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Roscoe Club

Well, I know that I said when I traded for my current Roscoe that I was going to leave it with the Bartolini preamp and Roscoe Bart pickups. Well, once again I lied! :roflmao:
It was just too wooly sounding in the mix. Just not enough note definition. I loved the tone, but it didn't translate well in the mix.
So, I ordered a Nordstrand 3-band with the passive tone control and active/passive P/P pot. It arrived today and I immediately installed it.
I totally love the sound! So much more note definition and much more open sounding. I definitely think it was a good decision.
I also install the HipShot Bass Extender on the B string so I could quickly go from B to Bb for some of the tunes that we do.
The Root Beer bass is finished!

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Fun day visiting Roscoe!
Always great seeing Keith and Kyle.
They really had a lot of basses in process. Much busier than I thought that they would be.
I got to check out a few chambered basses and few headless and even a 3 pickup special order bass!
Keith was so kind and patient and really took out some time to show us everything in the shop.
Here’s a few pics. Hopefully something to interest everyone.

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Wow, Joe. Thanks for injecting a needed shot of vitamin B12 to our beloved club thread. You and Keith have been friends for a long time, and he's so gracious to allow photo tours of his works in progress, and true custom shop operation, where every bass is custom spec'd.

The pics? Cool basses in progress, saw dust, a mix of vintage, heavy duty, and high-tech machinery, piles of old-growth woods, and the welcoming presence of Keith Roscoe. And, those finishes! Amazing to think that Keith is the finisher, and possibly the best in the world.

While other bass "makers/kit assemblers" send their bodies (often premade) to out-of-house finishers, it's just another part of the Roscoe in-house production process. The Roscoe family and story are unique, as are Roscoe basses, and the Roscoe production facility. Savor, savor. Order, order, Roscoe heads!

PS love that Keith's pup is following him around during your tour : )

PPS is that your truck out front, Joe? : )
 
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Wow, Joe. Thanks for injecting a needed shot of vitamin B12 to our beloved club thread. You and Keith have been friends for a long time, and he's so gracious to allow photo tours of his works in progress, and true custom shop operation, where every bass is custom spec'd.

The pics? Cool basses in progress, saw dust, a mix of vintage, heavy duty, and high-tech machinery, piles of old-growth woods, and the welcoming presence of Keith Roscoe. And, those finishes! Amazing to think that Keith is the finisher, and possibly the best in the world.

While other bass "makers/kit assemblers" send their bodies (often premade) to out-of-house finishers, it's just another part of the Roscoe in-house production process. The Roscoe family and story are unique, as are Roscoe basses, and the Roscoe production facility. Savor, savor. Order, order, Roscoe heads!

PS love that Keith's pup is following him around during your tour : )

PPS is that your truck out front, Joe? : )
Thanks Fritz. The truck belongs to Kyle. And I asked Kyle if he was ready to take things over and he said absolutely! Not that that’s happing anytime real soon but he loves building basses!
 
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Fun day visiting Roscoe!
Always great seeing Keith and Kyle.
They really had a lot of basses in process. Much busier than I thought that they would be.
I got to check out a few chambered basses and few headless and even a 3 pickup special order bass!
Keith was so kind and patient and really took out some time to show us everything in the shop.
Here’s a few pics. Hopefully something to interest everyone.

View attachment 7471210

This is a perfect top....completely in love with that one!
 
I did get too see one bass currently being built for a TB’er. Absolutely beautiful and almost done! I won’t disclose who it is. I’ll let them (if they want to). :)
Well, Joe, I'll come forward to share some build history and background for the bass you mentioned and shared. It's an SKB fretted headless 6-string model. I've had the good fortune to play several Roscoe 6's, including this fretless, which some of you might remember as a Roscoe website "banner" bass.

Gard Banner copy.png


There were some things that I loved about that bass, like Roscoe design and workmanship, 6 strings, the Wenge and Maple Signature model wedge neck, the beautiful carved top, and the bridge-centric pickups. These are some of the attributes incorporated for my build in process.

Some of the challenges of the "banner" bass were the 19mm bridge spacing, and the resulting neck and nut width required to support it. Those, along with the 35"-scale reach, caused some left-hand technique adaptations to keep my left wrist happy and healthy.

Recently, Keith Roscoe presented a beautiful headless 6-string build that caught my eye. It was 33" scale. The "sound of it" made my wrist very happy.

6 inspiration.jpg


Having enjoyed playing a Roscoe headless bass for a number of years, I found his new short-scale 6 bass to be stunning. I decided to trust Keith's observation regarding a good low B on the shorter scale. Also, one of my favorite sounding Roscoes had a Cocobolo top, and I wanted to try that with an Alder body. So, a special order was submitted to the Roscoe Guitar factory, with the following general specifications. Please note that the entire bass is custom spec'd.

SKB Custom model, fretted, headless, 6-string bass
Alder body with Cocobolo top. Multiple top blanks were offered as candidates prior to final selection. Poly finish
33" scale, Wenge/Maple/Wenge wedge neck, carbon fiber rods, with Wenge fingerboard
Hipshot headless hardware, 16.5mm spacing, black
Roscoe Barts with bridge-centric backward slants
Nordstrand 4-band preamp with passive tone control. Series and parallel switches for each pickup

Here are 2 progress shots, compliments of Keith Roscoe:

Cocobolo body 1.jpeg


Cocobolo neck 1.jpeg


It's been a great experience working with Keith on this bass. He has been extremely patient, helpful, and encouraging during the build process. And, thanks to Keith and our good friend Joe for the most recent progress shots.

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More info to come as the build progresses. .
 
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Hello Roscoeheads! I have a couple Roscoe shirts that I don't wear because I lost some weight and they're too big. I've had them for some time (Gard was still there), but are still in great shape. The headstock t is a XL short sleeve. The logo t is a 2x long sleeve. I don't want anything for them, so if you're interested please DM me. Now if I could just find my old LG...
 

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