Special Edition Build-Off: RePsycheldelic'd Starcaster

[mikewalker]

As the name loosely implies, this is an assortment of parts recycled into a bass guitar. More of a failed art project than anything else!

I really wanted to build a "Meteora-style" bass, but I spent all weekend trying to get the lines right, and I just now finally realized that I actually just don't like the look of the Meteora.

So... to heck with that - I'm going to graft the Starcaster neck onto a basic Stratocaster body, grab some new-old-stock parts that have been laying around the garage for years, dress it up with some kind of fancy paint job, and call it a day.

Parts:

• Fender Starcaster neck (30 inch scale)
• Fender Deluxe chrome tuners (chosen for the sole purpose of facilitating the use of a "Stealth" string retainer on the A string!)
• Three passive jazz bass 'side-by-side humbucking' neck pickups: two CALIG, and one Bartolini.
  **I also have several other brand-new sets of humbucking JB pups on hand (EMG, DiMarzio, Seymour Duncan, Lace, Sadowsky, and more Barts) but I'm going to use exactly the three pups that edged out all of the others in my big "Low-noise-humbucking-jazz-bass-pickup-shootout" test that I did a couple years ago. Because I'm slightly obsessive about avoiding hum...
• Schaller chrome 3D bridge
• Schaller chrome strap locks
• some shiny chrome knobs
• roughed-out strat body blank (unknown maker)
• CTS pots, various nice wire, copper shielding tape, screws
• multicolored sharpie pens, acrylic lacquer, sand paper, cursing
• flatwound strings

Still pondering the exact finish, but it should end up somewhat reminiscent of one of the sketches below:

 

[Jon Clegg]

subbed

 

[dwizum]

I love the trend in this buildoff towards using lots of pickups.

Do you know the exact model of the bart you're using?

 

[Jon Clegg]

I love the trend in this buildoff towards using lots of pickups

LOL I think it's the whole use whatever you have thing.

 

[postalflunkie]

Personally, I like the first (blue-ish) color scheme. I also kind of think it would be pretty cool with a full on paisley pattern (just my two cents worth). I really like how the neck looks on a strat body

 

[ctmullins]

You had me at “psycheldelic”, man.

 

[mikewalker]

I love the trend in this buildoff towards using lots of pickups.

Do you know the exact model of the bart you're using?

It's an (NOS) 9CBJD-S3 (one of the early-run brass-base models...)

 

[littlebooner]

I vote for the red hypnotic pattern. All three are cool though!

 

[iiipopes]

I like the way you are angling the neck pickup to have more definition on the E string and more roundness on the G string.

 

[mikewalker]

On the advice of my staff numerologist, the middle pickup is angled 9 degrees and the neck pickup is angled 15 degrees. Something to do with maintaining the delicate balance of spiral forces so as not to disrupt the lofstrom dimensional portal lattice energies?

 

[Tekkers]

Very cool. I like the middle purple/black + maple look the best.

Would you not be tempted to slant the bridge pickup and keep the other two vertical, a la a huge strat?
Or add a pickguard... in my head that would look killer.

 

[mikewalker]

June 21st ??!! (gulp)... that's not so far away. Finally got my router bits, so going to make a push this week! It all comes down to the lacquer work - and I am collaborating with one of my favorite [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], so it's not entirely under my control! Last night I got the neck pocket done, and hogged out most of the pickup cavities to prep for routing. Just remembered now I need to make the rear control cavity as well...

 

[mikewalker]

COVID, the Artist's chemotherapy, a death in my family, and many other circumstances have conspired to shelve my projects. But this one might be done in a month or two!

I decided to offer this bass up as a "pens" technology test for a future more ambitious collaboration with the artist. So far it has exceeded my expectations



more clearcoats to come...

 

[littlebooner]

Great artwork!

 

[mikewalker]

Well, I finally found a few minutes to make some more progress... actually a big day today as I actually got to play the Jellyfish! Still need to find and install the control cavity cover and the straplocks, and put on some decent new strings...

I spent half an hour today looking for that "new set of short scale flats" I was sure that I had laying around, before I realized I was thinking of a different set that went out on another bass recently. After I had resigned myself to putting the brakes on AGAIN, I suddenly noticed an ancient set of medium-scale flats hanging up on the wall, taken off a Fender Urge about seven years ago. Pressed them into service, and they fit OK!

Very impressed at how nicely it fell together. The Starcaster neck provides Sadowsky-spec low playing action right out of the box. Haven't even touched the truss rod yet! When I get some new strings for it, will cut the nut slots down just a tad, but it's really quite decent. This is a SUPER BRIGHT sounding bass, I am guessing the strings are Chromes. Tons of cool sounds in it, mixing those three humbucking-J pickups in various combinations. Various mixes really give a nice range of the phase-cancelled 'rick with flats' tone I am extremely fond of. They all sound quite good by themselves, too Neck pup is HUGE, fat and thumpy, middle is more like a P-bass, and the bridge is well, a bridge pickup. Each of them sound very clear and present when soloed.

It's an entirely passive bass. The two stack pots are wired as follows

Bottom: Neck vol
Top: Bridge Vol
and
Bottom: Middle vol
Top: master tone

The pots are 250K and a 0.022uF Orange Drop cap really gives a great range of tone control!

I decided to save the Fender tuners for an upcoming "FenderBird" project, so this bass has USA Hipshots on it now (and the 'stealth' A string tree works fine with those, as you would expect.). Somehow I misplaced the Bartolini I was going to use (sold it by accident I think!) so the middle pup is a Dimarzio Ultra Jazz. The CALIG pups are just a little louder than the Dimarzio, so I might mess with the pickup heights a little. Not QUITE done yet (and I need to find a gigbag that fits!) but it's sure nice to finally get this off the bench...

 

[ctmullins]

That looks great!

I would have thought that three 250kOhm pots in parallel would have darkened the tone some. Does that actually turn out to be beneficial?

 

[mikewalker]

Yeah, I'm puzzled at how bright this is... Exceptional piece of paulownia, maybe? Anyway Im liking it a lot and the tone control really has a smooth and useful range for taming the high end. As usual, I went full on LAZY with this... It really should have 20 more thin clear oats to make up for the lack of primer that should have been used at the beginning. The artist complained about how hard it was for her to draw over the bumpy woodgrain! But I m not up for all that spray and polishing, there is 'just enough' clearcoat on there to protect the artwork, and nobody but me will ever play this one, so it can live without a mirror finish...
I have promised her that the big FenderBird ("Spider Bird") project will have a true 'paper smooth' matte finish for her to draw on ( the entire body will be tattooed with a mandala...)

And I am finding that is easier said than done. Despite using hard ash with grain filler, I'm weeks behind trying to set the ' drawing layer' ( chalk paint) into a perfect smooth finish. I think I need to scrub back and work with a new harder primer first...

 

[mikewalker]

SOUND SAMPLES: Here's a little collection of brief clips, recorded flat into POD X3, no eq or compression:
(seven year old flats, played with fingers)

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BRIDGE ONLY (tone full up)

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MIDDLE ONLY (tone full up)

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NECK ONLY (tone full up)

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NECK-MIDDLE-BRIDGE (tone full up)

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NECK & MIDDLE (tone full up)

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NECK & BRIDGE (tone full up)

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MIDDLE & BRIDGE (tone full up)

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NECK ONLY (Tone Rolled Off completely)

 

[mellowgerman]

This is AWESOME. Late to the party, but glad to be seeing it now. Hats off to you, Mike!