- Aug 24, 2010
- 440
- 1,082
- Disclosures
- Builder/Owner:Drake Custom Bass Guitars
I will try to answer the questions posted earlier.
1. The neck angle I used? Good question and I wish I knew. It is somewhere around 3 degrees I think. Not much. I use the same angle for most of my basses and I leave the heel a little thicker. When I have my bridge located, I shave the heel bottom down until (when the neck is in the pocket) the straightedge lays across the frets and sits in the saddle of the E string on the bridge. I have my saddles in the lowest position so that I have full adjustment up for height.
2. Pickup placement. It has been my experience that different positions of the pickups does affect the tone but I have found that the tone is still good, just different. I know that a pickup placed closer to the neck will get bassier tones and the same pickup placed closer to the bridge gets more of the mid range clarity but I have yet to find a pickup layout that doesn't sound good provided that you have a good pickup to begin with. It is like Les Pauls and Strats. Both can sound good to the ear but they sound different. So I am not too caught up in the whole "sweet spot" theory though if I had a customer with a certain sound they were going for... then I would find a position for the pickups that would enhance their style. I have had customers who wanted to have pickups placed in the same locations, on their new bass as was on their old bass, so as to not have an entire change of feel for their technique.
Sorry about not having any sound clips. I don't have a real good way of recording sound clips and the bass has already left the building for Kansas. She did have a very nice voice. The pickups were the EMG HB pups which mimic the tone of a P-Bass. Favoring the bridge pup cuts through the mix and can sound like an acoustic bass when you open up the tone control. The neck pup is very deep and if you roll off the treble tone control you can get a great Dub sound. Both pups going have a nice punch and roundness. She will be a great recording bass because of all of her tone options. I may do a bass that uses a Ghost system to add some other tone options.
Once again, thanks for the questions and feedback.
1. The neck angle I used? Good question and I wish I knew. It is somewhere around 3 degrees I think. Not much. I use the same angle for most of my basses and I leave the heel a little thicker. When I have my bridge located, I shave the heel bottom down until (when the neck is in the pocket) the straightedge lays across the frets and sits in the saddle of the E string on the bridge. I have my saddles in the lowest position so that I have full adjustment up for height.
2. Pickup placement. It has been my experience that different positions of the pickups does affect the tone but I have found that the tone is still good, just different. I know that a pickup placed closer to the neck will get bassier tones and the same pickup placed closer to the bridge gets more of the mid range clarity but I have yet to find a pickup layout that doesn't sound good provided that you have a good pickup to begin with. It is like Les Pauls and Strats. Both can sound good to the ear but they sound different. So I am not too caught up in the whole "sweet spot" theory though if I had a customer with a certain sound they were going for... then I would find a position for the pickups that would enhance their style. I have had customers who wanted to have pickups placed in the same locations, on their new bass as was on their old bass, so as to not have an entire change of feel for their technique.
Sorry about not having any sound clips. I don't have a real good way of recording sound clips and the bass has already left the building for Kansas. She did have a very nice voice. The pickups were the EMG HB pups which mimic the tone of a P-Bass. Favoring the bridge pup cuts through the mix and can sound like an acoustic bass when you open up the tone control. The neck pup is very deep and if you roll off the treble tone control you can get a great Dub sound. Both pups going have a nice punch and roundness. She will be a great recording bass because of all of her tone options. I may do a bass that uses a Ghost system to add some other tone options.
Once again, thanks for the questions and feedback.
