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I had this built by a luthier friend. What do you think?

#22
Seashore said:
Cedar body, what a cool idea. And what a neck. This is beautiful. Would love to know more details about the control layout.
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Drew the diagram for it in 2019. This is it.

20201004_013442.jpg


Edit: top 2 switches are coil on/off, bottom one switches between parallel and series.
 
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#23
ctmullins said:
First, congratulations! That bass looks great, very well executed. I love the slanted neck pickup, I love the custom control plate, and I love the woods!

Having built a few basses myself, I have two comments:
  1. I would have rounded off the neck heel, eliminating one of the screws, for better upper fret access.
  2. Purpleheart tends to be heavy, and there is a lot of purpleheart in that neck. How is the balance?
Click to expand...
Yes purpleheart is up to 15-30 percent more heavy than maple. We kept the 'belly' cutaway on the back of the body very small in order to combat possible neckdive and the bass seems pretty well in balance. This was a bit of a concern before building.
 
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#24
Valvehead said:
My long time buddy and great guitarist Vincent had been asking me for ages "If I built you a bass what would you like?"

I combined qualities and ideas from other basses I owned and still own, and came up with this passive bass. He built it for me and it has everything I dreamed up in there.

Ideas I came up with myself:

- The lacquered Bubinga fretboard. I dig Rics.
- Dual Jazz pickup with mode and coil switches.
- Slanted neck pickup for a more evenly 'rich' sound across the strings.
- Purpleheart+Maple laminated neck. I just LOVE the look of Purpleheart.

I drew up the schematic for the electronics myself, too and selected the ABM solid brass bridge.

Vincent did all the work, including custom building those pickups to achieve the tonal qualities I described to him.

As a luthier, can you tell me what you think of the design and execution?
The headstock shape is the standard shape he uses for all his 'Fenderish' like models. At first this looked bulky to me but once I got used to it I actually now like it.

Cheers, Marco

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Darn, I sure do admire craftsmanship. Absolutely stunning.
 
#26
Nice friend, you should supply Vincent with beverages of choice for a long time for

...asking you for ages "If I built you a bass what would you like?"

Looks great, and you seem happy with how it sounds, which ticks all the boxes! Lovely work.
 
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#33
That's a beautiful looking thing, some really nice work going on there and obviously some careful and well considered planning. Love the fingerboard, that Bubinga looks stunning laquered.
First of the headstock threw me a little, I sort of have a thing about making my headstocks reflect the design of the bodies, but after a few viewings I got to like it more. Just a case of something different jumping out at first viewing I guess.

Congratulations to both you and Vincent.
 
#35
That is a sweet looking bass. I'm normally "meh" on Fender-esque instruments, but that's definitely one I could get jiggy with. It has uniqueness and originality.

I'll bet that thing has a monstrous tone.

And I kinda like the headstock. My gut feeling when I saw it was "hippo" and given that the hippo is one of the largest, most aggressive, and powerful animals in the world, I drew the conclusion that that bass must have the most monstrous tone.
 
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