Probably should've checked here before pulling the trigger, ah well. Anyone here happen to previously own this, possibly know of it's origins or anything other than what CME has mentioned? Tobias 8-String Bass Red Refin
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Official Tobias Club
- Thread starter magneezius
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Interested to hear what you think of it when it arrives.....a strange beast indeed! (I initially had my doubts about it being genuine, but that shop does appear to know a bit about Tobias basses...?)
EG
Update it has arrived and it is glorious!!! If anyone knows the story/ previously owned it, PLEASE drop a line!!!
I have a few – don't mind passing them on. Sending you a PM.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Official Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide
Administrator, Official Heartfield Club #36
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Official Pre-Gibson Tobias Owners Club
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Official Pedulla Club #45
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Official Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide
Administrator, Official Heartfield Club #36
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Official Pre-Gibson Tobias Owners Club
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Official Pedulla Club #45
Hi Tobias friends,
I have one of the first Gibson era Tobias Classic 5. (and an MTD535, but that's another story)
I want to try to swap pickups and preamps on the Classic 5 and would like to order Nordstrands before the end of the year to have them on 2024 tax books.
I'm out travelling and don't have the Classic 5 with me. Could anyone be So kind to measure string spacing and pickup size for me so I can order from Nordstrand?
Thank you so much in advance!!
P.S.: I have owned this bass for about 20 years and always felt it was a bit too muddy and unclear. So it doesn't get used as much as it should.
Ciao
dB
I have one of the first Gibson era Tobias Classic 5. (and an MTD535, but that's another story)
I want to try to swap pickups and preamps on the Classic 5 and would like to order Nordstrands before the end of the year to have them on 2024 tax books.
I'm out travelling and don't have the Classic 5 with me. Could anyone be So kind to measure string spacing and pickup size for me so I can order from Nordstrand?
Thank you so much in advance!!
P.S.: I have owned this bass for about 20 years and always felt it was a bit too muddy and unclear. So it doesn't get used as much as it should.
Ciao
dB
For those who own a Gibson basic or killer b model, I could use your help. I'm currently building my own bass based on the classic models I have. And fortunately, I was able to purchase a complete killer b pickups and preamp system. I'm now ready to route the pickup pockets. My question is, where to locate the pickups? This is what I have from my classics. Measuring from the center of the 24th fret and to the center of the pickups, the distances come out to be 2 15/16 for the neck pick up and 6 1/2 for the bridge pick up. I would like to know if this is the same spacing Gibson used on the basic and killer models. Thank you in advance for your help.
Your measurements concur with my 1999 Classic. As far as I can tell from pictures, the Basic had the same pick up placement.
The Killer B was different. The pickups were closer to the bridge, and closer together, as most any picture comparison will show. The measurements for my 199x model from the 24th fret is 4-1/4 and 6-15/16.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Official Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Official Heartfield Club #36
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Official Pre-Gibson Tobias Owners Club
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide
My apologies, I saw your post back when it appeared, but then forgot to follow up.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Official Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Official Heartfield Club #36
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Official Pre-Gibson Tobias Owners Club
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide
Has anyone swapped pickups on a Tobias Classic 5?
Apparently pickup size is not so common. I measured them at 29mm x 104mm
The wonderful and quick customer service at Nordstrand told me they don't make pickups in that size.
What options are there?
I don't like bright pickups, but the bass now is a bit too dull. Not dark or bassy, it's a little plastic sounding, blurry. I want something clearer.
I am using flats at the moment and the bass is defretted. But I had the exact same feeling with rounds and with frets still on.
Looking for: warm and solid bottom end, clear and tight. Modern but with not too much zing. Money is no object as long as the bass comes to life
No slapping, no mwah, it is setup with not too low action. I like my fretless to sound like a fretted, but with the option for added expression in the phrasing.
Help appreciated
dB
Apparently pickup size is not so common. I measured them at 29mm x 104mm
The wonderful and quick customer service at Nordstrand told me they don't make pickups in that size.
What options are there?
I don't like bright pickups, but the bass now is a bit too dull. Not dark or bassy, it's a little plastic sounding, blurry. I want something clearer.
I am using flats at the moment and the bass is defretted. But I had the exact same feeling with rounds and with frets still on.
Looking for: warm and solid bottom end, clear and tight. Modern but with not too much zing. Money is no object as long as the bass comes to life
No slapping, no mwah, it is setup with not too low action. I like my fretless to sound like a fretted, but with the option for added expression in the phrasing.
Help appreciated
dB
Has anyone swapped pickups on a Tobias Classic 5?
Apparently pickup size is not so common. I measured them at 29mm x 104mm
The wonderful and quick customer service at Nordstrand told me they don't make pickups in that size.
What options are there?
I don't like bright pickups, but the bass now is a bit too dull. Not dark or bassy, it's a little plastic sounding, blurry. I want something clearer.
