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Fodera Club Part XVI

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In. I pulled the ramp from my MGS tonight when I changed strings. Interesting. I'm still going back and forth on Monarch vs MG body shape but the MG has really grown on me.

Nostatic...for what its worth...we have never met...but I have listened to your sound waves and seen your video clips...and this is just my personal thought...you look/sound more at home with the MG.
Best of luck with your decision...dont think you can go wrong either way though!!!....
 
I'm in.... here is my KOA family...

2007 MG (downsized body, passive, 33")

2012 Monarch (Brazilian board, alder)
 

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Nostatic...for what its worth...we have never met...but I have listened to your sound waves and seen your video clips...and this is just my personal thought...you look/sound more at home with the MG.
Best of luck with your decision...dont think you can go wrong either way though!!!....

Thanks for the input. Yeah, something about the MGS has certainly clicked. I'm wondering what that would feel like in 34" scale with small frets as I'd like just a bit more openness and bite to the sound. The ebony fb will help with that though.
 
Thanks for the input. Yeah, something about the MGS has certainly clicked. I'm wondering what that would feel like in 34" scale with small frets as I'd like just a bit more openness and bite to the sound. The ebony fb will help with that though.

The 34 would probably help imho but its hard to believe that if the scale length is only 3% different that the tone is affected so much (atleast to my ears).

Some of the thought on the specs on the new bass were to improve 33" scale tone. Hope I did it right, but I think I probably should have went ash neck, oh well.

I definitely wish I had fingers that were about .2" longer, because as it is now, writing on a 33" scale has me playing chords I just cat hit right on a 34".
 
Jason and I talked about this at length. There are a bunch of factors that go into tone, and in my case I currently have two basses that sound exactly the way I want them to - that being the RA Deep 4 (34" scale, totally different vibe) and the YYD (34" scale). So the for the spec on the new twins, we started kicking around the various factors that go into the equation, some of which have been argued ad nauseum on TB:

body wood
chambering
body shape (single cut vs double cut)
neck wood
fingerboard wood
neck construction (dovetail vs neck-through)
pickups
scale length

I know that I like the YYD which is 34" scale, chambered walnut body, maple neck, ebony fingerboard, dovetail, PJ. The new basses are 5-string (at least so far :D) and one will be fretless so that has to figure into the mix. I know that I want 17.5mm spacing as I prefer that on 5-strings. I also want 24 fret equivalent as I want some room between neck pup and end of the fingerboard. So then it comes down to the details. Some are easy:

ebony fingerboard - I love the tone, better than pau ferro or Braz rosewood for my needs.
walnut body - love the tone and the look
17.5mm spacing - better for me for chords
small frets - personal preference

Beyond that it starts to get fuzzy.

Body shape - Originally prefer the Monarch aesthetic and that can be chambered. But the MG shape is growing on me, and my Rob Allen is a single cut so I'm used to that as well. Plus I think the single cut influences neck stability.

Scale length. The MGS is incredibly comfortable to play. But I have two 4-strings that are keepers that are 34" scale and there is an argument to be made for having everything a single scale length. Especially since 2 of the 4 basses will be fretless. Plus all other things being equal, the longer the scale length, the more piano-like the tone.

Neck construction - the Monarch 5 experiment was interesting but I'm not hearing huge tonal differences between dovetail and neck-through. I find neck-through to have a bit more comfort up high, but I love the aesthetic of the dovetail. The tops I've picked out are non-solid, so if I went dovetail I'd have to pick new tops. I'm leaning neck-through at this point.

Pickups - I love the P pup. Jason is checking to see if the EMG PJ5 set will work with 17.5mm bridge. If it does, that'll be on the fretted, no question. For the fretless Jason prefers the dual coils and I can understand that working so no worries there.

One downside to having so many choices is that you have so many choices. Luckily Fodera crew have built a few basses and know a few things. And Jason is a patient guy who wants to get it right.
 
The 34 would probably help imho but its hard to believe that if the scale length is only 3% different that the tone is affected so much (atleast to my ears).

Some of the thought on the specs on the new bass were to improve 33" scale tone. Hope I did it right, but I think I probably should have went ash neck, oh well.

I definitely wish I had fingers that were about .2" longer, because as it is now, writing on a 33" scale has me playing chords I just cat hit right on a 34".

My Emperor Tuned E-C is great and the tone is awesome. However I'm really curios about my next 33 scale with ash neck. The Emperor have maple neck
 
My Emperor Tuned E-C is great and the tone is awesome. However I'm really curios about my next 33 scale with ash neck. The Emperor have maple neck

I think you'll really like the 33 especially for chordal work. I love my ash neck on the imperial, to me it ads a mid pop and it sounds growly & zippy. The maple neck to my ears is sizzly on the high end. I split the difference and went maple neck ash block. I look forward to a clip of your 33 Hou.
 
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