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NBD No-Name Precision Fretless

FlaCharlie

FlaCharlie

Nov 23, 2013
368
613
Gainesville, Florida
#1
I recently posted about a project I wasn't planning ( 50's Precision Inspired Fretless | TalkBass.com )

Well, THIS is the project I WAS planning.

First some background . . . A while back I posted this thread: How About Blonde & Brunette? My Hohner P Makeover Project | TalkBass.com
about a cool Japanese Hohner P that I found. I recently updated it cause the original pics had disappeared.

When I saw a similar looking bass with the same type pickup on eBay I bought it. It's a No-Name bass but I suspect it was made by the same Japanese factory that made the Hohner. Since it wasn't in playable condition it was cheap. Yes, another rescue bass!

A previous owner had defretted it but, in addition to filling in the fret gaps, added an unlined (ebony?) fingerboard on top of the existing board. These basses have thick necks to begin with and adding the additional fingerboard made it super thick.

The new fingerboard doesn't seem to have been done professionally, but they did a decent job. But then, to compensate for the neck sitting higher, they just jammed a piece of wood under the height adjusting screws of the original two saddle bridge. An odd combination of workmanship it seems to me.

There was also obviously something wrong with the electronics. When I opened it up, the internals of the pickup just fell out of its cover in several pieces.

I reassembled the pickup with a little glue. I can confirm that, even though it's made to look like a humbucker, it is actually a single coil. (a Fauxbucker!) I left the pots and jack alone for now. I was planning on replacing the tuners but I used them on the '50s Precision Fretless project. The originals seem to be fine, though, so they're staying. The cheap, two-saddle, bridge was replaced with a sturdy higher-mass bridge from eBay.

The neck pocket had to be routed to put the neck right. Having no skills in that area, I enlisted the help of my friend Nicole who is an experienced woodworker (as well as a fledgling blacksmith and home-brewer!) when she's not busy being a Chemistry professor at the University of Florida. (Thanks Nikki!)

It had a natural finish, like the Hohner, which I usually love, but the body was made with four pieces and the grain was not well matched. So I decided to paint it. I went with a fine Rust-o-leum rattlecan finish - Navaho White, which is a sort of Ivory color, not pure white. This took a while since, it turns out, I have no skills in that area either! I love the color. The finish?? . . . well it doesn't look too bad . . . from about 10 feet away. I purposely left the various "character" dings in the body.

So, here she is . . .

 
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#2
Here's a closer look . . .

The new pickguard was sourced from a local recycling place called The Repurpose Project. It was cut from some weathered orange plastic that was fairly stiff and about the right thickness. In a former life it had been part of a portable sign. Recently, when they moved into a larger building that used to house an upholstery business that had been there since 1941(!), they inherited a large quantity of upholstery materials. I've been buying a variety of naugahide in various colors to use as pickguard covering. Eventually, I want to cut a couple more pickguards and try some different colors and patterns. Something different from the typical plastic.

Added my favorite knobs - ones that have three rubber rings around them - and added some numbers. I like knobs with numbers for reference.

Put on a set of LaBella Copper tapes, which I also have on the Hohner, and WOW! This thing feels and plays great and sounds awesome! Not sure of the exact weight - I don't have an accurate scale - but it's a monster, in every sense.

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#4
Yeah, the fact that it has the same pickup as the Hohner, which I love, is the reason I bought it. Figured it would be worth the effort to put it back into shape.

I'm not really very good at describing sound and it's something that is often difficult to convey accurately. I think it was Frank Zappa who said, "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."

Also, and this is kind of a pet peeve of mine, I think most people seem to ignore the extent to which the "sound" of a particular component (like a pickup) is interrelated with everything else. And since other people's "everything else" is usually quite different (strings, setup, amp, eq settings on the amp, playing style, type of music being played, etc) it's mostly a useless exercise. Not that it isn't interesting.

Still, I find it odd that different posters on TB often discuss the sound of, for instance, a pickup, yet none of them ever mention what type of music they play. One might play country, another jazz, the next one pop rock, another punk and another folk. I've gotta believe if a guy who plays classic country buys a pickup based on the recommendation of a guy who plays death metal, he's more likely to be disappointed. I suppose, in the strictest sense, you can actually play any type of music with any bass but since everyone here seems so focussed on optimization you'd think the type of music being played would be mentioned more often. Other than the "What's the best (fill in the blank) for metal" joke.

That said, I'll dance! I think the pickup (in combination with MY "everything else") sounds very solid and full. It has a really nice low / low mid bloom when played lightly (which I mostly do) but with good punchy lows when I dig in a bit and play more percussively. (I never really dig in like a lot of players do and I often play with my thumb, never use a pick) This also produces more mwah of course, and the setup on this bass is quite low, lower than most of my other fretlesses. So there is quite a bit of mwah available but the amount is relatively controllable with the right hand. I prefer mwah to be subtle, even subliminal, in most cases. I often play with the tone control on the bass rolled off quite a bit, sometimes even all the way, but usually between 2 and 7. I rarely play with it on 10, but even when it is this pickup doesn't produce much in the way of high mids / treble, even with those controls turned up on my amp. But it doesn't sound dull either, which I think is its strength. There is a certain presence and clarity to it that is there even with the tone control rolled completely off. If you want a Jacoesque fretless sound I doubt you would find these pickups to be helpful. Of course, I'm using tapewound strings, not a bright roundwound. With someone else's "everything else", it might get that sound.
 
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#8
I used to play my fretless through my Ampeg V4B in a Rockabilly/R&B trio I was in and though I didn't do a back-to-back comparison with a Fender, no one in the band or audience ever aid to me "You oughta be playing a P-Bass." It was a full and punchy bass sound.
 

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