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Sonum Experior

#81
I think I may be able to forego the back panel altogether as the chasm has plenty of room on the sides to drop pickups into. Today is the day that the alligator clips should be arriving, which means sound clips! of course sound clips on THIS bass means you get to hear some cheap Chinese pickups put up against a Lace Alumitone in the same positions. I need to learn how to play Lee Van Cleef by Primus as her first song. ;)
 
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#83
Well <expletive>! I have some serious rattle going on with the truss rods. Not a major deal, but disappointing. I need to make another few necks anyway, so it's not a major deal breaker. I can easily punch out a neck from glue up to mounting in three to four days, and much of that time is spent waiting for glue to dry. I have a limba and purple heart neck blank on hand, and one important aspect of this build is to also provide some room for experimentation on neck and fingerboard combinations. There is so much I don't know about how much a fingerboard affects fretless tone, and having a build like this allows me to easily swap an endless variety of configurations and capture data that will hopefully make me a better builder. The end goal, which will take a lot of time, is to have a readily accessible knowledge-base of neck and fingerboard woods, pickups, and pickup positions with sound clips. I am thinking of picking up an Ebow at some point so that I can get a repeatable test bed set up that will remove some of the variables of personal playing style.

rondodunbar said:
For obvious reasons, I can't wait to hear the clips... :D
Rondo
Click to expand...
Oh yeah! I am dizzy with anticipation....or is that caused by my having far too much tea this morning? ;) I also want to splice together a homemade low impedance pickup and see what I can see...
 
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#84
Can you lay out the exact location of your truss rods on the back of the neck?
I mean like, do you remember where they are located in relation to a center line, or from measuring from the edge of the neck?
If you can... All you have to do to fix your rattle is drill a small hole from the back of the neck directly behind the rod, into the truss rod channel and pump a couple squirts of caulking into the channel.....no more rattle.
Then...if you have a plug cutter bit, you can cut plugs from the same wood to fill the holes.
 
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#88
Speaking of rod rattle, I had the same thing happen on my fretless.
Used an LMI dual action truss rod & was naive to the fact that the rubber heat shrink wouldn't be enough to quell the damn rattle (which was only pronounced at certain frequencies).
If I would have paid attention to their instruction video, they say (almost as an afterthought) that the rubber is supposed to help prevent rod buzz, BUT "if you are still worried about vibration, you can run a small bead of caulking in the bottom of the channel"...
If you ask me, that instruction should be printed in bold red lettering in the item description!
Oh well... Live and learn.
But this is the main reason that my walnut fretless will never be sold to anyone! (well, besides the fact that I really like it myself);)
When I performed the fix, my drill bit walked on me a bit because of the radius, despite the dimple I put in the exact center. I shoulda used a brad tip bit, but was kinda sketchy about drilling into the rod with it.
Then...even though I took the plug from the same area in the cut out of the neck, and should have blended seamlessly ...I made another HUGE blunder...i used CA glue to install it. Even though I knew full well that CA bleeds into and darkens bubinga. At that point I didn't even bother trying to get the plug to soak up as much oil as the neck did... So it's light, with a ring around it!
Definitely not my proudest moment!:(
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#89
Rôckhewer said:
Speaking of rod rattle, I had the same thing happen on my fretless.
Used an LMI dual action truss rod & was naive to the fact that the rubber heat shrink wouldn't be enough to quell the damn rattle (which was only pronounced at certain frequencies).
If I would have paid attention to their instruction video, they say (almost as an afterthought) that the rubber is supposed to help prevent rod buzz, BUT "if you are still worried about vibration, you can run a small bead of caulking in the bottom of the channel"...
If you ask me, that instruction should be printed in bold red lettering in the item description!
Oh well... Live and learn.
But this is the main reason that my walnut fretless will never be sold to anyone! (well, besides the fact that I really like it myself);)
When I performed the fix, my drill bit walked on me a bit because of the radius, despite the dimple I put in the exact center. I shoulda used a brad tip bit, but was kinda sketchy about drilling into the rod with it.
Then...even though I took the plug from the same area in the cut out of the neck, and should have blended seamlessly ...I made another HUGE blunder...i used CA glue to install it. Even though I knew full well that CA bleeds into and darkens bubinga. At that point I didn't even bother trying to get the plug to soak up as much oil as the neck did... So it's light, with a ring around it!
Definitely not my proudest moment!:(
Click to expand...
Bummer of a story dude, but even with that small defect the bass is flat out gorgeous. This is my first time with the AllParts rods - I did not have this issue with the StewMac rods. I like the AllParts rods better in general, but apparently I need to adapt my installation. I need to build a few necks for this beast anyways... I am definitely going to make a 32" variant from my limba and purple heart blank, and I might throw a purple heart fingerboard on it while I am at it. ;)
 
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#93
Lonnybass said:
Does it rattle with tension on the rod?

