Marmite. For those that don't know, Marmite is a divisive foodstuff over here, google it if you're unsure or don't, choice is yours. Anyway their sales pitch and strapline is 'love it or hate it' there is no common ground. I think what you are about to see will either tick your box or not. 
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Here’s my modded Redsub Coliseum, well actually it’s the G4M 972. Slightly different from the Redsub but close enough for Government work.
G4M 972 Fanned Fret 5-String, Blue Burl Burst - G4M
Since these were the only affordable fanned fret basses to me here in the UK, I ended up buying one and was really astonished with the roasted maple neck and actually the way it played for a cheap no frills bass. I think it punches well above it’s weight in terms of sound and playability. There were some corners cut, bridge pieces grub screws wouldn’t work on some of the pieces due to the hex sockets being slightly deformed so the allen key would not grip, the tuners were a bit sloppy but for £279 not a bad instrument if the truth be told. 3 band eq with a push pull volume for passive.
To me, the only downside was the pickup positioning. @LowEndLobster did a YT review of the Coliseum a couple years ago and both they and I felt that the pickups were in the wrong position, I thought that definitely the ‘neck’ pickup should be closer to the neck. I like to play a bit of dub at times and just felt this was more of a metal guitar So I set out to try to put that right. Firstly I was thinking adding a third pickup more toward the neck but finding any kind of switch that could select all pickups or a full permutation of all three was a nightmare and I didn’t know how I’d even wire it up anyway. So my answer was to move the neck pickup well, nearer to the neck.
Enter @Jposega. Unfortunately he’s listed on here as inactive and suspended now so I guess he’ll not hear this shout out to him. Hopefully he’ll be back as he knows quite a lot about fanned frets. Digressing, he advised I make a pickup mule to find the optimum position for the bridge pickup so I knocked one up and found where I reckon for me was the sweet spot;
It doesn't have the same orientation as the bridge, but it's amazing that by turning a pickup the sound is slightly different. Think Strat etc.
Bodywork
LEL pointed out the body is ugly, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, they also pointed out that there is lack of neck to play solo on and I think they have a good point on that also, problem is if you post a NBD on here and you’ve just scored a Fodera Imperial Elite or similar, thousands of ppl on will fawn all over it whereas if it’s a cheapa$$ similar body, folks will ridicule it. Not for a second dissin’ LEL, they have their head screwed on and they probably don’t like the Imperial either. But more a comment on some people’s view of cheap basses and Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome.
So that was my initial involvement but I lack the wood skills to cut the new pickup position so I sent it to a mate, Mark, a guitarist who I used to play in a band with in the late 70's.
I wasn't a massive fan of the overall shape so I also asked him to round off the angles and humps a bit;
You are limited with what you can do at the fat end because of control cavity and battery box but I was pleased with the initial result. Obviously there could be no way to reinstate the burl where the old pickup was so I asked him to do a nitro spray too.
Colour
The new colour wasn't the first colour I had in mind, Mark showed me a pic of a bass he'd done which was the Hoppus neon pink. I didn't want to be a copycat although it was gorgeous, so I racked my brains for something that might be as loud and proud but just a bit more me.
As a kid growing up in the early 70's there seemed to be a lot of orange around, decor, spacehoppers and Raleigh Choppers (which I had aged 12)
I thought yeah, I really like the Bass The World Sandberg and I've an Orange combo amp, so why not? I also like the Nederlands folk who are more English than the English but wear their colours loud and proud
Looked at a few swatches and settled on RAL 2011. Kubrick's 'A clockwork Orange' (Anthony Burgess was the author) was also doing the rounds in 1973 so I decided to dedicate the bass to that film, which made a massive impression on us when we sneaked in the cinema to watch an 18+ film at the age of 12!
Though first I'd call the bass the 'clockwork orange' but I also took a clip of Alex Delarge's eye then posterised it to bring out the sinister stare of his right eye then printed onto decal paper;
The writing was going on the headstock and the eye was going somewhere on the body, but I decided to drop the writing and put only Alex's eye on the headstock.
