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The Demon Bass
- Thread starter LaborDaze
- Start date
That thing has all the makings of being part of a kick-ass Halloween Costume.
devnulljp
Supporting Member
This is both awesome and terrible, this is only the second time (IRL!) I have seen an artist come into possession of a cursed object.
You need to get it playable because, as per every edition of Dungeons & Dragons (and I been playing since V1 baby!) all cursed objects do the following:
No matter what you try, when you need to do its thing (ie play a gig), you will find you have mistakenly equipped the Demon Bass. Yep, you thought you packed your P, but no, when you take the stage, its the Demon Bass. Your band mates are looking at you like your crazy, and claim they tried to stop you, but you have no memory of that.
Don't even try to destroy it! Oh no you must have burned your other bass by mistake...
So for now see if those elctronics can be powered up, and slap some old strings on, you need to shakedown the goodwill for information about the previous owner, hopefully some phonecall fast talk will do.
What happened to them? Did they have a meteoric rise to fame, while all their associates suffered calamity? And then what, when at the top of their game, rocking the Demon bass, what befell them?
You may need to follow the history of several prior owners, and track down... the Demon Bass Maker. He will be in hiding now, so it will not be easy...
If the curse is getting too dire and you have to get rid of it you only have two choices
Someone must willingly (ie purchase it) take it and try to play it. Their object now...
or
Find a 7th level Cleric who will cast "remove curse" and seal it in a case and deep six it. It will show up somewhere, somewhen again though...
IF you can find the Maker, perhaps you can determine a final solution, but it will not be easy, or for the faint of heart
You need to get it playable because, as per every edition of Dungeons & Dragons (and I been playing since V1 baby!) all cursed objects do the following:
No matter what you try, when you need to do its thing (ie play a gig), you will find you have mistakenly equipped the Demon Bass. Yep, you thought you packed your P, but no, when you take the stage, its the Demon Bass. Your band mates are looking at you like your crazy, and claim they tried to stop you, but you have no memory of that.
Don't even try to destroy it! Oh no you must have burned your other bass by mistake...
So for now see if those elctronics can be powered up, and slap some old strings on, you need to shakedown the goodwill for information about the previous owner, hopefully some phonecall fast talk will do.
What happened to them? Did they have a meteoric rise to fame, while all their associates suffered calamity? And then what, when at the top of their game, rocking the Demon bass, what befell them?
You may need to follow the history of several prior owners, and track down... the Demon Bass Maker. He will be in hiding now, so it will not be easy...
If the curse is getting too dire and you have to get rid of it you only have two choices
Someone must willingly (ie purchase it) take it and try to play it. Their object now...
or
Find a 7th level Cleric who will cast "remove curse" and seal it in a case and deep six it. It will show up somewhere, somewhen again though...
IF you can find the Maker, perhaps you can determine a final solution, but it will not be easy, or for the faint of heart
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I am not proud of my financial decisions.
Its more of an explanation than a defense, but I would note that I was under the influence during a lot of those later bids
I had told myself I wouldn't pay any more than $150 for it, but then somebody kept outbidding me, and I got mad at them, and we kept going to the last minute. In hindsight, I probably should have only started placing bids at all at the last minute.
Anyway,
I'm pretty sure the stuff the creator/warlock rebuilt is:
So, yeah it'll probably end up being more of a prop or decoration piece. Its obviously not pretty, but personally, I find that to be charming in its own way, like a controversial abstract painting. I almost feel like it would by kind of heretical to fix it up.
I can also pretend that long-term I might have the disposable income to get it really working.
And I'm still probably going to take it to get looked at by a pro.
For now though, I think if I can fix the electronics myself I should restring it and see what it actually sounds like, And then I can try playing it the way Beelzebub intended.
Also, last night I could swear I heard it make a noise, which is weird because it wasn't even plugged in.
Its more of an explanation than a defense, but I would note that I was under the influence during a lot of those later bids
I had told myself I wouldn't pay any more than $150 for it, but then somebody kept outbidding me, and I got mad at them, and we kept going to the last minute. In hindsight, I probably should have only started placing bids at all at the last minute.
