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I had a 1982 Destroyer II, with the binding on the body. Wish I still had it, had a much better neck than any of the new Ibanez stuff.Hahaha! That pointy swirl painted thing is my prize possession.That is a 1986 Ibanez X-Series Destroyer that I've had since 1989. We've been through it all together.
It's obviously the Psychedelic Zebra in the room....Congratulations Tim. The bass turned out great and you should be very proud of your accomplishment!
Having said that, I was a more than a little shocked to discover that the elephant in the room was not that pointy, swirl-paint-job thing hanging on the wall.
Shielding continuity and a proper ground setup are often over looked but make a big difference.Oh, so I thought I'd share this for those interested. Since every bass I own that I've modded with pickups and such has active EMGs in it, none of them are grounded to the bridge. So when wiring this one up, I totally forgot to run a ground wire to the bridge saddles. I became aware of it when I flipped my bypass switch and she started humming. So clearly the bypass worked, and clearly I forgot a key element there. So at some point I'm gonna have to take the bridge saddles back off, carefully drill a small wiring hole and run a ground strap to the bridge saddles. Woops.
Let me give you a hearty "DAAYYYYUUMMMM!" That is some seriously cool stuff.The Finish Line!
Okay, I'm gonna call this "NBD". It's a little premature, but not really. Lemme explain.
I finished wiring up the jack. Pro tip, be sure when using a barrel jack to put your nut and washer on the wires inside the cavity before feeding said wires through the jack hole and then wiring it up. I almost made that mistake. Luckily, I was moving kind of slow and glance down at my bench and saw the nut laying there and thought to myself "Self, you're about to make a YUGE mistake. A right bigly one!"
So yeah, glad I caught that ahead of time. With the jack wired in, I buttoned up the control cavity for good, strung it up and that's kind of where things went a little sideways. I mean, I guess I was doomed to make a right bigly error somewhere. I trimmed my A string to fit the D string location without realizing it and now my A string won't reach the tuner post.
So, for the time being, I've got really wide neck 4 string. but get this, I took it in the room and plugged it in, popped a couple batteries in it and turned on the amp. IT MAKES NOISE!!!! I'm not even kidding, it actually makes noise! And, get this, all of the switches I wired up even work! Like, every single one of them do exactly what they should!
Seriously, I'm shocked. My pickup kill switches both kill the correct pickup. My coil splits both...split the coils. My series/parallel is...well...doing something that causes a noticeably different tone. And my pre-amp bypass actually bypasses the pre-amp! No joke, everything works!
Okay, so here's a shot of the world's weirdest 4 string bass, in my room with its brothers -
View attachment 4596546
View attachment 4596545
I'll order a new string, or maybe a new set, I'll have to see what I can get. But yeah man, NBD! And I built this thing! My very first bass build is....built!
Okay, so let's talk about the elephant in the room. It needs a few things still. The setup is jacked. Only my low-B string would play, the others are literally against the frets. I also need to finalize the nut slots and shape the outside edges of it better, then actually glue it down. I haven't even bothered trying to intonate it yet either, since that's part of a proper setup. It still needs knobs too, but eventually I'm gonna turn them myself. So, get a new D string, full setup and intonation, nut and knobs and she's done.
Now, I'm gonna go a little off the rails here. And understand that as I type this I'm getting a little emotional. There's a lot of people that I need to thank for all of your help, input, wisdom, encouragement, teaching, etc., etc. I can't even begin to name all of you, so let's just say that I seriously thank you and appreciate every one of you here in the LC. This forum is literally the greatest place I've ever found on the internet. This community is amazing. I really enjoy my time here with all of you and I'm so thankful to have stumbled upon this place. I seriously don't know how to thank all of you enough. I built a freakin' bass guitar! And you know what? It's pretty dang cool! Now, I gotta go get to that WBO entry!
Oh yeah, the wife heard it make noise, so she's stoked that I finished one!
Arf! Arf! Awwwoooooooo!...this is literally all you mongrels get!
Yeah, that was the part where I said "I have a full write up on my laptop at work, I'll get to it Monday."Congrats !
I don't see no weight mentioned though...
What do all those switches do ? I've read you got kill switches for each, then a split switch for each, and then ? Two switches to combine the pickups ? Two switches for series / parallel / single for each pickup ?