Lonnybass
Click to expand...
Funny you should mention that.... Where's my *blush* emoticon. I needed to adjust the rods to get the relief set right and once I had the "right" neck relief dialed in the rattle dissapeared. She sounds a LOT better now, and once I get the action dialed in a little lower I am going to be a happy camper. The fingerboard is a softer variety of maple, and this bass sounds very similar to a 5 string I built recently using an ambrosia maple fingerboard. The experimentation is going to be super fun! I wonder if a walnut neck with a shedua fingerboard will sound different, and is it time to make another neck and fingerboard out of oak? Yes. Yes it is. After I clear my build docket of course... ;)
 
#94
Lonnybass said:
Does it rattle with tension on the rod?

Lonnybass
Click to expand...

That was something I was hoping would help my situation...I guess in this case there's such a thing as building something too strong?
Wth 7 laminations of bubinga, wenge & hard maple...the damn thing barely needed any help from the rod!
Since it's a fretless & I wanted to keep the neck pretty much straight.
I couldn't put enough tension on it to get the buzz to subside.
 
#96
The alligator clips were delayed in transit, hopefully they will be in tomorrow. After working with the Sonum a bit I discovered a few things that will improve the design, and validated some assumptions. The first is that the pickups really need a base to be attached to. I am going to pick up some Velcro to line the bottom of the chasm with, and the base for the pickup will have some underneath. The whole area does not need to be coated - just a few strips running vertically should cover all the bases. I am using double sided carpet tape for the moment, but it won't last long before it needs to be changed out. I also need to have some double side Velcro on hand for wire management - luckily I am a computer guy so I have some on hand.

So far this has been very successful, but I am still calling this a prototype. The piano tuners are going to be a bear for most people to deal with, and so I am going to invest in a Hipshot headless bridge and headpiece for the "production" model.

There are a few design decisions that I made that I don't remember mentioning, so at the risk of repeating myself I am going to add them here. I installed a zero fret so that I can easily swap string sizes and types without having to worry about the slots being sized right. As an example the I am able to keep the seven string neck and any number of strings in any configuration, and by adding them on the treble side string reach issues are avoided. If I want to drop in an actual 4 string neck I can quickly and easily build on with an extended heel that fits the slot, and gives me a tool to experiment with different neck profiles in addition to pickup position.

The goal is to provide a bass modular enough in design that will help me experiment and learn how to sculpt a design to reach a particular tonal goal. I may not be successful in maturing my ears and knowledge enough to ever feel like I can confidently make calls on wood choices as they affect a fretless' voice, but it sure is fun trying. Heck - I might even get a commission from a fellow builder to fabricate one of these for them.

;)

So here is the list of short term todo's:
1. Install alligator clips to the jack, and install a second jack
2. Lay in some velcro
3. Build an outboard box to allow pickup mixing, tone controls, coil splitting, etc.
4. Clean everything up and throw a finish on it.

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#97
As much as I am enjoying playing this bass it's time to work on the finishing touches....no pun intended. I threw some brown dye into the chasm to get the maple closer to the color of the walnut top, and I notched out some side markers at all the main reference frets (e.g. 3,5 7, etc.). The side markers were filled with CA glue to keep the look understated, though I considered walnut veneer markers. The alligator clips came in today and I now have everything i need to complete the build hardware wise.

I have decided to coat the fingerboard with the Stewmac fingerboard oil. I have used it on several basses at this point and don't want to chance losing the woody tone I have going on. I have heard that epoxy brightens up a fretless' tone, and the Rhiannon build that @rondodunbar and I are embarking on is aiming for a woody tone. The Sonum was made out of the same species of wood, and this gives us at least a ballpark of what to expect....hopefully. ;)

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#98
Thinking about your sound clips; try putting a 250k pot across the leads of the alumitone. It seems to me that there's a bit too much variation between the two clips. As it is now, the raw sounds much better but I wonder how things might vary hooking up to different amps etc. if you rely on the amp (or whatever) to terminate the coil circuit.
 
#99
Jon Clegg said:
Thinking about your sound clips; try putting a 250k pot across the leads of the alumitone. It seems to me that there's a bit too much variation between the two clips. As it is now, the raw sounds much better but I wonder how things might vary hooking up to different amps etc. if you rely on the amp (or whatever) to terminate the coil circuit.
Click to expand...
That's a good thought! I recorded the raw sound clip straight into the USB recording interface on my computer, and the processed clip is the exact same recording after post processing in my DAW.
 

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