TBD - Transformed Bass Day

So, a while back I bought (trade plus cash) a custom LeCompte bass. It just looked too cool to pass up. It was a bad deal. The neck was twisted. The whole saga is covered here.

Do NOT buy, or trade, anything here via PM (under the radar).




During all of that drama, @rojo412 reached out to me. We began a conversation about not only replacing the neck, but also replacing the (boring.... almost timid sounding) preamp and pickups. If I was going to invest in a neck, I figured we would go ahead and make the thing BA in every way.

First off, during the whole process, he was GREAT to work with. He was geeking out with me while we were discussing electronics options. I wanted a passive BEAST. And I got one.

I'm going to describe what we came up with. But I'll defer to him if I describe something incorrectly.

Pickups.

Neck - Nordstrand Big Split
Bridge - Nordstrand Dual Coil

Controls. This is where it gets interesting.
Volume/Volume/Tone
Series/Parallel switch for the pickups (both pickups in series or both pickups in parallel).
Series/Inner Single Coil/Parallel switch for the bridge dual coil.
The tone pot is a pull pot that switches between a .1 cap and a .047 cap (in essence, a brighter circuit and a darker circuit).

Knowing I was going to post this today, I spent about two hours playing the bass last night. As an experiment, I would pick a song in my head. Then I would go about coaxing that tone out of this bass. It seems as though it would be a complicated mess. But it really isn't.

If I soloed the bridge pickup and began playing, and it was too burpy, I would simply throw that pickup into series, pop out the tone pot, and dial back ever so slightly. Boom. Punchy Stingray-esque tone.

Before I was done, I could easily predict what settings would get me where I wanted to be (maybe a tiny tweek of the tone knob needed). Everything makes a big difference. Nothing is subtle. And this bass will do it all.

Does it "nail" a P bass? Nope. But the neck pickup soloed with the dark cap engaged and a slight roll back of the tone knob really does get close.... plenty close enough. And it's a very warm passive tone that will growl a little when I dig in (just like a P bass).

The neck?

First off, it looks amazing. He made it from scratch and matched the style of the original (with some tweaks to the profile). My phone pics don't do it justice. It has some very nice grain, including the fretboard flaming. It has illuminated top dots. (I'll let @rojo412 describe how he made them. They're ridiculously hard to get a pic of with a phone. But I'll post my sad attempt anyway.) Stainless frets.

It also feels great! Last night I was plucking, picking, tapping, and even a little slapping. Getting around that neck is a breeze.

I haven't decided what to do with the head yet. At my request, he left it blank. Something will come to me.

Anyway....

Release the Beast! (While choosing pics I realized I never got one of the whole front, and/or the front of the head. I'll fix that later.)

 

He really does. That neck is the perfect balance somewhere between flat and chunky. Maybe he could describe the shape better than I can.

 

Thanks for chiming in. As I suspected, you did a better job of describing the neck than I did. All I know is that I dig it!

Based on what I've been able to gather from the interwebz, I would say your version of dots works about like the expensive brand name ones. If you shine a really bright light on them briefly, they will be bright... briefly. If you put it in sunlight (even through a window) for a while, they last a lot longer. It's almost like plugging them into a charger. If you only "charge" them for a minute, they won't last long. If you leave them exposed to bright light for a while, I can totally see you getting a show out of them. I haven't tried the special little flashlights they sell for such things.

And thanks for posting the full frontal!