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Club Bordwell Part 2.
- Thread starter Justin Beck
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Tslicebass
Commercial User
I'm about 2-3hrs from there, but I'd make a trip for that. PM me your address and we'll see if we can work out a time maybe on a Saturday soon. I've already got a top reserved.
I'm about 2-3hrs from there, but I'd make a trip for that. PM me your address and we'll see if we can work out a time maybe on a Saturday soon. I've already got a top reserved.
Very nice.
Cliff and I are about done with the specs for my fretless 7. There's a medium scale bass with a maple neck in the january build and I'm very interested in the results. However, I'll most likely get a,"Modern" neck with a wider strip of wenge.
You know, I'm considering the modern with purpleheart too, but I'm still generally leaning towards his standard neck. I'm still pestering him with questions. It would be a lot easier if I'd played a few of these at some point in the past.
What's strange is, despite all the high end gear I've been through, I think this is only the second time I've ever bought something without ever having seen one up close in person, let alone touched, before. With all my trips to other places, and my regularity to NAMM shows, there's not a lot I haven't been directly exposed to.
BTW, this is the top I selected...
I have both necks and enjoy both basses a lot. Both basses are very different, so it's very difficult to draw a lot of conclusions from the necks.
I've rarely been able to try before buying, but I don't worry with my usual guys.
I've rarely been able to try before buying, but I don't worry with my usual guys.
Looks like I'm now officially on the schedule! It's going to be a while, though--the build starts in about 6 months. Plenty of time to change my mind about the specs a few dozen times, I guess. I do know this: It's going to have a birdseye maple fretboard and a figured redwood top (I attached the photo from Cliff's site) with a birdseye maple strip running down the center. And I'm sticking to 4 strings. Other than that, most of the details are flexible. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know. Pickup-wise, I'm leaning toward the Nordstrand Big Singles. I'm a little concerned about the single-coil hum, though. Anyone know how the sound of the Big Splits compares to the singles?
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Ash is definitely in the running. I'm partial to walnut, too. And I've been curious about mahogany.
Here's another question: Does anybody out there have a decent photo of the back of Rami-style CB? I've searched TB and the CB site, but I haven't come up with much. If someone could post one, I'd appreciate it...
Ah, Justin beat me to it. If needed, I could post one of my 6. Did you have any particular questions regarding the back?
I'm not familiar with walnut as a body wood, but mahogany is gonna' be a bit bigger/warmer down low and in the low mids, a bit less aggressive in the upper mids and highs. On another bass I've had, mahogany (actually, in my case it was sapele) didn't work out so well. I found I really prefer ash and alder for the most part so I could have a bit more going on a bit higher. Just felt like I was getting a bit too much compression up high with that body wood.
That said, there's lots of different kinds of mahogany too, so this may not always be the case. If you end up asking Cliff, I'd love to hear his comments, but I'm sticking with ash on mine. That's always been safe for my personal prefs.
I have a Peavey Cirrus with a walnut body and neck, but it has a bit of a compressed sound. It can be somewhat heavy depending on the density (which can vary) and body shape.
Mahogany tends to be a little warmer sounding. There's some form of african "mahogany" that's pretty light. I have a Stambaugh made of that type of mahogany, but the EMG P/J pickups speak very loudly in the overall tonal equation.
What sort of pre-amp are you going with? I've been happy with Cliff's lighter ash since it seems to have a nice tonal middle ground without being too deep or high end and I use my pre to do the rest of the shaping.
Mahogany tends to be a little warmer sounding. There's some form of african "mahogany" that's pretty light. I have a Stambaugh made of that type of mahogany, but the EMG P/J pickups speak very loudly in the overall tonal equation.
What sort of pre-amp are you going with? I've been happy with Cliff's lighter ash since it seems to have a nice tonal middle ground without being too deep or high end and I use my pre to do the rest of the shaping.
My CB six string had a walnut body, and it was pretty heavy. It sounded really great because of it though.
-ScottM
No doubt that walnut can sound good, although I think Elrick's use of walnut tone blocks tends to get the tonal benefit of walnut without weighing the bass down too much.
That is a real good idea, I would have probably kept the bass if I would have thought of that.
My next bass has a really cool idea for a tone block. I will try and post the specs when I finally make up my mind on them
-ScottM
My last CB had a walnut core and was still the lightest bass I've ever owned. Probably because the Ball shape is pretty compact. Right now, I'm thinking maybe butternut with a walnut back. They're pretty much the same as far as tone is concerned (or so I've heard), but I like the idea of the color variation with the walnut back.
I used a butternut core on my Rami 6. I used ash wings, but mostly because I was slightly hesitant to get a complete butternut body since a friend of mine told me it dinged easily. I mainly used the butternut because I had an acylized maple fingerboard to take a little high end sting out of the equation.
I´ve got the 4-string BallBass with ebony top. Its mahogany core in combination with the modern neck and especially an ebony board provides a full and very distinctive tone. So far my favorite combination (and I compared it recently to Nordstrands, MTD, Sadowsky and other high-end basses).
Here are two more photos of my Rami´s back. It´s the fretless Rami 5er with ash body, walnut top and wenge neck.
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