Very cool. For a couple of years I used a similar bass I DIY'd with an oval washtub body, the neck from a Bronco, a DIY bridge and a cheap take-off humbucker with no controls. I still have it but I can't play it due to limitations from a mild stroke I had over a year ago. I miss using that one.
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Simple basses
- Thread starter mmmmmmmmm
- Start date
Very cool. For a couple of years I used a similar bass I DIY'd with an oval washtub body, the neck from a Bronco, a DIY bridge and a cheap take-off humbucker with no controls. I still have it but I can't play it due to limitations from a mild stroke I had over a year ago. I miss using that one.
Thanks! That's actually my main bass in my "old-time string band", although the night pictured was a "down-volume" blues gig... Shoulder issues have been keeping me off the upright, so this build happened a while ago. Definitely captures the "back-porch" vibe and is bone-simple...
I'm close to completing a second one using an old cut up Tom drum... Painting courtesy of my son-in-law's niece...
May go with a volume knob or even acoustic preamp on this one...
-robert
Gladly! On both, the main stringer is a 1X4 piece of maple, with the neck band sawed and hand shaped... on the square one, a piece of western maple with an old rosewood upright fingerboard cut down...
The drum bass is a lighter piece of ambrosia maple... I laminated two pieces of purpleheart together and carved out the radius, again using hand tools. Since the ambrosia maple had a slight bow, I inlaid a couple of graphite rods and glued the fingerboard on the convex side. It is arrow straight, and I am certain will resist bowing...
They're pretty thick, more like an upright, which is how they're played. Both are about 32" scale.
-robert
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No strings, no frets, no nut, no bridge, no wood... Must be an air bass.
Boom! There it is. The definitive simplest bass, ever.
End of thread.
My dear bass is pretty simple, no knobs, no pots.... it has a couple of pickups though...
I agree....the last bass I made had two switches. That's it. One switched the different pickups (it was a musicman style pickup, so I could switch between front, back, or both. And the second switch is a kill switch. On or off. No volume, no pots. straight out. I love the simplicity!So, when I started playing bass, having tons of pickups and controls and things seemed like the best thing in the world. Tons of tonal variety, active preamps or pickups, what-have-you...but now, as I've become a performing musician and done more semi-pro work, even a simple J-bass setup stresses me out! Having more than one pickup and knob (well, maybe two if you include tone but that isn't like necessary) seems superfluous and too busy now. I guess I'm becoming an old geezer...ha ha. Maybe eventually I'll ditch electronics entirely and go back to uprightHave you guys had similar experiences? Or am I just weird?
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I’d be happy with a passive Jazz bass with just a single tone control and no other controls. I always have both volumes full and only use the tone to take off some top end occasionally. I use a tuner pedal or my hand to mute the bass. Having said that I do like the neck and bridge sounds when messing around but I almost always have both pickups up full for gigs.
You may very well be weird, but not for any of your fore-mentioned reasonsSo, when I started playing bass, having tons of pickups and controls and things seemed like the best thing in the world. Tons of tonal variety, active preamps or pickups, what-have-you...but now, as I've become a performing musician and done more semi-pro work, even a simple J-bass setup stresses me out! Having more than one pickup and knob (well, maybe two if you include tone but that isn't like necessary) seems superfluous and too busy now. I guess I'm becoming an old geezer...ha ha. Maybe eventually I'll ditch electronics entirely and go back to upright
...I have lots of basses and some with multiple pups and active electronics, but I played about 100 gigs this year and did almost all of them with a Fender P.So, when I started playing bass, having tons of pickups and controls and things seemed like the best thing in the world. Tons of tonal variety, active preamps or pickups, what-have-you...but now, as I've become a performing musician and done more semi-pro work, even a simple J-bass setup stresses me out! Having more than one pickup and knob (well, maybe two if you include tone but that isn't like necessary) seems superfluous and too busy now. I guess I'm becoming an old geezer...ha ha. Maybe eventually I'll ditch electronics entirely and go back to upright
I bought 2 active 2010 basses - Sadowsky MV & Carvin SB4000. I have played single pick up passive basses for over 40 years. 2 pick up basses always being a challenge. After a year I have not really warmed at all to active. Trouble with going to Stand Up is it is not really the same instrument at all.
So, when I started playing bass, having tons of pickups and controls and things seemed like the best thing in the world. Tons of tonal variety, active preamps or pickups, what-have-you...but now, as I've become a performing musician and done more semi-pro work, even a simple J-bass setup stresses me out! Having more than one pickup and knob (well, maybe two if you include tone but that isn't like necessary) seems superfluous and too busy now. I guess I'm becoming an old geezer...ha ha. Maybe eventually I'll ditch electronics entirely and go back to upright
I too have come to this realization. The only one in the room that cares about your tone at a gig is you. And depending on the type of music, probably just as many care about your volume. Ten years ago, I would have thought this was a dumb thing to say. And on here, some people have pretty much told me the same.
The only time you truly get the tone you want to hear is when you are playing alone. Because usually a soundman doesn't know you and he won't dial you in. Maybe in a more intimate setting it will come through more, but not the places I played. Noise and decibels and shouting audiences. And bands treated like cattle, 5 bands for a single stage in a club full of young drinkers.
For me, when I started, I didn't know anything about what to play. I had a strange Hohner with a super heavy body and P-pups. Probably had a P-neck, but I don't know. When I had money to upgrade, I went with a very svelte TUNE bass with PJ and active electronics. I wanted something that could cover a range of tones, and that fit the bill. Later I added a koa wood fretless (still my favorite) to play the acoustic jams that were becoming popular in the late 80s. Now I keep adding basses which are each a little different from one another. Jazz, short scale, 5 string, 8 string, double humbuckers, and each one is good for it's own thing.So, when I started playing bass, having tons of pickups and controls and things seemed like the best thing in the world. Tons of tonal variety, active preamps or pickups, what-have-you...but now, as I've become a performing musician and done more semi-pro work, even a simple J-bass setup stresses me out! Having more than one pickup and knob (well, maybe two if you include tone but that isn't like necessary) seems superfluous and too busy now. I guess I'm becoming an old geezer...ha ha. Maybe eventually I'll ditch electronics entirely and go back to upright
So, instead of one bass that can cover all sounds, I have many basses which each do one thing well.
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