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Let's See Your Hot-Rodded Cheapo Basses!
- Thread starter Riff Ranger
- Start date
no, he made it at work in a few lunch-breaks. he has another job now, with no free access to the material.
and i dont think he would do more, he said it was a real hassle to make.
...and you wouldn´t want to pay his working hours
.pickguard would cost basically more than the rest of the bass, if i had to pay for it.
Here's another one. I took one of my $190 Rondomusic.com Hadean 24" scale blonde bass ukes and made it a fake singlecut (I prefer to call it whale hump). I bought some burl veneer and a black pickguard blank, had Eric's Guitar put them together and cut it to the shape of the bass top eliminating the upper cutaway, he also made the headplate and thumbrest for about $160. I double faced it on, added black and gold Strat knobs, black Road Toad Pahoehoe poly strings ($30) and decal with the name Narwhalele, inspired by the whale hump nomenclature.
Here's an another that I really like; took a $350 Pignose 24" scale guitar with built-in amp and speaker and converted it to a bass. Yanked the amp and speaker (which I thought I would use, but they sounded awful), had Eric's guitar make pickguard panels on the front and back to cover the cutouts, and replace the volume/tone knob, installed a bridge I gave him. I added HipShot lollipop tuners, a chrome truss rod cover and Labella 25" scale flatwound strings. All that cost around $250.
It sure does. I have three Classics, including the flat silver model you’ve got (sadly without the matching neck, it had a busted truss rod when I got it, but what does one expect from a thirty dollar bass?). It’s what Guitar Fetish and some other companies refer to as “Asian Spacing”. I call it “dumping a manufacturer’s mistake”. They are great basses but a little bit on the heavy side.
The pickups have the screw spacing of a standard rear Jazz, which is lucky as one just needs to rout about 3mm off each side of the rear pickup cavity to fit a standard jazz bridge pickup in there. The pickups lengthwise are the size of a standard front Jazz. Since they well routed the front under the pickguard, one just has to replace the pickguard with a standard pickguard and then a regular front J pickup will fit. I left mine stock, that is way too much hassle and expense and the stock pickups sound just fine. The VM fretless I’ve got takes standard J pickups and I tossed a set of EMGs in that. The sound is amazing.
The VM, which most will notice now has a fretted neck, was the most expensive at $225 new. The flat silver Classic was the cheapest at $30. The green was $149 and the champagne was $129. All the Classics were used, all from GC, and were giggable as purchased save for the silver one. They’ve had their bridges replaced (about $15 each), the pots and wiring replaced (about $10 each), legit Jazz knobs put on ($3 each) and I put a tug bar on the champagne one for giggles. I will never use it. That bass also has flats. Flats on a Jazz is a great thing BTW. The pearl pickguard on the green one came from Anthill music and was $19.
Here are before and after pics of a project I recently finished. After selling the PU that was on it, the cost of bass was zero, so pretty cheap. It got a total rebuild, complete with Bartolini PU's and Audere preamp.
Here's a link to the whole project if interested
NRBD (new repaired/rebuilt bass day) Japanese short scale many pics
Here's a link to the whole project if interested
NRBD (new repaired/rebuilt bass day) Japanese short scale many pics
most of mine are as well. it's fun to make a cheapie into a real player!
This is my favorite thread!! It’s what bass playing is all about!! I hope the newbies read this to see what can be done inexpensively! Great job everyone!!
This is my favorite thread!! It’s what bass playing is all about!! I hope the newbies read this to see what can be done inexpensively! Great job everyone!!
Yeah - I love this stuff, too. Everybody keep posting.
Yes Yes!!Yeah - I love this stuff, too. Everybody keep posting.
Epiphone EBO - $140
DiMarzio Model One pickup - $90
Seymour Duncan SM3B pickup - $75
Hipshot Supertone bridge -$90
Grover tuners - $55
Mojotone pots/Switchcraft jack - $15
Squier Bronco - $0 (Xmas gift)
Fender Fidelitron pickup - $50
Hipshot Vintage bridge - $65
Korean lollipop tuners - $50
Black pickguard - $25
Mojotone pots/ Switchcraft jack - $15
So: not just a happily hot-rodded cheapo, but a truly unique instrument. Right on.no, he made it at work in a few lunch-breaks. he has another job now, with no free access to the material.
and i dont think he would do more, he said it was a real hassle to make.
...and you wouldn´t want to pay his working hours
pickguard would cost basically more than the rest of the bass, if i had to pay for it.
i've posted these in other threads, but once again:
both are kapok basses: $129 USD, new!
black one = had the neck 'narrowed' to 1.5" at the nut (it was advertised as that but it came to me as wider --- more like a P) for $80. put in a calig PJ set at about $65. all black hardware from amazon, maybe $40. schaller strap locks. rotos in the pic but now has TI jazz rounds!!!
the burst = all black hardware, maybe $25-$30. schaller 3D bridge at around $85-90. TI jazz rounds!!!
both axes have original electronics, currently, but: i plan to change both to this: Prewired Passive Harness (Volume - Blend - Tone - Tone) - Best Bass Gear as i have that configuration in another cheapie and really like it. also: part of my hot-rodding involved sanding/planing or otherwise adjusting and fine-tuning the fingerboards to accommodate me.
those are two of my four really cheap basses. they are the cheapest of my cheapies at present. they have been my mains for a half dozen years.
both are kapok basses: $129 USD, new!
black one = had the neck 'narrowed' to 1.5" at the nut (it was advertised as that but it came to me as wider --- more like a P) for $80. put in a calig PJ set at about $65. all black hardware from amazon, maybe $40. schaller strap locks. rotos in the pic but now has TI jazz rounds!!!
the burst = all black hardware, maybe $25-$30. schaller 3D bridge at around $85-90. TI jazz rounds!!!
both axes have original electronics, currently, but: i plan to change both to this: Prewired Passive Harness (Volume - Blend - Tone - Tone) - Best Bass Gear as i have that configuration in another cheapie and really like it. also: part of my hot-rodding involved sanding/planing or otherwise adjusting and fine-tuning the fingerboards to accommodate me.
those are two of my four really cheap basses. they are the cheapest of my cheapies at present. they have been my mains for a half dozen years.
Wow, those prices you’ve quoted are insanely cheap compared to my world. What year was this? A preamp for £30 and 2 pickups for £32......where I come from you’d pay five times that much at the very least.Might have plenty basses cost more but this one gets the playing timeIt starts with a Peavey Zepher 5,the Zephyr series were a European only release. Passive,neck thru though some bolt-ons did happen. The rumour is Peavey were testing the market for a passive Cirrus.
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Anyway Zephyr 5 £100 s/h. Previous owner had busted a couple of pots so scrapped the lot of them for a Tone Monster preamp £30. The stock 4 wire humbuckers were good but I like Warman Jazzbar HB's , 2 of them £32. Rosewood covers for the Warmans £6
All was good. Playing/sounding sweetI listened
5 Wilkinson tuners £30. Brass nut £4. Strap locks £5. Jing Ho bridge £15 (Jing Ho is the Korean factory making Wilkinson parts). Football jack plate £2. Marshall amp knobs £4. Black Ash TRC and control cavity cover made from scraps £0
Total inc bass £226
Yeah, there are a number of reasons I might like to live in Australia, but gear prices aren't one of them. It's hard enough to scrape together for a used Mesa here in the U.S.A. Though I think you do okay with prices on Japanese instruments from the '80s, so there's that, which brings me back to this thread, haha.
I bought an SR655 new just over a year ago for around $1,200 AUD and that was slightly discounted. How does that compare with US? Our dollar is worth around .72c US at the moment - I wanted to buy a Broughton LPF/HPF but the website quoted $165 which became $282 AUD so that will have to wait.
