Fretless semi-hollow questions

[Ejtibbetts]

The bridge is made by Manne. It's passive so no preamp. I think a few people have ordered them w/ a preamp.

I’ve just been under the assumption and influence that in order to have piezo, you have to have an active preamp.

Anyone else have any expertise on this?

 

[ole Jason]

I’ve just been under the assumption and influence that in order to have piezo, you have to have an active preamp.

Anyone else have any expertise on this?

Nope, piezos don't need a preamp to function although they may sound better when paired with one. There are no batteries in my bass.

 

[Ejtibbetts]

Nope, piezos don't need a preamp to function although they may sound better when paired with one. There are no batteries in my bass.

My initial thoughts are:
- neck and bridge humbucker, each with 3 way coil split for parallel, single coil and series
- master vol, blend for those two, tone for those
- bridge piezo
- vol/tone for piezo

I have a very good EQ pedal I use a lot, so I don’t necessarily need a preamp as far as EQ goes.

 

[ole Jason]

My initial thoughts are:
- neck and bridge humbucker, each with 3 way coil split for parallel, single coil and series
- master vol, blend for those two, tone for those
- bridge piezo
- vol/tone for piezo

I have a very good EQ pedal I use a lot, so I don’t necessarily need a preamp as far as EQ goes.

That sounds awesome! Yeah I prefer to EQ things on my amp or pedals and not on the bass itself. I have never been a fan of onboard preamps even though several of my basses have them by happenstance.

 

[Danny O Danny]

When I read "I want a warm, rich sound" my mind immediately goes to Rob Allen. Have you considered having Rob build one for you? I know he's done 6 strings, like this photo of his double cutaway MB-2 model...

And his 'Deep' model is single cutaway, and he can incorporate a magnetic pickup on any of his models along with the piezo...

His basses are essentially semi-hollow, due the chambering, and he can add F holes...

Food for thought perhaps...

 

[ctmullins]

I’d love to see it!

Sure!

Full build thread here: https://www.talkbass.com/forum/f57/four-string-fretless-semi-hollow-half-build-560128/

 

[Ejtibbetts]

When I read "I want a warm, rich sound" my mind immediately goes to Rob Allen. Have you considered having Rob build one for you? I know he's done 6 strings, like this photo of his double cutaway MB-2 model...
View attachment 7204864
And his 'Deep' model is single cutaway, and he can incorporate a magnetic pickup on any of his models along with the piezo...
View attachment 7204869
His basses are essentially semi-hollow, due the chambering, and he can add F holes...
View attachment 7204871
Food for thought perhaps...

Those are great basses for sure! But, I’ve got it in my head that I really wanted to use a local/regional luthier - supporting some local talent! The builder I’m using is a really great guy and we’ve had some good initial conversations about my ideas and his.

 

[ctmullins]

I’ve just been under the assumption and influence that in order to have piezo, you have to have an active preamp.

Anyone else have any expertise on this?

Nope, piezos don't need a preamp to function although they may sound better when paired with one. There are no batteries in my bass.

You’re both right.

Piezos need to “see” an input impedance of between 1MOhm and 10MOhm to have a balanced frequency response. This obviously depends on the exact piezo you’re using.

I have a K&K Pure Mini in my acoustic guitar. It’s wired straight to the jack. It uses three piezo discs in parallel. When you wire multiple piezos together in parallel, it lowers the output impedance of the system, which makes it friendlier to normal amps and other input devices. It sounds pretty good that way.

I also have a K&K Pure Mini in my electric upright. It runs thru a JTEX Distiller, which has a 1MOhm input impedance. It sounds phenomenal.

I have a generic piezo cable under the (wooden) bridge of the semi-hollow I pictured above. It runs thru a Cafe Walter PZP-1 onboard buffer, which has an input impedance of 10MOhm, and from there to the selector switch, which mixes it with the (passive) magnetic pickups. The output from that goes through a John East BTB-01 bass/treble preamp, which has an input impedance of - well, I don’t know exactly. It sounds fantastic.

So yes, you can use a piezo without an impedance matching buffer, and it will produce sound. But I’ll bet my carrots that you’ll like it tons better with a buffer.