Body nitro spraying;
Rebuild
Shielding
just shielded as normal
Tuners/machine heads had to go they were very sloppy, I was originally going to go for Wilkinsons but I could only find them in 4 no. LH or RH and buying another pack for just one RH didn't make sense but I came across a bloke on Fleabay selling Warwicks for £10 each so I got those instead. Came to the same as if I'd bought 8 Wilkinsons so I went for it.
The Pre-amp I splashed out on, I wasn't sure which one to get but I heard the Glockenklang 3 eq was pretty nice, so that cost me £130 from Thomann. I had a nightmare rewiring the pickups and screwed those up but a big thanks to @kodiakblair who was able to tell me which colour wires the pickups needed to be connected, I suspect the pickups are made in the same factory as Roswell tho' these are unbranded. The tails are exactly the same colours as on my Roswell Filtertron on another guitar, but we forget everything in the past hour let alone the past 3 months so he came to my aid to get this up and running.
Here it is complete, I love the black on orange.
And here it is in the 'Happy Corner'
Final Thoughts,
the Redsub/G4M is a very good VFM bass if you are on a budget and can't afford a Dingwall, especially if you live in the UK where the P&P cost's one more pfunt to get it delivered to your door next day. Don't expect Dingwall quality but expect a great neck with perfect frets and a sublime low B with great resonance and tone. It's a metal guitar but the mods we've have made it a really good all rounder and the neck pickup reposition allows me to reggae and dub with the added bonus I have somewhere to rest my thumb when I want to play on the neck. The bridge pickup sounds nice and 'punk' the way it was meant to be meaning I get the best of both my worlds.
If there is one final disappointment though, I'd say it rests with the Glockenklang. It does sound a little quieter in terms of noise but I didn't shield the Chinese made pre beforehand. It's been 3 months since I ripped out the old pre and memory is a funny thing, but this thread is about exactly the same pre and I can honestly wonder whether the upgrade was worth it.
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/the-20-amazon-preamp-it-sounds-good-to-me.1630646/
Staying with the same pickups for now, can't fault them, I'm not a great believer that a set of Seymours or EMG's are going to rock your bass that much that you'll instantly know the difference, but I may explore that option in a few months or so when I have money to burn.
All in all really happy with how it's turned out.
.Here’s my modded Redsub Coliseum, well actually it’s the G4M 972. Slightly different from the Redsub but close enough for Government work.
G4M 972 Fanned Fret 5-String, Blue Burl Burst - G4M
Since these were the only affordable fanned fret basses to me here in the UK, I ended up buying one and was really astonished with the roasted maple neck and actually the way it played for a cheap no frills bass. I think it punches well above it’s weight in terms of sound and playability. There were some corners cut, bridge pieces grub screws wouldn’t work on some of the pieces due to the hex sockets being slightly deformed so the allen key would not grip, the tuners were a bit sloppy but for £279 not a bad instrument if the truth be told. 3 band eq with a push pull volume for passive.
To me, the only downside was the pickup positioning. @LowEndLobster did a YT review of the Coliseum a couple years ago and both they and I felt that the pickups were in the wrong position, I thought that definitely the ‘neck’ pickup should be closer to the neck. I like to play a bit of dub at times and just felt this was more of a metal guitar So I set out to try to put that right. Firstly I was thinking adding a third pickup more toward the neck but finding any kind of switch that could select all pickups or a full permutation of all three was a nightmare and I didn’t know how I’d even wire it up anyway. So my answer was to move the neck pickup well, nearer to the neck.
Enter @Jposega. Unfortunately he’s listed on here as inactive and suspended now so I guess he’ll not hear this shout out to him. Hopefully he’ll be back as he knows quite a lot about fanned frets. Digressing, he advised I make a pickup mule to find the optimum position for the bridge pickup so I knocked one up and found where I reckon for me was the sweet spot;
It doesn't have the same orientation as the bridge, but it's amazing that by turning a pickup the sound is slightly different. Think Strat etc.
