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How much will it cost to mod my ATK 300?/adding an acoustic cavity

Should I put uneeded routing in my ATK to give it a more hollow sound?

  • Yey!

    Votes: 5 12.5%

  • Ney!

    Votes: 35 87.5%
  • Total voters
    40
SwamiRob

SwamiRob

Aug 23, 2007
2,151
33
Scarborough, N. Yorks, England
#1
Just ordered a replacement ATK pickup from Mr Dolf at Bassculture, who's a very nice and helpful man, but I've also got a Stacked Jazz pickup for the neck position to put in.

So I was wondering how much this might cost, any vague estimate will do, I've heard things from around about £100 to £300 so really don't know what to expect (as I probably shouldn't).

Also has anyone got an ideas on how I might wire the pickups? Preferably I want to be able to balance between two pickups, so I can get a sweet spot depending on what I'm playing, but I don't really get how it'll effect the overall volume. On Jazz basses you seem to get a pretty consistent volume, no matter of whether you have both pickups on full or only one with a little bit of the other, don't know if this is a phasing thing or just the way the electrics are wired.

Does anyone know of any knobs you can get that I might be able to use for balancing the pickups by the way? Something which has a feature where you can set a centre notch (like you get with most EQ dials), or simply lock it in place would be awesome.

Another thing I'd quite like to do is make the cavity for the Jazz pickup unnecessarily large, or perhaps an over sized route to the existing wiring, to get a slightly hollower/semi acousticish kinda sound. Would that sound naff on a bass not designed for that purpose, or is it idealistic/majorly expensive, or is there anything else that makes it a generally bad idea? It's a lovely Japanese 90's built ATK so I don't wanna ruin the thing.
 
#3
I'm no luthier and I don't even play one on TV, but I'd be really surprised if this would effect the tone of your bass at all.

I'm betting the only effect would be an overall reduction in sustain from a reduction in mass of the body. And I think you would have to remove A LOT of wood to notice a difference.

And you'll ruin the potential resale value of your bass.

If you want a hollow body, buy a hollow body.
 
#5
I'm not too bothered about the resell value, it probably has very little anyway from my punk days; ridiculous amount of dings, many intentional when I was curious as to what the wood looked like under the finish, two-tone ska thing painted over the headstock in marker pen to draw attention away from the contrast between the different kind of maple, little bit of the tip of my headstock burnt by a drunk friend, alot of stickers that will probably never come off properly, the list is pretty much endless.

Anyway if I end up not liking the sound of it one day it'll probably go on my wall or I'll give it to a friend. From what you guys said the whole acoustic cavity thing's a bad idea anyway, just thought it might be cool and danelectro seem to do it quite well without being full semi-acoustics.

My main concern is how to fit and wire the Jazz pickup more then anything really.
 
#9
If the bass is trashed from your "punk days" then why not indulge in this pointless and costly exercise?

No I seriously doubt you'll be able to chamber the bass enough to get any kind of resonance within it. Not only though, but if you really wanted to hear the "hollow" sound you should have thought about putting a piezo pickup in there.

Yeah, it sounds like a pretty bad idea.
 
#10
SwamiRob said:
just thought it might be cool and danelectro seem to do it quite well without being full semi-acoustics.
Click to expand...

Hey SwamiRob, just so you know- Danelectros (and the Jerry Jones versions) are a completely different animal to a solidbody bass.
Danos are made out of Masonite (like wallboard) with a wood center block that the neck bolts onto.
Danelectros are a bass that every bassist should experience. :bassist:
 
#11
I'm not exactly proud of trashing the thing, it was back when I was 16 or something and didn't have much respect for the thing, still loved it to pieces like I do now but should have looked after it properly.

And the idea of this thread was to get some consensus on whether it would have any worthwhile effect on the sound or whether it was best leaving be. Mentioning that it was bit beat up was just to clarify that I couldn't sell the thing even if I wanted to. It still plays very well and nothing of any importance has been broken on it apart from having a couple of tuning pegs bent a little, still stays in tune like they'd never been touched.

So basically I don't mind if some potential doesn't like the idea of it having a Jazz pickup installed, the stock pickups being changed, half the body being cut out so it sounds like a Gibson EB-650 but not at all, or me having spray painted a rather un-inspiring "A" on the back of it in a particularly erosive paint, or anything I might have done to it or will do to it. Sorry for thinking this forum was intended for a friendly and helpful exchange of peoples experience and knowledge.

Peck_Time said:
Hey SwamiRob, just so you know- Danelectros (and the Jerry Jones versions) are a completely different animal to a solidbody bass.
Danos are made out of Masonite (like wallboard) with a wood center block that the neck bolts onto.
Danelectros are a bass that every bassist should experience. :bassist:
Click to expand...

Yeah I've played a couple of Dano basses and their awesome, pity about the unadjustable wooden saddle on some of em though. Have a U-2 Pro guitar myself and could love the thing more, if only I had a band to play it in...
 
#13
I played a Cort (I know not all that glamourus) with a Jazz/Stingray setup and it sounded really awesome. Always been a fan of Stingrays as long as they don't have too much click to them and always loved the Jazz sound, combined they make a very good pair. As I mentioned in the OP I'm getting a replacement ATK pickup and a stacked Jazz from bassculture.de so I'm giving the whole replacement pickup thing a try. The pickups are pretty much the only thing I don't like about it so I should be very happy afterwards.

That was pretty much the bulk of the thread, the whole Jazz pickup thing and how to wire it and how much it will cost to route a place for it to be installed and stuff. The poll was just to get a quick idea as to whether the quirky quasi hollow body thing would make a difference, which no-one seems to think it will.
 
#14
SwamiRob said:
Sorry for thinking this forum was intended for a friendly and helpful exchange of peoples experience and knowledge.
Click to expand...

Why are you feeling so embattled? You asked if a larger control cavity would make your bass sound more hollow-like. The general answer is no. There's no non-friendlness or non-helpfulness here, imho.

If you want really get a hollow sound, routing most of the bass from the back so the pickups are mounted in a 1/4 inch top (and leaving the bridge sitting on solid wood) might give you some of that acoustic tone you're after. You'll have to cover the hole up with something, but yeah.
 
#15
I'm not sure if the pickup has the kind of response needed to allow anyone to tell that it's hollow. The placement of the pickup certainly isn't gonna do you any favors. The reduction of weight in the body will most likely make the bass neck heavy. If you have good form and play all over the neck, it will only hinder you.
 
#17
ehque said:
Why are you feeling so embattled? You asked if a larger control cavity would make your bass sound more hollow-like. The general answer is no. There's no non-friendlness or non-helpfulness here, imho.
Click to expand...

It just seemed like Chris was being a tad arrogant in his reply calling it a "pointless and costly exercise" when I thought I made it pretty clear that I didn't know whether it was a good idea and telling me I "should have thought about putting a piezo pickup in there" when I was looking for some advice. Just wanted to make it equally clear that I didn't mind devaluing my bass in the process of modifying it, just so there wasn't any confusion over that either.

Obviously due to the hail of people saying it's a bad idea I'm not gonna do it, and I'm just gonna get my Jazz put in the neck doing as little damage to the neck as possible. Cheers for the response though.
 

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