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Scott Whitley SWB-1

#301
Stephen, truly a man of great patience, did some kind of "magic" and I received my Swb-1 way before expected.

The craftmanship on the instrument is simply amazing, mine is a mahogany active bass, a great chunk of wooden, slick, with a fast neck and a really comfortable fingerboard. Love how the electronics work, there's a whole range of sounds at disposal. At the moment I'm going to operate with the bass mostly in a really noisy post-punk quartet, and having both a really metallic treble and deep dubby-bass sounds is simply amazing. The thing I love most is that in both cases it sounds hi-fi, with great definition, even after going through some really "leftfield" pedal effects like death by audio's fuzz war and teaser stallion.
The bridge pu has a really nice and jazz-y growl.

Really happy with my purchase :)

I assume that the eq knobs has a "flat" configuration when you dial both knobs halfway course, right?
 
#302
Hoping for some shipping magic of my own. I’m in the US, so that might explain the delay. Can’t wait for mine to arrive!

Great review of the SWB-1, BTW. It mirrors a lot of what others have said, which is a great indicator of consistency. Is this your first short scale?
 
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#305
I've got a set of Alembic J pickups with their filter preamp that I picked up used. I've been loving my SWB Pro, but I just have to see how it sounds with some Alembics. Worst case is that I pull them out and resell. Best case is that it becomes the working man's Stanley Clarke model ;)
 
#306
JohandeJong said:
Yes, I'm really concerned about the dead spot but I k.now it's not a setup issue. I am very capable to do the setup and experiment with it myself. I don't need a luthier for that but If you want I can contact a luthier.
It is a problem more basses suffer from. It has to do with the resonance of the neck and the body toghether. Even some basses from Fender (and also other brands) have this problem."

Fenders are notorious for having dead spots. Leo knew it even before he left "Fender". Every Fender I've owned or tried had dead spots. I'm in early stages of a study on them and recently tested 5 or 6 Fenders. Every 34" scale had them, from $600 to $2000 Elite Fenders. But every Ibanez I've owned or tried (dozens) have had them. Earlier this year I returned a $2000 neck through Music Man Stingray because of the dead spot it had.

"Fender even made a tool for this, the FatFinger (it's a C-clamp mounted on the headstock). Sometimes it helps, sometimes not, sometimes the dead spot moves to a lower position. In my case it helps for about 50% and a little movement of the dead spot."

I'm also testing the effect of Fat Fingers. You are right. It usually moves the dead spot, often spreading it out over several frets which makes it less noticeable but still there. As you can see in this $1400 Ibanez SR2600E, the dead spot was on frets 9 & 10 of the D string. The Fat Finger helped there but you can see how it dampened several other notes.
Ibanez SR2600E D string fret 2-12 comparison.JPG


"If you get a bass with a dead spot you have bad luck. It's simple like that.
Sometimes another neck helps but not always. 3-piece or 5-piece necks seldom or never has this problem. That's why I asked you earlier if you make 5-piece fretless necks and I am willing to pay for that.
Click to expand...

The Ibanez SR2600E I briefly owned has a 15 piece neck. From Ibanez's website:
neck typeAtlas-4 15pc Panga Panga /Maple/Paduak/Purpleheart/Walnut neck w/KTS™ TITANIUM rods
 

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#307
Hi all.
I've had my SWB-1 for almost a year (still love it) and will be switching it to fretless soon (just ordered the neck from Stephen!). I'm intending to put on either tape wound or flat wound strings and would love to hear what other folks are using.

I've had a few suggestions in another thread (La Bella and Thomastik-Infeld in particular) but am not sure about winding / string lengths. The bridge to nut length for E & A is 32.75", slightly less for D & G as the bridge pieces are closer. I'm concerned that the La Bella would be too short (D'Addario are listed as 32", but the SWB-1 for almost a year (still love it) as well and it came with EXL170s). GHS flat wounds are listed as 32.75".

Different sites list lengths differently (such as scale length) so I'd like to make sure I order ones that will work!
 
#308
For me, on a fretless bass, tape wounds are a must. Sounds much much better than flat wounds. On my SWB fretless I use D'Addario ETB92M Medium scale Black Nylon Tapewound (through body). Sounds amazing and feel like silk.
With these strings you can have a very low action and an almost straight neck. Look also at the nutheight of that new fretless neck. Maybe you have to file a bit. You can make it very low.
 
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#309
So mine is here...at my local post office. We've had some nasty winter weather here in nc. Today was my first day back to work this week. I got stuck on the way into work, but got home ok. Got the door tag, so I got back in the car to go pick it up and got stuck again :banghead: 19 weeks and boy am I ready!!! Anyone else gotten theirs recently?
 
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#316
GeoKinetic said:
Is this photo of the mahogany or the ash? I'm guessing it's the mahogany?
Click to expand...

Look back a few pages though, I posted a photo of my mahogany bass with the volume pots off, and you could easily see how much the wood/finish had darkened over a year of (mostly) being on a stand in my sunlit office. Under the knob, out of the light, it retained the original color which was (I thought) a bit unfinished-looking. It's now even darker, a rich red-brown.
 
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#319
GeoKinetic said:
Sorry to kind of spam the thread, but has anyone tried to fit a pickguard to one of these, custom or otherwise? I'm curious.
Click to expand...

I was going to get CAD drawings made for pick guards and sell them separately as an optional extra. But time is not my friend and I haven't got round to it yet.

sparkyness said:
I see the folks at Chowny are listed as exhibitors at NAMM again next month.
Click to expand...

Yeah that reminds me. I need to see if I can recruit somebody to help me at my stand on here, as all the people I could ask from my side can't come for various reasons, and I don't feel like manning the stand for 4 days without being able to leave to go to the restroom or get anything to eat.
 
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