Thanks! I'm stoked for both basses, one starting relatively soon, and one after that's completed. The Japanese ebony I've seen has been very cool so far. It seems to be a relative newcomer to the boutique bass world.
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Club Bordwell Part 2.
- Thread starter Justin Beck
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LOL, I suppose it could have become my 3rd order, but the allure of a 32" scale fretless 7 got the better of me, especially with a douglas fir top!!!!
Are you going to have switches for series/parallel wiring for each pickup?
The .5" difference between adjacent strings seems like a great plan to me...not as steep as .75" (as on a Dingwall) but should still provide many of the benefits of having a multi-scale approach.
This build just gets better and better sounding to me! What will your string spacing be?
Wow! That is going to be wild. Are your going to have any position markers or inlay on the fingerboard? (It would look killer if you had no inlay whatsoever...just all ebony goodness.) All black hardware is the first thing that comes to my mind.What is the body wood going to be? (If you have explained this elsewhere, please forgive me.)
I don't think I'll use a series/parallel. I talked to Nordstrand about them for the upcoming fretless 7 with Big Splits and they explained that only one phase works because the other has minimal volume, although I can't remember which phases were which.
I'll probably go with 17mm string spacing since I don't plan on much slap and I'm actually a really small dude. I was also thinking about tuning to dropped A to expand my range a bit.
I haven't mentioned a body wood, but I haven't really thought too hard about it. I suppose ash would probably be my choice off the cuff, but I'll have to do some research for that. Tonally, I like to be somewhere middle of the road to allow the pickups and EQ to have more room to change without too much prior influence.
Didn't mention it, but I think I might try an Aguilar pre-amp this time for the sake of variety.
I'll probably go with 17mm string spacing since I don't plan on much slap and I'm actually a really small dude. I was also thinking about tuning to dropped A to expand my range a bit.
I haven't mentioned a body wood, but I haven't really thought too hard about it. I suppose ash would probably be my choice off the cuff, but I'll have to do some research for that. Tonally, I like to be somewhere middle of the road to allow the pickups and EQ to have more room to change without too much prior influence.
Didn't mention it, but I think I might try an Aguilar pre-amp this time for the sake of variety.
Sam, you have some really cool ideas. I think you will have a bunch of very unique CB's in time.
All of these basses that Cliff is turning out lately, have been flat out amazing. I believe that Cliff is a true artisan who is constantly improving on his craft, and it certainly shows, even as good as the earlier ones were/are.
I really wish to own another CB Bass sometime in the future, but life hasn't allowed for that. Still my favorite basses in the world though.
Best,
Justin
All of these basses that Cliff is turning out lately, have been flat out amazing. I believe that Cliff is a true artisan who is constantly improving on his craft, and it certainly shows, even as good as the earlier ones were/are.
I really wish to own another CB Bass sometime in the future, but life hasn't allowed for that. Still my favorite basses in the world though.
Best,
Justin
Series would definitely have a greater output over the parallel mode.
What gauge/type strings would you be using?
I love Ash, but I don't know that I would think of it as a "middle of the road" kind of tone...but maybe that's just me. I bet that Ash and Ebony would be pretty clear and bright in timbre.
Will you have the option of going passive?
I am really looking forward to hearing how your build progresses; this one strikes my fancy as well (from "The News" Friday January 28th @ Cliff's web page):
Johannes
"SCB" Parallel Chamber
4-string 34" scale
Camphor burl top
Nordstrand dual coil
Straight to output
When it's all said and done, I think nice swamp ash has a nice level of focus without being too harsh, compressed, or extremely sharp attack with quick decay like other woods and basses out there, especially when chambered. I could potentially entertain the idea of ash on the bass side and something a little warmer on the treb side, which I did on my Rob Allen 6.
You're probably right on parallel lacking volume in the split coil design.
Not sure what I'll do about strings. I'll be limited to companies that make something long enough for the dropped A, which will still probably be a .130 since a .130 sounds great in 34" scale and tuned to B.
I could possibly go with a passive option, but if I decide to have a piezo in the same output, I'm not sure how that would work. I mostly want a piezo bridge to allow for Midi.
You're probably right on parallel lacking volume in the split coil design.
Not sure what I'll do about strings. I'll be limited to companies that make something long enough for the dropped A, which will still probably be a .130 since a .130 sounds great in 34" scale and tuned to B.
I could possibly go with a passive option, but if I decide to have a piezo in the same output, I'm not sure how that would work. I mostly want a piezo bridge to allow for Midi.
Anyone know MIDI? A friend of mine was saying that most systems only work with a 4-6 string. I'd like to think I've seen 7-8 strings with this, but I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about the subject.
It's got nothing to do with MIDI. It's because the pickups used for most systems are typically (maybe always) hexaphonic. You need a separate pickup for each string for conversion to work well enough. In theory, if they made a septaphonic pickup, you'd be good to go.
Hmmmmm, looks like my choices are to have 2 systems installed or have 1 string not active. Think I'll have to try this on another bass.
Problem is, I think it goes way beyond simply putting more sensors on the pickup bar.
As such, it would be massively expensive to engineer for (just a guess here) a very small minority of their market share. Doesn't make for a strong business case.
Unfortunately for this case, how long something has been around doesn't necessarily have anything to do with market presence/share (installed base size).
The engineering part would be very cheap. The production scaling, though, would make it a problem.
I can understand that. Oh well, I'll just do it in a 6 string bass somewhere down the road. To be honest, the MIDI and piezo was only a secondary goal for the fanned 7.
I forget, do any of your basses have limba (korina) bodies? That's one that I usually think of as being focused but tonally pretty neutral, and it also has the benefit of usually being pretty light. You could use white limba if you wanted something that wasa good color match but wouldn't distract visually from the pale moon ebony, or black limba if you wanted something with more grain/figure. I'm not sure how it'd work with a chambered body, though...
I'm not sure how it would work chambered, but that's certainly a good idea from a visual perspective.
I guess it depends on what you consider cheap. You'd be adding another pickup element, another wire to the cable, and another conversion channel to the brain. Not as big of a deal as re-invention, but not trivial, either.
Nah- from the engineering side, it's totally trivial. Expanding the circuit or expanding the board is easy. But all of those elements mean they need to have all of the production tooling to be redone, and that is expensive.
The wire and pickup element you mentioned are production issues.
The wire and pickup element you mentioned are production issues.
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