NBD - Moses Headless custom (picture heavy!)

[sgl]

This bass, like some of my other ones, started with a neck - someone offered a headless Moses Graphite neck for a decent price and I went for it as a new custom project.

At the time I thought about buying a Yamaha Attitude, so instead I commissioned someone to build that style of a body for the neck.

While I like the concept of headless, I don't like most of the bridge-tuner offerings where the tuning peg sticks outside the body. Instead I went for a Riviera bridge that solves it very elegantly (recently Dingwall cooperated with them as well, which told me I made the right call)

For the pickup, I initially bought a used Ray34 pickup, mostly because I wanted a MM style pickup but without the dog ears they have which I never liked. As you can see in the pictures at some point we realized the poles don't align with the strings very well and I had to switch to a Blade style pickup. These turned out to be impossible to find, so I had this one custom made for me by Nova here in Germany. Matched it with a Noll preamp.

One piece of Sapele for the body, super thin at 32-33mm since Sapele is heavy.

The outcome turned out really special. Light, very well balanced and sounds amazing. Now enjoy the gallery!

 

[Yahboy]

Joe dart headless Ray.....

 

[atquinn]

That Riviera bridge has ruined all other headless bridges for me

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Very nice job of it, and a gorgeous piece of sapele. I did something similar with a mahogany body and the neck from my Steinberger XP-2, but made the body way too heavy. I may try to shave that down eventually. That looks really light. Finish weight? I like how you can use a guitar case for most headless basses, which really opens up the options for cases, and results in a lighter load overall.

 

[sgl]

Very nice job of it, and a gorgeous piece of sapele. I did something similar with a mahogany body and the neck from my Steinberger XP-2, but made the body way too heavy. I may try to shave that down eventually. That looks really light. Finish weight? I like how you can use a guitar case for most headless basses, which really opens up the options for cases, and results in a lighter load overall.

3.4 kg (7.5 lbs).
And yes, now I have to get myself a guitar case

 

[Thumpin6string]

Congrats. Moses made great necks up until the end, when there were quality control issues. I had him build a custom neck for my 6 string I built back in 1999/2000. Awesome, stable and great playing neck. I wasn't aware that he did headless. Anyway, enjoy your new bass and the benefits of graphite. This is my 26 year old Moses neck.

 

[sgl]

Congrats. Moses made great necks up until the end, when there were quality control issues. I had him build a custom neck for my 6 string I built back in 1999/2000. Awesome, stable and great playing neck. I wasn't aware that he did headless. Anyway, enjoy your new bass and the benefits of graphite. This is my 26 year old Moses neck.
View attachment 7423125

That's a very nice one, and thank you!

I do have some experience with graphite, it's not even my first Moses (the one on the far left in the first picture is also a Moses, basically also a custom body that I matched to the neck)

 

[PeaveyPlayer]

Moses is doing stuff again?

 

[Thumpin6string]

Moses is doing stuff again?

Nope. Not anymore.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Who’s left, Status? CS/Graphite really is a superior material for neck construction,IMO/IME, but harder and more expensive to make than wood necks, at least for the materials. I’ve never seen a convincing blind test comparing a typical wood neck to CF, if anything mine sounds different than wood, but also better in some respects like clarity and sustain. Some of the hybrid CF versions are adjustable for relief, but the early Steinbergers were not, a small amount of relief was cast into them. In practice I never had any need to adjust relief on my XP-2 neck, and it’s otherwise entirely impervious to any normal range of temperature or humidity. I can’t think of any wood neck capable of that level of performance, except maybe a Kubicki Ex-Factor bass, which was effectively an LVL beam bolted to a wood body. The headless tuning systems are generally superior to any traditional post and key tuners, particularly the original double/ball Steinberger style straight pull design, like drawing a bow, which imparts no twist to the string. I haven’t seen any newer systems that fundamentally iimproved on that, except maybe the NS Design ones, also by Ned Steinberger. Unfortunately that double ball system never really took off, and they’ve gotten harder to find in the right gauges and lengths.

 

[MPU]

I guess Klon and some Chinese makers are making carbon fiber necks.

 

[Thumpin6string]

I know Zon still makes carbon fiber necks for their basses. Not sure if they would sell a neck by itself. Could always ask.

 

[sgl]

Who’s left, Status? CS/Graphite really is a superior material for neck construction,IMO/IME, but harder and more expensive to make than wood necks, at least for the materials. I’ve never seen a convincing blind test comparing a typical wood neck to CF, if anything mine sounds different than wood, but also better in some respects like clarity and sustain. Some of the hybrid CF versions are adjustable for relief, but the early Steinbergers were not, a small amount of relief was cast into them. In practice I never had any need to adjust relief on my XP-2 neck, and it’s otherwise entirely impervious to any normal range of temperature or humidity. I can’t think of any wood neck capable of that level of performance, except maybe a Kubicki Ex-Factor bass, which was effectively an LVL beam bolted to a wood body. The headless tuning systems are generally superior to any traditional post and key tuners, particularly the original double/ball Steinberger style straight pull design, like drawing a bow, which imparts no twist to the string. I haven’t seen any newer systems that fundamentally iimproved on that, except maybe the NS Design ones, also by Ned Steinberger. Unfortunately that double ball system never really took off, and they’ve gotten harder to find in the right gauges and lengths.

Yes Klos are doing them, and also the recently established Aurok in the UK. Status not anymore

 

[Bob_Ross]

the recently established Aurok in the UK.

"Recently" as in, like, yesterday? If I had not stumbled across a picture of an Aurok graphite bass neck on my Facebook feed this morning I never would have even heard of this company. And your post ^^^ is the only mention of "Aurok" anywhere on TalkBass!

If they're legit, that's great! But their website seems pretty sparse, like maybe they're just starting out... Can't tell what products they offer (or will offer) other than "necks for legendary Leo-designed basses"

I hope they're the real deal, so that there's someone besides Klos in that market space. Not that I have anything against Klos (and in fact, I was a nanosecond away from ordering a Klos neck for one of my 5-string basses), just that it's good for the industry to have a little competition. And a lot of choices.

 

[UNICORN BASS]

Very nice very understated, love it. Here is my Okume bodied Jazz Bass kit i built a couple of years ago. Not as pretty as your Sapele but not so bad.

 

[sgl]

"Recently" as in, like, yesterday? If I had not stumbled across a picture of an Aurok graphite bass neck on my Facebook feed this morning I never would have even heard of this company. And your post ^^^ is the only mention of "Aurok" anywhere on TalkBass!

If they're legit, that's great! But their website seems pretty sparse, like maybe they're just starting out... Can't tell what products they offer (or will offer) other than "necks for legendary Leo-designed basses"

I hope they're the real deal, so that there's someone besides Klos in that market space. Not that I have anything against Klos (and in fact, I was a nanosecond away from ordering a Klos neck for one of my 5-string basses), just that it's good for the industry to have a little competition. And a lot of choices.

I'm following them on Facebook, I believe they made two batches of necks already? But yes very new, a few months in the business as far as I can tell

 

[Bob_Ross]

I reached out to Aurok via email to find out what the story is. They told me most of their activity/info to date has been on the basschat.uk forum:

Graphite neck - ordering

If you are interested in ordering a graphite neck from Kiwi, this is where the discussion and ordering is happening.

www.basschat.co.uk

…but they’re hoping to build out their website soon.

Looks like they’ve been extant since July 2025. Can’t quite tell how many batches they’ve made…between 2 and 5?

I’m gonna read through that site some more and then ask questions… probably a lot!