New Bass Build. This one is an early '60's style P bass Fender clone. As requested, it's lightly relic'd and fairly lightweight. The paint is faded Fiesta Red nitro. For this sort of thing, there's no better starting point than MJT. They happened to have a 4.5 pound swamp ash body in stock, so we went with that.
The neck is an excellent Allparts P neck with a rosewood board. There's a couple of excellent eBay resellers of these necks. This one came lightly finished in nitro and the reseller had done a superb job of leveling and polishing the frets. It's unusual that I have no need to do at least some fret leveling on a build, but this one required none of that.
On a lightweight bass, lightweight tuners are a must. These are vintage-style Gotoh Res-O-Lights. Antique pearl pickguard as requested by the buyer. I chose the EMG Geezer pickups since I've built two with those previously and love the sound. I strung it with broken-in Fender flatwounds.
The end result weighs 8 1/4 pounds and balances well. It sounds great and easily plays as well as my Custom Shop Pino, but balances better hanging on the strap.
I kept it in my possession at home for a good month or so, all the while breaking it in and tweaking it. Last night, I was a little sad letting it go, but the new owner was in love.
The neck is an excellent Allparts P neck with a rosewood board. There's a couple of excellent eBay resellers of these necks. This one came lightly finished in nitro and the reseller had done a superb job of leveling and polishing the frets. It's unusual that I have no need to do at least some fret leveling on a build, but this one required none of that.
On a lightweight bass, lightweight tuners are a must. These are vintage-style Gotoh Res-O-Lights. Antique pearl pickguard as requested by the buyer. I chose the EMG Geezer pickups since I've built two with those previously and love the sound. I strung it with broken-in Fender flatwounds.
The end result weighs 8 1/4 pounds and balances well. It sounds great and easily plays as well as my Custom Shop Pino, but balances better hanging on the strap.
I kept it in my possession at home for a good month or so, all the while breaking it in and tweaking it. Last night, I was a little sad letting it go, but the new owner was in love.
