Brad this bass is fantastic man! the look the sound, looks like its a little heavy, mine its a little heavy too, but it does balance perfectly, you cant go wrong with the northern ash,.. i said it before and i say it again, you have the coolest basses ive seen man!..now whats the order again of the 3 mode pickup switch??
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
My Brubaker JXB-6
- Thread starter Brad Johnson
- Start date
Franklin,
This one has a Maple body and it's a pretty hefty piece of Maple at that.
The three way switch goes, from one extreme to the other:
1. humbucker neck/ humbucker bridge
2. (middle) Humbucker bridge/ outer (single) coil neck
3. Outer coil bridge / outer coil neck
As expected the output goes from relatively thicker (1) to thick (2) to thinner (3). Pretty easy to hear the difference.. Since it's actually selecting coils outside of the preamp, when you put the bass in passive (bypass) mode Volume, Pan and the coil switch are the only controls that work. The bass sounds great passive and bigger active without losing it's passive vibe. That's why I prefer Bartolini for preamps and pickups.
I've had five gigs (with five groups
) this week and just when I think I prefer my Maple basses I did several of the gigs using my older Teal KXB 5 which is Northern Ash with a Maple neck/board. I sometimes forget just how stupid that bass is live but no more. I got to play a fairly wide variety of music on these gigs. The grunt and growl of this bass is almost unreal, it's easy to control and fun to cut loose whenever I got the chance.This bass, my Xtreme Spalted Maple 5 and Blackburst Spalted Maple KXB 6 all have the same vibe.
I like that configuration! May have been covered already, but are the 'buckers wired in series or parallel? I'm guessing the latter?
For the coil switching, yes. It's simple and very effective. Kevin uses a few different Bartolini preamp wiring harnesses or whatever comes with a non-Bart pre.
BTW he just finished up a Koa topped JXB-5 for Kevin Walker with a Pope preamp. From what I've heard it turned out pretty nice.
Whaat! a pope preamp! thats cool and out of the same preamp "circle" isnt that property of fodera? oh man that Koa must look exotic man, i hope to see that bass pretty soon, i would like to get a walnut top KXB-5, but with swamp ash instead of the northern ash,,,even though the wood combo of my kxb is cool (maple burl top, northern ash core, sapele back:
http://www.youtube.com/user/franklinperedo#p/a/u/2/7ZGb2HTvDK8 ).
Kevin made my ramp today, Kevin Walker picked up his Koa ramp. Here's a phone camera pic:
The basses have a very similar finish, the necks are body colored, satin back, gloss headstock.
FYI: If you're going to go with Swamp Ash I'd recommend getting one with some weight to it... the lightweight ones have been pretty underwhelming so far IME IMO. Kevin's bass has an Ash tone block and lighter wings. That might be a better way to go.
You can buy non-Fodera Pope preamps.
Yeah, it was excellent. Anyone seeking a truly vicious Jazz bass could do a lot worse. And these Brazilian Rosewood boards seem to have something going on.
We ran all of the basses through a Tec Puma 1000 driving an assortment of Schroeder cabs. It was stoopid.
Im so curious about those puma amps! ive heard great things about it,..whats ur current live amp setup (rig)?? and just out of curiosity,. when playin live does all ur brubakers cut through the mix? i know u must have a favorite when playin live,.. which one is that???.
The Puma 1000 is cool but with the Puma 500 being the same power but double the price of a new LMII, I'm fine with what I have and use regularly.
The Blue flamed Maple KXB-5 pictured in this thread has been seeing alot of action lately. That bass is unbelievable live. The orange semihollow KXB-6 has been my main bass for awhile and I rotate the Blackburst KXB-6, Buckeye Burl KXB-5, red fretless KXB-6, old Spalted Maple KXB Xtreme 5 and now that I have the ramp the JXB-6 will be a mainstay. I also take out the Fodera AJ Contrabass, the fretless semihollow Elrick NJS 5, the semihollow Yancey 5, the MTD 635 and other basses I own.
I use a Markbass Little Mark II head into either a stack of Bag End coaxes (1-15 and 1-10) or a Nahas 1-15/1-12 stack. Sometimes an AER Basic Performer combo amp. In church I'm currently using a Markbass NY604 cab. I have several other cabs that I use as the mood strikes me (Schroeder 1210L, Tech Sound 212, Bag End shallow coax 210, a pair of EA VL110's, SWR Triad, etc. Still have my AMP BH420's and Thunderfunk TF420. I have way more rigs than I need but there's no point in giving them away.
.All of my Brubakers cut through in the mix... or I wouldn't have them
. I hang onto the truly scary ones. They accomplish this in different ways but in any event I never get buried, even with my relatively small sized "big rigs". I usually have plenty of cut to spare.
Man!!! what a blessing all those instruments!!! i would like to see a pic of that spalted maple kxb extreme you have! hey man i tuned my KXB-6 o whole tone below, A-D-G-C-F-Db and sounded cool, do u downtune any of ur instruments too??? the fact that is a 34 1/4 scale helps a lot with that, but next time ill get a 34",...thanks.The Puma 1000 is cool but with the Puma 500 being the same power but double the price of a new LMII, I'm fine with what I have and use regularly.
The Blue flamed Maple KXB-5 pictured in this thread has been seeing alot of action lately. That bass is unbelievable live. The orange semihollow KXB-6 has been my main bass for awhile and I rotate the Blackburst KXB-6, Buckeye Burl KXB-5, red fretless KXB-6, old Spalted Maple KXB Xtreme 5 and now that I have the ramp the JXB-6 will be a mainstay. I also take out the Fodera AJ Contrabass, the fretless semihollow Elrick NJS 5, the semihollow Yancey 5, the MTD 635 and other basses I own.
I use a Markbass Little Mark II head into either a stack of Bag End coaxes (1-15 and 1-10) or a Nahas 1-15/1-12 stack. Sometimes an AER Basic Performer combo amp. In church I'm currently using a Markbass NY604 cab. I have several other cabs that I use as the mood strikes me (Schroeder 1210L, Tech Sound 212, Bag End shallow coax 210, a pair of EA VL110's, SWR Triad, etc. Still have my AMP BH420's and Thunderfunk TF420. I have way more rigs than I need but there's no point in giving them away.
All of my Brubakers cut through in the mix... or I wouldn't have them
34 5/8" actually and nope, I don't tune down.
Here are some so-so pics with the Xtreme 5:
