Post your high end and custom passive basses

[Mastermold]

My humble apologies. I had no idea it was a custom shop

I was under the influence of my own definition of high end: "every extra penny improves something in sound and/or ergonomics and/or playability". Again my apologies

No worries, P-basses all look the same anyway!

 

[Anthbass]

Clement fretless 5. The control knobs are 'loud' and 'cut'.

 

[RLK]

My Laggan
(for better or worse, its my design/specs)
Controls;
-Vol
-Balance
-(Rothstein) "Mtb Mid-Scoop/Tone Switch"

 

[RLK]

My Skjold Lion's Pride:
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I think this is my all-time my favorite modern "P" inspired bass!!
(so far)

 

[kevin_lindsay]

My Surf Green Nordy VJ5 (ash body, maple neck with bird's eye maple fingerboard). For many years I always went for the active circuitry thing on my custom basses. However, I recently came to the conclusion that the best sounding instruments I had were old passive ones - so for this bass we went for the basics - get the tone right, and you can tweak it at the amp if you want to.

 

[BigRedX]

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What exactly do the coils in control cavity do? Bass roll-off? I ask because I recently bought a Kramer Aluminium neck which has similar looking (mod'd) electronics. However I can't really hear anything different to the usual treble cut on the tone controls.

 

[BigRedX]

And yet another chance to show off one of my Gus basses:

5-string fretted passive with 4 single coil pickups wired as 2 humbuckers.
The controls are volume, 3-way pickup selector and tone (with a pull coil tap). Massive tone and loud with it - puts most actives to shame.

 

[Tumbao]

My custom passive Rbass

 

[Hoover]

Not sure if this really counts as "high end" -- though they did list for $1,895 in 1985 dollars, and back then they were the equivalent of today's Sadowsky's in terms of caché.

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mid-80's Schecter California Custom B/4 w/ passive "Monstertone" pickups.

 

[RLK]

What exactly do the coils in control cavity do? Bass roll-off? I ask because I recently bought a Kramer Aluminium neck which has similar looking (mod'd) electronics. However I can't really hear anything different to the usual treble cut on the tone controls.

I think they are "dummy" coils.
I think each is paired with one of the visible coils that are under the strings.
The idea is to hum cancel and still have the single coil sound.

 

[capnsandwich]

My Skjold Lion's Pride:
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I played Tom Bowlus' Lion's Pride and that bass played and sounded AMAZING!!! You'd never guess that bass was passive with all the tonal variations one could get. Oh, and did I mention how perfect the neck profile was? Such a GAS inducing instrument should be regulated by the government.

 

[Erick Lam]

What exactly do the coils in control cavity do?

I'll let Debased answer that one:

It has passive single-coils with a dummy pickup in the control cavity to act as a hum-cancelling coil.

 

[dave251]

 

[BigRedX]

Thanks for that info.

In that case the coils in my Kramer are there for some other function as the pick ups are humbuckers.

 

[Zooberwerx]

My Surf Green Nordy VJ5 (ash body, maple neck with bird's eye maple fingerboard). For many years I always went for the active circuitry thing on my custom basses. However, I recently came to the conclusion that the best sounding instruments I had were old passive ones - so for this bass we went for the basics - get the tone right, and you can tweak it at the amp if you want to.

Nice bass but what's the structure in the background? It appears Scottish and very important.

Riis

 

[GobBass]

Nice bass but what's the structure in the background? It appears Scottish and very important.

Riis

That would be Buckingham Palace.where ol' Queen Lizzy lives..It's in ENGLAND.Nice Nordy..loving the birdseye.

 

[savit260]

Wile not ulta high end, or rediculously expensive, the build quality of this hand made Bacchus from Japan is right up there with a lot of stuff that's considered high end around here on TB.
Nitro finish two tone sunburst on ash, with a nice birds eye maple neck, and top shelf build quality... and passive.

 

[artistanbul]

My Skjold Lion's Pride:
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Why does it look so nice? It shouldn't but it does...
beautiful.

 

[GregC]

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LeCompte CB-SC-4

I've seen this one before, I love it! Bud makes some great stuff, from what I've seen.

And yet another chance to show off one of my Gus basses:

5-string fretted passive with 4 single coil pickups wired as 2 humbuckers.
The controls are volume, 3-way pickup selector and tone (with a pull coil tap). Massive tone and loud with it - puts most actives to shame.

Whoa. The look is so different from what I normally like, but I'm drawn to it. I bet it sounds fantastic.

My Surf Green Nordy VJ5 (ash body, maple neck with bird's eye maple fingerboard). For many years I always went for the active circuitry thing on my custom basses. However, I recently came to the conclusion that the best sounding instruments I had were old passive ones - so for this bass we went for the basics - get the tone right, and you can tweak it at the amp if you want to.

Awesome Nordy.

 

[Yvon]

my kind of thread!

My Lecompte, completly passive with only 2 swtiches.

humbucker, single coil, off

1 for each pickup.