NBD!, Introduction and Questions.

[Thunk4Brains]

Howdy howdy all. Long time lurker finally deciding to add to the post count. Rather than start with the lengthy introduction figured I'd start with the goods and show off the new bass. To be honest this is actually my second one. My first one I got a little over a year ago right after I decided to join the military. I had about a five month gap between signing my contract and going off to boot camp and figured with all the changes learning to play guitar was a right fit to pass that time. Well one guitar purchase and several weeks later I soon realized that just about every song I enjoyed it was the bass line I was humming and vibing with. So I did my research, went through a couple of basses and settled on this Link Removed.

So... fast forward about a year and I go home to get my bass to bring with me to continue learning or more accurately starting all over again. I bring it back with me and of course I made the mistake of going to GC on Black Friday to have it set up and have a few sharp frets filed down. Well you know how the story goes... dropped off the bass and figured "What the heck, I got some time might as well look around..." and that as what she wrote. It was pretty much GAS at first sight.

Short intro out of the way. My questions are this...
Firstly I was curious as to a suggestion for a case/gig bag for this bass since I will be traveling with it for the holidays. I was thinking about either a Gator ProGo gig bag or a Protec Contego. The cases/bags I try seem to leave a little more wiggle room than I'd care for with the smaller bodied rbx. And ideally I want something that I can take with me on board a flight. I like the look and exterior of the Contego (and its slightly slimmer features might lean better towards fitting in an overhead bin.) but for the interior I really like the movable blocks of the ProGo and feel like it might be a better fit.

Secondly, any suggestions for blacked out hardware for this model? I want to change the bridge and tuners as well as get different knobs than the little plastic ones that come on it.

 

[GregC]

Congrats on the new bass, and thanks for your service.

 

[BazzTard]

Hi and welcome!

If you are worried about the fit, buy some foam and shape it to provide a snug, secure fit in that bag/case.

 

[Maxdusty]

Welcome... nice bass!
I just bought one myself, but it looks nothing like yours. All these RBX170EW in natural really vary considerably in appearance. I love it!
Your bass looks fantastic with the black in the wood grain like that. I have a rather boring one in comparison. lol
Anyway, there are several places online and in person to get replacement parts for your bass- important thing to consider is the budget you're willing to spend to mod it, replacement parts alone can easily end up costing more than the bass itself.

Here's one site: AllParts.com
http://www.allparts.com/bass-bridges

Because of the cost, I'm probably only going to change the pickups on mine and leave everything else as is. After playing it for about a week, I'm feeling a change of pickups will make these basses awesome players. I love the neck, the feel and the light balanced weight of these basses, the pickups are actually decent but I think they could be better.

Not too familiar with all the cases, gig bags to give a recommendation unfortunately, I just use a generic padded gig bag for mine.

Best of luck and again, welcome.

My RBX170EW looks completely different.

 

[Thunk4Brains]

Thanks and I didn't think about just using my own foam to fill in the gaps.
Still I'd rather get a descentish gig bag that is both small in size yet overs a fair bit of protection. But I'll guess I'll play the trial and error game though I am always open to suggestions.

As for my fellow rbx170ew owner. Yeah, that i totally why I love these basses. They have SO much variety in their top wood appearance. What made me choose this model was looking at so many pictures and videos of his as well as checking out a few in person and was blown away by all the differences. I also love the feel of the neck and the light weight body. The pickups on mine are pretty descent, not blow your socks off good but it does have a nice little growl to it. So I think I just want to do a few cosmetic changes for now, mostly get rid of the cheap feeling plastic knobs. And I think the bass would look killer with all black hardware.

Was kinda looking for a bit more specific advice when it comes to modding though since I have absolutely zero experience. I don't want to get a new bridge and find out the screws don't match up or the spacing is wrong or turn around and end up getting the wrong kind of tuners. So if anyone has any experience modding the 170's any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.