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How to make your bass your own?

What have you done to your bass to make it your own. Whether it is just playin the hell out of it, custom painting it, stickers, or anything else... I wanna see some pics. :cool:

I am getting sick of my white bass.... I need some ideas! :bassist::bassist::bassist:
 
squier VM p. satined the neck, scalloped frets 16-20, roughed up the headstock logo, replaced knobs with gold ones, added homemade thumbrest (thumbrest is in the shape of an ear, has a thumb shaped pit, for obvious reasons, angled so that the wrist can rest there for quick poping), and an 8 ball sticker by the top strap pin.
planing to swap the bridge for a gold one, going to make it so it has a string through option, replace the nut with one with a slimmer spacing, and then i will shave some girth off the neck, and add some sort of a bridge pickup.
the nut and bridge will probably be ibanez stuff, and the pickups will be switched for some sort of punchy bar magnet ones. think the bridge pickup will be a PFR out of an ibanez SRX
 
I Have bitten 1 bass. I knew after about 3 weeks of owning it that I would keep it for as long s I possibly can. I have so far and I will continue to.

I bit the lower horn. At first it just dented the paint on the Musicman Stingray 5. So I bit again and now there is a 3/16 junk of paint missing. Also, I take no precaution to prevent deterioration of its ascetic state. I pull new strings through the bridge without trying to keep them off the paint. I do not try to harm the bass, but I do not try to keep it from arbitrary harm either.

I do my best o make sure it stays in a humidity controlled environment, I clean the pots, I condition the fretboard. I do everything I can to make sure that it stays int he wonderful playing condition I enjoy it in.

Also, I sometimes let the grime from my right arm build up to a black crust where my forearm rubs the body.
Also, I do not take my pocket knife off which has very lightly gotten at the back of it.

Jonathan
 
I Have bitten 1 bass. I knew after about 3 weeks of owning it that I would keep it for as long s I possibly can. I have so far and I will continue to.

I bit the lower horn. At first it just dented the paint on the Musicman Stingray 5. So I bit again and now there is a 3/16 junk of paint missing.

That's a serious mark of ownership there... You bit a bass.

I just finished an MIA Jazz about two weeks ago (pics in a week or so). It's mine because I built it part by part from eBay finds. The neck came first, a mint 2002 maple board Precision without the tuners. Then the body, a 2006 sunburst 60th from seller The Stratosphere (he usually deals in MIJ parts, which I've bought from him, but every blue moon he has an MIA body or neck. He had one when I had some money).

I waited for a reasonably priced Am Standard bridge instead of a Badass III because by that time, I had decided to make it a Fender Fender (rather than a Fender with badass/Dimarzio/Audere/whatever). Nothing at all against those makers, but I knew I could "mod" another future bass with those parts. Along that vein of thought, I got the correct neck plate (not the 60th anniversary plate but a "Fender Corona, California" one), a tort '62RI guard and SCN pups. Bought aharness from JWymore (500K vols/250K tone/Orange Drop). I lost out on two auctions for the AmStd tuners, got impatient and drilled for non-stock tuners. Two weeks ago, after several months and several gigs, I finally bought the AmStd tuners. They almost cover all the holes I made, but anyway I'll fill those at some point with tiny dowels, just for appearance. Only the control plate is non-Fender (it came off a cheap Johnson I bought two years ago), and I had to trim the pg a bit to make the whole thing fit as it should. Then I drilled holes for the bridge cover, but not for the pup cover (the 2006 AmStds have the same swimming pool rout that the MIMs have, and the treble side screw might need to be longer- I haven't bothered to look).

The total came to less than a new Jazz for everything, and it has everything I want and nothing I don't. I'm very happy with it, and for all practical purposes, it looks like a Jazz with SCNs and a Precision neck. But the way it was built is all me. I may even sink my teeth into it in a decade or so :D
 
My American Jazz Bass is my baby. There hasn't been a week since I've owned it that I haven't played it, and on that rare occasion, I'm away from home. It's amazing, tweaking with the action and the truss rod to get it just right, it's fun. When playing music with friends, I would do some cymbal hits with the head stock, so it's marked up pretty good. My band had a tradition for a night where we all bit the headstock before we played (It was short lived). and my favorite thing to do to my bass, is "slapping" it. All my friends that own Fenders have battled me. We take our guitar bodys and clunk them togather until one's paint flakes or chips; I've only lost once. Just do what you want to in order to make your bass truely yours.
 
my short scale P copy is completely covered in stickers, most of them are white with pink ribbons on them. something to do with breast cancer (they were giving them away at school). it has an atari sticker on the headstock, a pokemon by the bridge and a rat distortion sticker. i might get some picks up after work tomorrow, or sunday if i'm not busy.
 
what i love about basses, is that a new bass is like a blank canvas. you customize it, make every inch of it yours. even if all you do is set the action, tuning, and other basics to your specification. the rest is use. can't wait to start building one in my highschool woodshop. start this week, is not, then definately next week
 
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