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Official Zon Club Part 5

You are correct, I was showing the only current pic of my Mesa and custom 4-10 cab. It was the only one I had in my phone. A friend of mine has three of those basses, two four strings, one has an ash body and one has an alder body and he has a five string too. I forget the name of them but they are the Marcus Miller model and they sound really great. You can have the action though, super high off the fretboard and it's not my axe so I wasn't going to adjust it. We swap basses and amps every so often when we are bored. He just happened to have my Zon and I had his ash four string when I took that picture of my bass rig that's all. He has an Eden amp and two Acme low B, I think ? Cabinets. They are 2-10 speaker cabs and super light weight. Very great sounding rig he has with 4-10" speakers in all.The Eden sounds great too. We get together and jam a bit and lend each other our stuff just for something different. No matter how great your equipment is it's nice to drive something else once in a while. I can only go so long without my Zon though. I need the low action or my hands start to hurt. No spring chicken anymore. Sire basses yeah that's it. Great sounding bass but I need low action and IMO you are not going to get it consistently without at least strips of composite reinforcement found in wood necks like in Sadowsky or a handful of other builders. Necks age and like a fence post age will affect a neck and usually not in the form of lower action. That's why The Ox went to The Buzzard Bass. He could afford any instrument he wanted but tired of neck warp and wood neck inconsistency...hence The Buzzard Bass. I agree with him. That's a pic of the center of my little jam spot universe in my loft. My guitar rig, that I flop around on like a fish out of water.100$ ESP guitar. Well I probably flop around on bass too. Iam not getting rich off music but I feel rich while Iam noodling around out in my little universe of inaccountability. I only have to answer to myself and the only question I have is....how do I get better tone? The lifelong quest.
 
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Hey Zon Friends,

While I love my Legacy Elite 519, I don't really love the way the knobs point. So with too much time on my hands, I decided to do something about it. Sure, I could have just re-pointed the stock knobs but I really like the Sadowsky-style knobs. The white line is my favorite reference (as opposed to just a dot) and I also wanted to re-orient them so they look *at* me rather than away from me.

Before: This is everything centered and the volume full up.
View attachment 3808219

And after. Sadowsky's shop is closed so I had to do some research! These are Kilo knobs and they seem to be the exact same. In fact, one of these IS a Sadowsky knob! Can you tell the difference? I sure can't and I put it on.

View attachment 3808225

My next little project is to install gold Schaller S-Locks straplocks. Tomorrow!
I prefer the look of those knobs also and wanted to do the same but wasn't sure about how to approach a stackable knob with those? I guess it shouldn't matter since I keep my tone controls flat. I do not hear much difference boosting my bass on my amp compared to on my bass. Your bass looks very nice and I love the look of those knobs!
 
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Thank you! :)

The top is Black Redwood Burl (w/matching headstock). I picked the top from a couple of options and then asked Joe to reverse the halves. I'm pretty happy with how it came out!
Yes that is one bad ride! Love that! Wood does affect tone, I had a Sonus 519 with Redwood Burl and loved the tone. I've also tried a Modulus with a Redwood Burl top and it also sounded and looked amazing. It was freshly strung with DiAddario stainless and that Modulus spoke to me. Good looks, good tones!
 
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I prefer the look of those knobs also and wanted to do the same but wasn't sure about how to approach a stackable knob with those? I guess it shouldn't matter since I keep my tone controls flat. I do not hear much difference boosting my bass on my amp compared to on my bass. Your bass looks very nice and I love the look of those knobs!

Thank you, I'm glad I made the change. It may not seem like a big consideration but I feel that if I spend even a millisecond wondering what the controls are actually doing then it's a distraction.

Sadowsky uses stacked knobs as well and I would expect them to also be Kilo's!

That said... I don't know of a source for them. Someone else found these (don't know if they are Kilo or not) and maybe it's worth taking a flyer on one and seeing if it works for you?

Concentric Stacked Black Aluminum Knob - Best Bass Gear
 
Thank you, I'm glad I made the change. It may not seem like a big consideration but I feel that if I spend even a millisecond wondering what the controls are actually doing then it's a distraction.

Sadowsky uses stacked knobs as well and I would expect them to also be Kilo's!

That said... I don't know of a source for them. Someone else found these (don't know if they are Kilo or not) and maybe it's worth taking a flyer on one and seeing if it works for you?

Concentric Stacked Black Aluminum Knob - Best Bass Gear
Iam always distracted, I just prefer the look of them.
 