Bodywork
LEL pointed out the body is ugly, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, they also pointed out that there is lack of neck to play solo on and I think they have a good point on that also, problem is if you post a NBD on here and you’ve just scored a Fodera Imperial Elite or similar, thousands of ppl on will fawn all over it whereas if it’s a cheapa$$ similar body, folks will ridicule it. Not for a second dissin’ LEL, they have their head screwed on and they probably don’t like the Imperial either. But more a comment on some people’s view of cheap basses and Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome.
So that was my initial involvement but I lack the wood skills to cut the new pickup position so I sent it to a mate, Mark, a guitarist who I used to play in a band with in the late 70's.
I wasn't a massive fan of the overall shape so I also asked him to round off the angles and humps a bit;
You are limited with what you can do at the fat end because of control cavity and battery box but I was pleased with the initial result. Obviously there could be no way to reinstate the burl where the old pickup was so I asked him to do a nitro spray too.
Colour
The new colour wasn't the first colour I had in mind, Mark showed me a pic of a bass he'd done which was the Hoppus neon pink. I didn't want to be a copycat although it was gorgeous, so I racked my brains for something that might be as loud and proud but just a bit more me.
As a kid growing up in the early 70's there seemed to be a lot of orange around, decor, spacehoppers and Raleigh Choppers (which I had aged 12)
I thought yeah, I really like the Bass The World Sandberg and I've an Orange combo amp, so why not? I also like the Nederlands folk who are more English than the English but wear their colours loud and proud
Looked at a few swatches and settled on RAL 2011. Kubrick's 'A clockwork Orange' (Anthony Burgess was the author) was also doing the rounds in 1973 so I decided to dedicate the bass to that film, which made a massive impression on us when we sneaked in the cinema to watch an 18+ film at the age of 12!
Though first I'd call the bass the 'clockwork orange' but I also took a clip of Alex Delarge's eye then posterised it to bring out the sinister stare of his right eye then printed onto decal paper;
The writing was going on the headstock and the eye was going somewhere on the body, but I decided to drop the writing and put only Alex's eye on the headstock.
Body nitro spraying;
Rebuild
Shielding
just shielded as normal
Tuners/machine heads had to go they were very sloppy, I was originally going to go for Wilkinsons but I could only find them in 4 no. LH or RH and buying another pack for just one RH didn't make sense but I came across a bloke on Fleabay selling Warwicks for £10 each so I got those instead. Came to the same as if I'd bought 8 Wilkinsons so I went for it.
The Pre-amp I splashed out on, I wasn't sure which one to get but I heard the Glockenklang 3 eq was pretty nice, so that cost me £130 from Thomann. I had a nightmare rewiring the pickups and screwed those up but a big thanks to @kodiakblair who was able to tell me which colour wires the pickups needed to be connected, I suspect the pickups are made in the same factory as Roswell tho' these are unbranded. The tails are exactly the same colours as on my Roswell Filtertron on another guitar, but we forget everything in the past hour let alone the past 3 months so he came to my aid to get this up and running.
Here it is complete, I love the black on orange.
And here it is in the 'Happy Corner'
Final Thoughts,
the Redsub/G4M is a very good VFM bass if you are on a budget and can't afford a Dingwall, especially if you live in the UK where the P&P cost's one more pfunt to get it delivered to your door next day. Don't expect Dingwall quality but expect a great neck with perfect frets and a sublime low B with great resonance and tone. It's a metal guitar but the mods we've have made it a really good all rounder and the neck pickup reposition allows me to reggae and dub with the added bonus I have somewhere to rest my thumb when I want to play on the neck. The bridge pickup sounds nice and 'punk' the way it was meant to be meaning I get the best of both my worlds.
If there is one final disappointment though, I'd say it rests with the Glockenklang. It does sound a little quieter in terms of noise but I didn't shield the Chinese made pre beforehand. It's been 3 months since I ripped out the old pre and memory is a funny thing, but this thread is about exactly the same pre and I can honestly wonder whether the upgrade was worth it.
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/the-20-amazon-preamp-it-sounds-good-to-me.1630646/
Staying with the same pickups for now, can't fault them, I'm not a great believer that a set of Seymours or EMG's are going to rock your bass that much that you'll instantly know the difference, but I may explore that option in a few months or so when I have money to burn.
All in all really happy with how it's turned out.
killer! 
