
Congrats!
We'll be here if you need help coping with the wait
When I received the email with my serial number, it started the most prolonged anxious waiting I've ever endured. Checking the client page at least once everyday for seven months! I thought the four months it took me to decide on ordering one was bad... lol.
It was definitely worth the wait. This is the most comfortable bass I've ever played and it feels more like a part of me than a bass. The fact that it also produces the tones I like is just icing.
The only thing that kinda took me by surprise when I played my bass for the first time was the neck shape. It starts out with a V type and rounds out as you get around the 7th fret. It felt kinda weird at first but I've really grown to like it. With my thumb on the G-string side of the V, it feels much easier to fret notes in the lower positions. Also, giving you a tactile reference to where you are on the neck.
I find that I get more *volume* from the single coil than I do from the "Punchbucker" (farewell short-lived signature Birdsong humbucker, you had a real short shelf-life), or at least I was, but that was because of how high the single coil is set. I've raised the punchbucker a bunch to crank the output. I'm thinking about asking Scott for a Hot Lace humbucker to replace it. I'm just not sure if that would be more useful, or just louder. I already have more output than our recording deck can handle direct (I have to go post-eq from my amp's DI to avoid spiking the levels).
I love this stuff - just so much freakin' fun. For 20 years I played off-the-shelf and didn't care about pickup specifics and didn't make any adjustments. Just plug-and-play. This kind of researching and tweaking - along with the stuff Scott calls "playing Tone Ranger" - has just added a whole new dimension to the entertainment value of playing bass.
Precisely - it's great seeing someone else put my experience in words.
BTW - while we still mourn the theft of my guitarist's two Birdsongs, the easy-playing nature of the necks carries over from the basses. I heard at least 3 other guitarists try out the EJ-002 neck and comment on how it was the easiest playing guitar they'd every picked up.
Yeah I'm a little disappointed I didn't pick up a punchbucker when they still had them- I thought it would be nice to own a unique pickup.
I wonder just how different they sound than the standard Lace bucker Scott uses...
If they sounded a TON different, I doubt Scott would have picked either of them. He does want some consistency of tone across the instruments. With the way Lace has treated Scott (from what I've heard), I'm pleased he's pretty much all-Lace, all-the-time at this point.
Yeah I think you're right, I think Scott described it on his site as a "refinement" of the already favorite tone he was getting from the Lace ones. But it would still have been cool to get an almost one of a kind part
Im just curious, would you happen to know the model of the Lace humbuckers used in the birdsongs? My sadhana has one, my corto has the emg select.
Yeah I think you're right, I think Scott described it on his site as a "refinement" of the already favorite tone he was getting from the Lace ones. But it would still have been cool to get an almost one of a kind part
Im just curious, would you happen to know the model of the Lace humbuckers used in the birdsongs? My sadhana has one, my corto has the emg select.
Really? - I thought it was a refinement of the EMG Select tone. I think there was just enough difference in the tones that he put the Lace mild in my Cortofusion but the EMG was never in the running.
I have no ideas which Lace humbuckers he's using, beyond what it says on the site. If I needed one, I'd ask go through him to get it, so I never bothered asking for the info. Sorry.
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