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Club Clement (Part 4: Post your basses here)

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#1,006
I am looking for some advice from the seasoned clement owners here. I am looking into ordering a bass from Tom. The specs that I am looking at are for a five string. That being said I don't know how you guys decided on your own what to go with. I don't know enough about woods (or bass electronics for that matter) to make an educated decision, so I am asking for a little advice. So this is what I'm thinking about.
swamp ash body (its what I'm used to)
Anne body (big body for a big guy)
black limba top
nordy fat stack pups/active system
blood wood board
and his standard hip shot black hardware
My questions mainly are for you guys that have played multiple Clements. Which finger board have you had the best luck with as far as tone and wear goes? Also what pups have you guys used on fretless basses and whats working for you. Kwesi, your bass sounds nice, and looks awesome. I would just like something a tad darker in color. I love the way that basses 58 & 59 on Tom's page sound.
Please any feedback would help. Feel free to pm me if you want. Thanks
 
#1,008
FunkyMcNasty said:
I am looking for some advice from the seasoned clement owners here. I am looking into ordering a bass from Tom. The specs that I am looking at are for a five string. That being said I don't know how you guys decided on your own what to go with. I don't know enough about woods (or bass electronics for that matter) to make an educated decision, so I am asking for a little advice. So this is what I'm thinking about.
swamp ash body (its what I'm used to)
Anne body (big body for a big guy)
black limba top
nordy fat stack pups/active system
blood wood board
and his standard hip shot black hardware
My questions mainly are for you guys that have played multiple Clements. Which finger board have you had the best luck with as far as tone and wear goes? Also what pups have you guys used on fretless basses and whats working for you. Kwesi, your bass sounds nice, and looks awesome. I would just like something a tad darker in color. I love the way that basses 58 & 59 on Tom's page sound.
Please any feedback would help. Feel free to pm me if you want. Thanks
Click to expand...

I have four fretless basses at the moment, three of which were built by Tom. Two have bloodwood boards, one has a pale moon ebony, and the last (non-Clement bass) has a Gabon ebony (the totally black shiny stuff). All of these basses take wear gracefully. If you use rounds, you might have a tiny little bit of wear around the strings, but nothing that affects tone and playability in a long long time. Just "matting" due to the grinding of the strings. This is also totally natural and to be expected. I played a heavily modified Fender Precision fretless for 12-13 years, and it was played *a lot*. It had an ebony board put on top of the original rosewood board. I never had the fingerboard levelled or planed, and I never used anything but halfrounds or rounds on it. I never had a problem with wear on this bass.

You can prevent wear by using a lighter touch (I am a "light" player) and low string action. Also by vibrating along the string and not perpendicular to the string (I know so many people vibrate by string bending, which is a no-no on fretless bass, in my honest opinion).

Should you, however, after 5-10-15 years of playing find that there is a little bit of wear, Tom's basses always feature a thick and chunky fingerboard with lots of room for planing. That is one of the secrets to Tom's gorgous necks, I think. The fingerboard is thick and acts to stabilize the neck. As opposed to some vendors that just put a thin sheet of "fingerboard" on top of their necks.

As for tone, it seems in my ears that the bloodwood (sometimes called satine wood) has a slighty warmer and mellower sound than ebony, but both species mwah like crazy. I know that Tom has a katalox fingerboard in stock right now, which is very hard and might act close to ebony (it's actually harder than ebony!!). Bloodwood is close, a little softer than ebony, but a lot harder than rosewood and the likes. Katalox is purple, and I'm sure it would look very sexy combined with the swamp ash body.

As Dan Atkinson's experiments have clearly shown me, body wood may not contribute as much to the sound as we like to believe. To what extent it actually contributes is hard for me to assess, and you should expect soft woods like basswood and poplar to sound different from dense and hard woods like maple. Swamp ash with maple neck and bloodwood fingerboard is a winning combination, and quite a few of Tom's basses uses just that recipe. :-)

My Phoenix (pale moon ebony) uses flatwound strings and a piezo pickup and a Q-tuner very close to the bridge, and provides a great sound. It's demo'ed a little above this post. My 6-string swamp ash/bloodwood singlecut has a piezo bridge and Alumitone pickups, and provides a great sound. My 4-string swamp ash/bloodwood bass has a Nordstrand M4.1 passive pickup, and sounds great too. My fourth fretless has an EMG CS45 and sounds beautiful. They are all different.... :) But beautiful in their own right.

From my own experience with pickups, I have a feeling Bartolini pickups tend to be a little warmer sounding than Nordstrands. The Nordstrand is very "open" and "clear", while the Bart has a certain "warmth" to it that adds a little. However, the differences are subtle. If you want to go for warmth, I would suggest Bartolini. Also, by adding two pickups, one close to the bridge and another in a neck position, you allow yourself the luxury of "mixing" and blending to find your optimal sound. If you go with a Music Man Sweet spot position, you may be lucky and find just your sound.... but if it's lacking... it's lacking. :-)

Most of Tom's fretless basses has a pickup very close to the bridge. My 4-string (#069) and my Phoenix (#169) both has a single magnetic pickup close to the bridge. On my 6-string fretless, I went for two pickups, and moved them a little closer to the neck. I find myself lacking the "tight Jaco" sound on this bass. I'd have preferred to move them back, to have both near the bridge. But these things are up to your own decision of what you want from the bass. :)

Based on what you are saying, I have a feeling swamp ash/black limba/maple/bloodwood are good choices for you. I'd match that with a set of Bartolini pickups and a Bartolini preamp, to add some warmth and give you good flexibility on finding your sound. The bridge will allow tons of mwah and the Jaco bite, and the neck pickup can be dialled in to "bass up" and "darken" the sound a little.

good luck and keep us posted!

Oh, and BTW... I'm on my... what is it now.... 9th or so build from Tom, and he's a superb guy to deal with, and he'll keep you posted throughout the process with fresh photos and progress reports. It's such a joy to be a part of these build processes that you'll get withdrawal issues when it's done.
 
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