I am using flats at the moment and the bass is defretted. But I had the exact same feeling with rounds and with frets still on.
Looking for: warm and solid bottom end, clear and tight. Modern but with not too much zing. Money is no object as long as the bass comes to life
No slapping, no mwah, it is setup with not too low action. I like my fretless to sound like a fretted, but with the option for added expression in the phrasing.
Help appreciated
dB
Thanks for letting us know about the defretting – very important in this case, I feel.
In my admittedly limited experience, the fretboard wood makes or breaks a fretless, much more so than with a fretted instrument.
I only have experience with three fretless basses. The first is a Pedulla Thunderbass that I had converted to fretless. It had an ebony fingerboard and got a nice, warm "mwah" after the conversion. However, it wouldn't get the aggressive "mwah" tones that the Pedulla Buzz basses with the hard epoxy-coated necks I've heard on Youtube and the like. As far as I can tell, ebony is typically known as a fairly hard wood.
Here's a recording with that bass:
The next bass is a Tobias Killer B fretless (original, not converted) with a pau ferro fingerboard. It can get some pretty aggressive "mwah" – more than the Thunderbass, but again nothing like the epoxy Buzz basses. From what I can tell, pau ferro is a pretty hard wood, probably harder than ebony. The name actually means "iron wood," so that says a lot.
The third is an Ibanez BTB Prestige 1005 fretless. It has a rosewood finger board and couldn't "mwah" if its life depended on it. Okay, I can manipulate the settings to get some (pan back to the bridge pickup, cut the bass and boost the mids). But then it just sounds all thin and wimpy. But for the most part, when it souns decent, it just sounds like a fretted bass. Pretty dull IMO. From what I can find, rosewood is way less hard than ebony or rosewood.
I think it's relevant to note that with MTD's Kingston line, the fretless versions of any particular model all have ebony fretboards.
Thus, it seems that the hardest fretboards get the most "mwah," seemingly on a sliding scale.
You said you don't do "mwah," but it's easy enough to dial it back or even eliminate it. But even with that, you will still have strong the upper mids giving definition. If it's not there to begin with there's no good way to get it.
So, what wood is your fingerboard? From what I can find on line, with the Classic it might be rosewood or wenge.
I found this page that notes the sound quality of different fretboard woods. It describes rosewood as "a very warm-sounding, known to cut off harsh high frequencies and making an instrument's tone 'rounder.'" How does that fit with your feelings of your bass? Again, IMO this matters more with a fretless bass than fretted.
For wenge fretboards, the page offers this graph:
As you can see, wenge is strong on the lows and mids, but weak on the highs. Both the rosewood and wenge descriptions seem to have a strong correlation to your description of the way your Classic sounds.
In addition, my luthier tells me that fretless models typically will not have the same electronics as their fretted twins, that active ones typically have lower output. He says this is intentional to get the best sound. That doesn't make much sense to me, but guess what? My Killer B and BTB both have lower output than my active fretted basses. This is something that won't be found on a conversion, and it might make a difference.
Bottom line, from what I can tell – and your post seems to confirm – if you want a fretless bass, it's best to get one that was made that way from the builder, and you're taking your chances with a converted one. I got lucky with my Pedulla, for the most part.
Thus, to me it doesn't seem wise to go on a fishing expedition looking for the elusive electronics to get what you're after, especially with a fretless. Unless you know someone who did the exact same conversion you're considering, with the same bass. That stuff gets expensive really quick.
Still, the Classic has great electronics, so it should be possible to get something you can be happy with. Typically with a fretless, you want to pan at least a bit towards the bridge to get that "midrangey" sound. Or maybe pan hard to the bridge, with the bass knob dialed up to make up for the lost low end. Try playing with the midrange knob, experimenting with the frequency switch. Switching to slap mode (pull up on the volume knob) gets you a whole other palate of tone options to play with.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Official Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Official Heartfield Club #36
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Official Pre-Gibson Tobias Owners Club
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide
Thanks Wayne for the extensive reply
The fingerboard is rosewood as you guessed. With a thin and stretched out coat of epoxy, which I'm planning to replace with superglue at one point, mostly for the looks.
I bought the Classic over 20 years ago, fretted, roundwound strings on it for years, tried several brands.
I always had the feeling the bass sounded a bit synthetic. Some kind of slick overly smooth, dull sound. Because of that it hardly ever got used. So at one point I decided to de-fret it, just to see if I could find a use for it. No luck, the sound and character of the bass remained identical (not surprisingly) so it ended up in a corner again.
I love the looks and how it feels to play it without amplification, I even like the sound when I put my ear or chin to the body, so I thought I'd give it one last chance, change pickups and electronics and see if I can get a clearer, more defined sound out of it, more real and organic somehow.
I have indeed played around with the onboard EQ and pickup selector, but it just doesn't lead me to a sound that makes me want to play the bass on gigs or records.
