Help with my Warmoth build

[dtiii]

Yes, that helps a lot. One thing I'm worried about is that I'll decide on some exotic neck wood like padauk or bloodwood, which are both supposedly similar to maple, and then I'll get the bass put together and find out that the exotic woods totally don't mesh well with an old school pickup like the Fralins. Like, it'll be bright and stable and heavy like maple, but it'll just sound weird.

Yes. Essentially it is a crap shoot when dealing with unfamiliar materials. I did the same thing that you are doing... asked a million questions. Also, check out unofficialwarmoth.com if you haven't already been there. You'll find lots of useful info.

 

[Kael]

I'd say get the neck "unfinished" and do a Tru-oil finish on it.

Just finished a fretless J neck from warmoth using tru-oil. Total cost was like $10 ($5 for the tru-oil, $5 for the automtive paper towels I used). Couldn't have been easier. Completely agree with doing your own neck finish using this stuff. Hell, it even meets their requirement that a neck have a finish for their warranty. Worst part of the project was taping of the rosewood board to keep the tru-oil off of it. With a maple/maple neck, you can apply over the whole thing then remove from the frets later.

PS: I second the recommendation to stick to the basics when it come to wood selection. You already said you wanted the Jazz bass vibe. The jazz bass vibe comes at least partly from the maple neck with either rosewood or maple fingerboard.

 

[Raoul_Duke]

Yes. Essentially it is a crap shoot when dealing with unfamiliar materials. I did the same thing that you are doing... asked a million questions. Also, check out unofficialwarmoth.com if you haven't already been there. You'll find lots of useful info.

I've gotten much better input here, actually. You guys have been great. I'm kinda leaning towards either a maple/maple or a maple/ziricote, with padauk/ziricote still an option. I talked to some people who insist that maple/ziricote is basically maple/rosewood with a slightly more exotic look.

Also, theres one guy I talked to who insists that I'd love the padauk neck due to feel and slap tone. It's been compared to graphite in this very thread. Does it sound mid-scooped?

I'm narrowing in on my choice, guys. Tomorrow night for sure!

 

[Tusec]

IMO the neck is the key to good tone, but I don't think you can necessarily predict whether you're getting a good one. My experience is that a rigid neck that doesn't rely on the truss rod very much to resist string pull is best. A weak neck that relies heavily on the rod rather than its own integrity is just begging for weird resonant interactions with the strings. It's a highly sprung system and prone to peaks and dead spots (that's my theory anyway...take it for what it's worth).

I'd look for a good stiff neck, but I don't know how you would go about specifying that from a place like Warmoth. Instead you just kind of get what you get. Which is part of why I'll never again do the Warmoth thing. IMHO it's better to go to music stores and shop around for a great sounding bass. Warmoth makes primo stuff but it's a crapshoot.

Also, in terms of tone, the variance within a species of wood is generally greater than the variance between species IMO. In other words, the kind of wood is not a very good predictor of tone. It really comes down to the individual piece of wood. I would select woods for their appearance/feel/weight and not worry so much about the tone. The tone will be what it will be. You don't have much control over it. (I'm speaking strictly of the woods here -- electronics is a hole 'nother story).

 

[Raoul_Duke]

Hey, sorry to necro-post, but I just wanted to thank you guys for all your input and let you know that I decided on a maple/maple neck that I'll finish myself, and an alder body. This whole thing has really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff I didn't know about how good basses are made. I even got to talk to Lindy Fralin on the phone, and he actually took a few minutes out of his day to answer my dumb questions. He even compared and contrasted his jazz singles and his split jazz, talking to me like a musician and not trying to pitch me on either one. Same thing with the guys at Low End. The guy there was measuring things for me, and offering suggestions on a pre-amp with a custom setup and a reasonable price... just basically being very patient and helpful.

So yeah, this has been a lot of fun, and it makes me think that building my own would be about a billion times more fun. So, thanks again, and any future posts of mine will be forum appropriate.