 

[ole Jason]

I have a K&K Pure Mini in my acoustic guitar. It’s wired straight to the jack. It uses three piezo discs in parallel. When you wire multiple piezos together in parallel, it lowers the output impedance of the system, which makes it friendlier to normal amps and other input devices. It sounds pretty good that way.

IIRC Manne does something like that. I think there is a piezo in the bridge and another button piezo up near the neck or something like that. It sounds full and balances well with the pickup. It doesn't sound quacky or weird on its own like bridge piezos often do when not running into a preamp.

 

[Ejtibbetts]

IIRC Manne does something like that. I think there is a piezo in the bridge and another button piezo up near the neck or something like that. It sounds full and balances well with the pickup. It doesn't sound quacky or weird on its own like bridge piezos often do when not running into a preamp.

I’ve heard of some basses having other piezos in places in addition to the bridge. I’ll have to look into this into again!

 

[Ejtibbetts]

As far as woods, I’ve been thinking mahogany or black walnut for the body, ziricote for the top wood and Indian rosewood on the fingerboard.

I want a one piece ramp over the pickups and almost all the way to the neck. Haven’t decided on wood for that yet.

 

[woodyng2]

Building a semi-hollow (fretted) now, I am hoping I get some acoustic volume out of it for unplugged play. @LowWay, that is an absolutely gorgeous build. The fingerboard looks like the Clouds of Jupiter.. or something! Do either you or @woodyng2 get any audible acoustic sound out of your basses unplugged? I realize that's always going to be limited with bass given a relatively small interior volume, but it would be nice to get at least as much sound out of it as an unplugged Hofner, for instance.

Yes. It’s not much, but I can hear it well enough when I play it unplugged. Probably a bit more volume than a Hofner.

 

[NRguitaresearch]

My current build sonokeling top and body ebonol board and ofc semi hollow

 

[Watchootognbout]

A Tune WB6
https://reverb.com/item/63806384-price-drop-tune-wb6-fretless-natural

 

[Ejtibbetts]

Hey all,

I've searched through some of the forums to try to narrow down some info on this, but from how I searched the relevant threads were fairly short. So, I'm going to start a new thread for myself.

I am having a fretless semi-hollow single cutaway 6 string built. In our initial conversation, we talked through some wood options and bounced quite a few ideas around, but I figured I would ask what you guys have experience with. We will likely do a sandwiched body. At first I thought the main body would be something like Mahogony or Walnut, but there are so many options out there! I want a warm, rich sound. I'm not from the tone wood school of thought, but I do feel like the density, hardness, Janka scale play into how it reacts to sound. I'd like the fingerboard to be something like rosewood - I don't want the bite of ebony or hard maple. Top wood I want to contrast with the fingerboard and have an extended ramp over the mag pickups that matches the fingerboard. I'm up in the air on whether or not to include a piezo, just due to preferring a passive bass for this. I have liked how it sounds with basses that have a piezo solo or blended with mag pickups. I don't want piezo alone, so that's not an option for me.

Please share your experiences with semi-hollow fretless basses - likes, dislikes, sound clips, video, etc, etc.

Thanks!

I suppose updates are in order… this is where we are (now that it’s nearly complete):
- 34” scale
- 5 string (E-C)
- Hipshot tuners. E string will have the double stop detuner, that’s tunable to 2 half or 2 whole step drops.
- single cut away
- mahogany chambered core
- Douglas fir back
- Douglas fir top (with his signature sound hole)
- maple and mahogany laminated neck
- Indian rosewood fingerboard with maple ghost lines
- Cocabola nut
- mahogany headstock face
- mini reference inlay dots on the treble side from the 12th to 24th (following “normal” inlay patterns)
- Indian rosewood ramp w/ pickups set inside the ramp
- Bartolini 2J Squared humbuckers
- Bartolini 3 band preamp
- Bartolini piezo buffer
- Hipshot D Style bridge (Hipshot had to do some custom work to accommodate the saddle piezos)
- Graphtech saddle piezo
- ETS tail pins