Anyway,
I'm pretty sure the stuff the creator/warlock rebuilt is:
- The Right Side of the Body
- Part of the left side of the body
- All electronic components (which are non functional)
- The Headstock
- The Fretboard+Fretting
- The demented nut
So, yeah it'll probably end up being more of a prop or decoration piece. Its obviously not pretty, but personally, I find that to be charming in its own way, like a controversial abstract painting. I almost feel like it would by kind of heretical to fix it up.
I can also pretend that long-term I might have the disposable income to get it really working.
And I'm still probably going to take it to get looked at by a pro.
For now though, I think if I can fix the electronics myself I should restring it and see what it actually sounds like, And then I can try playing it the way Beelzebub intended.
Also, last night I could swear I heard it make a noise, which is weird because it wasn't even plugged in.
Dude that's why drunk eBay is no bueno. Lol but yeah, string it up, see how straight the neck will stay and tune and intonate it best you can and just see what happens. Worst case scenario is that you have a crazy wall hanging piece and some cool hardware and nice Seymour Duncan bass line soaps to put in something better. I don't think you did too bad honestly. The bass lines alone are worth something. Maybe if you really want to go crazy you can get a metal rod and jam that thing in there and tap it in with a hammer gently of course. Something to keep the neck straight at this point. Maybe one of the threaded rods they sell at the hardware store. Thread that thing in there. Don't feel too let down on that thing. I've had to do some desperate measures myself to get things to play. If the frets are beyond fixing just regret it and make it a fretless that would be pretty cool. Screw it. Have fun and let it be a learning project for you.
Ok im too tired to do anything else tonight, but short story:
It works! Not perfect, but surprisingly well.
I used the beat up strings it shipped with and was able to tune with the open strings and 12th fret harmonic, and they stayed in tune. And while (the overall intonation?) is somewhat off, I was able to actually play things on it for a few minutes, not comfortably, but also not too uncomfortably either.
The pickups work fine , though their placement means that the B and C strings both only work with one pickup. The strings are mostly inline with each-other and the fingerboard, though a bit high up for my taste, and almost all the frets can used to play a clean note. The open strings sound fine other than the D string which seems a bit wonky but that could just be the bad string. The volume control for the top pickup doesn't go down to 0 but its not a huge deal.
the frets all play a bit sharp but its consistent between the strings and they all less than a half step off, at least up to the 12th frets. I think they might actually be in approximately the right spots when the bridge is set right, but what do I know.
I did take a video of testing the strings with a tuner visible but my phones camera is needlessly high resolution so the files are way too big
Anyway still need to clean it and put on non-busted strings before tuning the bridge, but I think we might owe the warlock an apology.
*While I think MOSTLY right about the stuff I'm, I would like to once again stress that I have fairly limited knowledge and experience with both set-up/maintenance and theory so I will likely be wrong about some things, and misuse terminology
It works! Not perfect, but surprisingly well.
I used the beat up strings it shipped with and was able to tune with the open strings and 12th fret harmonic, and they stayed in tune. And while (the overall intonation?) is somewhat off, I was able to actually play things on it for a few minutes, not comfortably, but also not too uncomfortably either.
The pickups work fine , though their placement means that the B and C strings both only work with one pickup. The strings are mostly inline with each-other and the fingerboard, though a bit high up for my taste, and almost all the frets can used to play a clean note. The open strings sound fine other than the D string which seems a bit wonky but that could just be the bad string. The volume control for the top pickup doesn't go down to 0 but its not a huge deal.
the frets all play a bit sharp but its consistent between the strings and they all less than a half step off, at least up to the 12th frets. I think they might actually be in approximately the right spots when the bridge is set right, but what do I know.
I did take a video of testing the strings with a tuner visible but my phones camera is needlessly high resolution so the files are way too big
Anyway still need to clean it and put on non-busted strings before tuning the bridge, but I think we might owe the warlock an apology.
*While I think MOSTLY right about the stuff I'm, I would like to once again stress that I have fairly limited knowledge and experience with both set-up/maintenance and theory so I will likely be wrong about some things, and misuse terminology
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I do t think it was once that bass from Alibaba. I believe it was built by a Meth addict over the course of a 72-hour bender.
With regard to the offset pickups, they might have been trying to do a P pickup configuration out of the two…but way far apart
With regard to the offset pickups, they might have been trying to do a P pickup configuration out of the two…but way far apart
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