I realize modding is not as good an idea as buying a bass that is designed to be fretless and sounds amazing in the store already, but I think a fishing expedition is what is in my future at this point
If it doesn't work out I'll use the new preamp in another bass at one point and potentially sell the new pickups. Or take a $$ loss but know that I did my best
So I just need to find pickups that fit in there: 29mm x 104mm.
Final piece of info: when played in passive mode (no slap mode on this unless the pot is stuck...) the sound is slightly less plasticky, but I still feel it's a bit too dull and some plastic remains. Again, this was the same feeling I had when the bass was fretted and I had round-wound strings on it. That's what leads me to want to change pickups AND preamp.
Not assuming this will solve my issues, but I really want to try after seeing this bass sitting in a closet for years.
Ciao
dB
The fingerboard is rosewood as you guessed. With a thin and stretched out coat of epoxy, which I'm planning to replace with superglue at one point, mostly for the looks.
I bought the Classic over 20 years ago, fretted, roundwound strings on it for years, tried several brands.
I always had the feeling the bass sounded a bit synthetic. Some kind of slick overly smooth, dull sound. Because of that it hardly ever got used. So at one point I decided to de-fret it, just to see if I could find a use for it. No luck, the sound and character of the bass remained identical (not surprisingly) so it ended up in a corner again.
I love the looks and how it feels to play it without amplification, I even like the sound when I put my ear or chin to the body, so I thought I'd give it one last chance, change pickups and electronics and see if I can get a clearer, more defined sound out of it, more real and organic somehow.
I have indeed played around with the onboard EQ and pickup selector, but it just doesn't lead me to a sound that makes me want to play the bass on gigs or records.
I realize modding is not as good an idea as buying a bass that is designed to be fretless and sounds amazing in the store already, but I think a fishing expedition is what is in my future at this point
If it doesn't work out I'll use the new preamp in another bass at one point and potentially sell the new pickups. Or take a $$ loss but know that I did my best
So I just need to find pickups that fit in there: 29mm x 104mm.
Final piece of info: when played in passive mode (no slap mode on this unless the pot is stuck...) the sound is slightly less plasticky, but I still feel it's a bit too dull and some plastic remains. Again, this was the same feeling I had when the bass was fretted and I had round-wound strings on it. That's what leads me to want to change pickups AND preamp.
Not assuming this will solve my issues, but I really want to try after seeing this bass sitting in a closet for years.
Ciao
dB
I have a curiosity question. Regarding the Bartolini pickups, are they mounted directly to the body wood or are there some sort of shims or something use to adjust the pickup height? Also, is there a sub cavity for the wire connectors and then one for the wire? I never had a need to do anything with the pickups and was wondering how they were mounted.
If the pickups raise or lower with a screw driver, than there are springs in play. Often they are merely coil springs that slip over the screw shaft, which situates them between the pickup and the wood body.
I don't understand the second question. However, I have three Tobias basses, and all have only a single cavity for the electronics.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Official Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Official Heartfield Club #36
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Official Pre-Gibson Tobias Owners Club
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide
I appreciate the follow up. Clarification for the one question. So, if the pickups are mounted directly to the body, then under the pickup, there will need to be a space for the pickup wire and the connectors where that wire is connected to and the other smaller wires connecting the pickup internals. Does that make sense?
I've only dealt with a few basses, but typically the pickups have wire pigtails directly attached - no connection terminals - that are several inches long. The pickup cavity has a hole drilled from there into the electronics cavity. That allows the wire to be fed from the pickup directly to the electronics cavity, which is where all the connections are made.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Official Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Official Heartfield Club #36
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Official Pre-Gibson Tobias Owners Club
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Make Your Own Cables: A How-To Guide
Have you tried raising the pickups (closer to the strings)?Has anyone swapped pickups on a Tobias Classic 5?
Apparently pickup size is not so common. I measured them at 29mm x 104mm
The wonderful and quick customer service at Nordstrand told me they don't make pickups in that size.
What options are there?
I don't like bright pickups, but the bass now is a bit too dull. Not dark or bassy, it's a little plastic sounding, blurry. I want something clearer.
I am using flats at the moment and the bass is defretted. But I had the exact same feeling with rounds and with frets still on.
Looking for: warm and solid bottom end, clear and tight. Modern but with not too much zing. Money is no object as long as the bass comes to life
No slapping, no mwah, it is setup with not too low action. I like my fretless to sound like a fretted, but with the option for added expression in the phrasing.
Help appreciated
dB
My Classic 5 sounded so much clearer once my tech did that.
You could also bypass the preamp (pickup to jack). If that fixes it, it's the preamp that needs servicing/modding/replacing). If it doesn't, then it's the pickups.
Is it the same with a brand new battery? Testing a new battery the voltage should be 9.4V or so.
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