Don’t know if I’ve ever posted in this thread, but in 2018 I acquired a 2013 Zon TJ Custom fretless 5’er with a Set-Neck in exceptional condition in a trade, then sold it last year, but today I bought it back!! So this beautiful Zon is back home!!
02D7784E-C74D-4BC9-B62C-A60E4DFB5027.jpeg
 
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@Nightman that's very much like mine, and it's absolutely THE shizzle. Main diffs, I believe, is yours has an ash/bubinga body with a dark wood sandwiched in and "standard" pickup placement, mine has a guanacaste/bubinga, no sandwich, and the "special" pickup placement. Love yours too.
zon-032020-4.JPG
 
Don’t know if I’ve ever posted in this thread, but in 2018 I acquired a 2013 Zon TJ Custom fretless 5’er with a Set-Neck in exceptional condition in a trade, then sold it last year, but today I bought it back!! So this beautiful Zon is back home!!
View attachment 3825214
Very nice! This is a TJ5, right? I have a TJ4 (see left). I just wondered how much your bass weighs? The reason I ask is that I have a 91 Sonus 4 String with an ash body and bubinga top that comes in at 7.6 lbs whereas my TJ4 which has an alder body and an olive top is 9.4 lbs. This is quite a difference! In my case, the neck on the 91 Sonus is thinner and the body of the TJ4 is thicker. I have no idea how the density of ash and alder compares, but of course that would play into the calculation too.
 
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@Nightman that's very much like mine, and it's absolutely THE shizzle. Main diffs, I believe, is yours has an ash/bubinga body with a dark wood sandwiched in and "standard" pickup placement, mine has a guanacaste/bubinga, no sandwich, and the "special" pickup placement. Love yours too.
View attachment 3827398

Nice! Is that a Mid high/low toggle? What are the controls? One looks like a midi(?).

The woods on mine are Mahogany body, Bubinga top with Wenge shim.

I certainly like the way this bass sounds and plays. The neck feels so good in my hands! This bass is the ONLY bass I’ve ever owned, sold and then bought it back! :laugh:
 
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Very nice! This is a TJ5, right? I have a TJ4 (see left). I just wondered how much your bass weighs? The reason I ask is that I have a 91 Sonus 4 String with an ash body and bubinga top that comes in at 7.6 lbs whereas my TJ4 which has an alder body and an olive top is 9.4 lbs. This is quite a difference! In my case, the neck on the 91 Sonus is thinner and the body of the TJ4 is thicker. I have no idea how the density of ash and alder compares, but of course that would play into the calculation too.

My understanding is Ash can be a bit heavy, more so than Swamp Ash. My Zon has the Mahogany body with Bubinga top and tips the scale at 9.8 pounds, which is about the heaviest bass I have.
 
Nice! Is that a Mid high/low toggle? What are the controls? One looks like a midi(?).
The woods on mine are Mahogany body, Bubinga top with Wenge shim.
I certainly like the way this bass sounds and plays. The neck feels so good in my hands! This bass is the ONLY bass I’ve ever owned, sold and then bought it back! :laugh:
The toggle was *originally" a mid-frequency selector for the original Bart preamp.
I replaced that with an ACG filter pre, so now it's a "producer switch" (e.g., does nothing).
And the owl medallion covers the 5th hole that was there from the original preamp config. The ACG has 4 stacked pots.
 
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:laugh: I'm afraid yours looks more glamorous than mine!! Your neck reflects like a mirror!! Mine has had some sanding done to it to smooth it out from the added fret lines, but it's as smooth as glass!! :thumbsup:
That's solely the result of playing it every day :D
Very nice! This is a TJ5, right? I have a TJ4 (see left). I just wondered how much your bass weighs? The reason I ask is that I have a 91 Sonus 4 String with an ash body and bubinga top that comes in at 7.6 lbs whereas my TJ4 which has an alder body and an olive top is 9.4 lbs. This is quite a difference! In my case, the neck on the 91 Sonus is thinner and the body of the TJ4 is thicker. I have no idea how the density of ash and alder compares, but of course that would play into the calculation too.
Not answering for Nightman, but I believe the person who ordered his was influenced by mine, which was the first of it's kind that Joe built.
It's a Sonus body with a deep cutaway (rather than a TJ body) and set neck. I spec'd it with the pickups he uses in his Sonus Customs with the placement used in the Sonus Special.
 
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