I've been playing this Alvarez A5EBC for a little over 4 years now and as I "mature" in the journey, I'm seeing some basses that are just plain gorgeous. I'm very comfortable with disassembling mine (and have several times) and doing setups on it (like when I try different brands or sizes of strings). I've been looking into building my next bass (Warmoth possibly?) but until I have the money, I think I will start with "updating" the look of my current bass. I really like the shape, feel and sound of my Alvarez and while I *might* consider upgrading the pickups, electronics and hardware at a later date. The Alvarez A5EBC is an entry level bass of decent quality, but really not much more than that. Anyway... here's a pic of the current look and the first proposed change to the look. 1 - Remove the fingerboard inlay dots and fill them in with epoxy, then sand them smooth. (the idea being to make it appear that there are no dots) 2 - Remove the "Alvarez" logo from the pickups. 3 - change the knobs out for black (metal) knurled knobs. Also, the finish is a VERY dark translucent cherry over a quilted maple veneer (alder body, I think) and I'm considering removing the finish and possibly doing a light stain with tung oil finish. Any thoughts or suggestion would be appreciated. EDIT - The Alvarez specs say: * Contoured Double Cutaway Body Style * Solid Alder with Quilted Maple Top * Bolt on Neck (5 bolts) Maple-Graphite re-inforced * 34" Scale (22 frets) * 10" Radius * 2 Custom Alvarez HB Pick-ups * 2-Volume, 1-Tone Control Knobs * High Mass Bridge * Die Cast, Black Finish Tuners Standing on the bottom line, dutch
The dark finish is too dark for my tastes. the other mods will look really great, imo, but theyre not really revolutionary. Be careful about finishing it... many a thread about that Im sure.
I really don't like the "redness" or darkness of the finish myself. In fact I really never have. I do like quilted / flamed / figured woods though. As far as the look change to sans dots ann markings, I'm just looking for "clean". I'm going to leave "revolutionary" to the younger generation. LOL!
Be careful with the sanding... It may not be a wood veneer, but rather a "foto quilt." If you sand through the finish, the figure might peel right up with it. The knobs proposal is cool...
Even if it's not a fotoflame, that veneer could be super thin too...be VERY careful in sanding this. I really like the red color. My next one is gonna be about that red, but hopfully heavily spalted.
Wow! Thanks for the input about the quilting possibly being a photo finish or super thin veneer. I just took it out in the sunlight and upon a very close visual inspection, it does appear to be a photo type finish. BUMMER! Well, I'm either stuck with this or sand it down, see if I like the natural wood underneath and finish that, or if I don't like it, paint it. Guess, I'll just settle from removing the dots, logos and changin the knobs. (being poor is a heartbreak, sometimes)
dude it would look awesome if you could like paint on red block inlays. kinda like the painted on ones for the G.Lee bass
