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Putting a Synth Petal in my J-Bass

H

harrisonosirrah

May 14, 2012
5
0
Warner, NH
#1
Hi I'm new here and I've been wondering something.
I am a parapalegic, and I really love useing my Digitech Synth Wah. Before my injuy playing with it live was no problem. But now toggleing it on and off is a nightmare.
So now I want to intall it directly into my bass. I imagined putting the four knobs on the highest part of the body above the cutout (do you get where I mean?) and intsalling a toggle swich of some sort to turn it on and off. My bass is a off brand Fender J-Bass so you can picture the shape. I know its not the real deal but Ive been moding it to make it worthy.
So what I'm asking is I guess is this feasible? Has it been done? Is there other synth parts made for this? Would a different location on the bass be better/easier/smarter? What's the best way to accomplish this and where do I start?
I hope someone could help point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance. It's great to be here.
-Harrison
 
#2
Hi Harrison,

Firstly I'm really sorry to hear about your injury, I can't begin to imagine how difficult it must be, but props for keeping at it!

To be honest I'm not sure how easy it would be to do, it definitely is possible, although you may have to get someone to mount it for you. If you haven't heard of the Muse guitarist Matt Bellamy before, search the internet for his guitar - he's got a few pedals built into his.

Best of luck!
 
#3
Before you spend a bunch of money having that done, you may want to check out the roland GR guitar synth stuff. Lots of sounds and I think you can control it from the guitar/bass. I know there are 3 or 4 channel banks but you could probably get your favorites in one bank and scroll from the bass. Just a thought....
 
#4
There are two things you will need to do this.

1: The pedal
2: A guy who has a router and is good with plastics or can create a cover for the rear.

There is a ton of space to work with, you just have to figure out where to put it all. You will need a 9 volt box for the battery, some shielding, and the ability to stuff whatever board you want in there.

You could put a Deep Impact in a J Bass if you wanted. The direct output would be wired to the input of the pedal, then the output of the pedal would be your actual output.

It shouldn't be hard, as long as you can find someone that could route the body, and put everything in.
 
#5
If you can afford it i would recommend getting a variax bass and a pod hd. You can actually use the knobs on the bass to adjust effect perameters so you can run a different effect for each knob and bring them in and out with your hands. A cheaper method I've seen is guys actually run a stomp box on batteries and tape it to the guitar strap. A band I saw open for staind like ten years back controlled there distortion like that.
 
#6
Thanks for the tips guys. I will definitely delve deeper into Bellamy's set up. I'm sure there will be useful info somewhere. As for the GR synths I really want something onboard so I can take it anywhere easily. But it would be nice for the home studio that I'm slowly colecting gear for.
I opened up my Digitech and its really quite small without all that metal. I don't know how but if I could remove the four pots from the curcitboard they look like most other pots, just three little legs. The synth type selector has four but it doesnt seem impossible. I took pics if anyone who knows how curcitboards work wants to help. I know a bit about wiring but not enough. Then of course there is the problem of cutting a hole in my bass to fit it and running the signal through the pedal. I relise this stuff is way over my head but hopefuly someone could explain how it could be done in theory. That way when I go to a pro I could help them help me.
Eskimo and K-Punk thanks again.
 
#8
Harrison,

This can absolutely be done. Where are you located? I'm in Chicago and if you are willing to send me the pedal and bass I would be willing to do this for parts and any other small costs. I realize you don't know me, but I have done many transactions (sales and other) on Harmony central, rig talk, and I have a few posts here all under the same user name if you want to do some quick research on that.

Admittedly this isn't 100% out of the goodness of my heart as I am at the very beginning stages of my own guitar repair/modification/building company. I'm not looking to make any money on this, just use it as a reference and document it and help someone in out in an unfortunate situation.

I've actually made these 2 guitars for myself which were completely based on Matt Bellamy's guitars which have been previously mentioned in the thread. I'm a huge Muse fan and a guitarist first. The chrome one has the built in xy-midi pad similar to what he uses, and the black one has a built in fuzz factory, with piezo and midi capabilities.

If you are interested in this, then PM me for further details. If you'd rather not do it and get it done locally, then I totally get it. You can PM me for details on how to go about doing this and I'd be more than willing to help with that as well.

Phil

IMAG0167.jpg


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#9
Wow Phil, that is an extremly generous offer. I don't know how much it cost to ship a bass. I'm in New Hampshire by the way. But your work looks very nice.
I'm currently in the process of doing some other small mods right now. I am only a novice at working on guitars and basses so some help would be awesome. Like I said this pedal idea probably won't happen right way. But if you want to help me with what I'm doing now it would really put my mind at ease.
I'm just installing a 2-Band Blackout EQ and an active jack into my bass. I've looked over the diagrams over and over. I'm pretty sure I can do it but I would love some reasurence so as that I dont ruin it somehow. Maybe I could email you some pictures and you could help walk me throgh it somewhat. If not thats ok. But after I hook up my new EQ I also have some fender J-bass pick-up covers that I want to put on. The only hard part of that is I have to grind down the corners of my bridge to have the bridge cover fit properly. I'm going to have my dad help me with the grinding and drilling but none of my friends are very confident in wiring. I'm decent at soldiering so I think I can do it. Once all that is done I guess my next project will be the pedal intalation. But until then maybe you could help a young guy out with some simpler stuff. Let me know if you have the time to teach me a bit.
My E-mail is [email protected]
Thank you so very much. everyone on this site has been so nice and helpful. I can't wait to finish my bass and keep going on to other projects.
-Harrison
 
#12
Whenever I've heard people talk about it before, usually I try to talk people out of installing pedals into guitars/basses, because you never know if you eventually want to change the order of your effects, or even change to different effects altogether. But I never considered that someone would need to do it because of health issues. I think it's awesome that you're keeping at it, and I'm really interested to see how this turns out, too. Good luck!
 

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