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Warmoth Bass Porn...Show yours too

GBassNorth

GBassNorth

Gold Supporting Member
Dec 23, 2006
20,672
108,208
SoCal
#1
A recent bass I built with body and neck from Warmoth, custom preamp from John East, pickups from Bartolini, tuners and bridge from Hipshot, Strings from Optima, straplocks from Schaller, pickguard from Chandler, strap from Levy and paint from a guitar paint shop in Kentucky.

Had a lot of fun building it and even more fun playing it. This is my go to bass and takes the place of my Alembic Essence, 1968 Fender P bass and my 1978 Stingray. I can get just about any sound I want from this preamp and pickup configuration and the Optima strings are as good as gold. If you've ever contemplated building a Warmoth bass don't hold back, tons of fun, lots of learning's and very rewarding, not cheap but then again its replacing about $8000 in basses for me.

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#2
Nice build. What wood is the neck? I'm thinking of building a Warmoth myself. Just not sure what, they have a lot of choices. Although I'm leaning towards a fenderbird (just to be a little different) with a J-P pick-up config. Anyway your build looks damn nice and I bet it sounds even better. Good work.
 
#3
Good heavens!

I'm not a five-string player, but that bass has all the right stuff to me... you even got the P pickup in my preferred arrangement! That's one fantastic looking bass, I can only guess it sounds as good as it looks!.

Love it!
 
#7
Here is my 32" warmoth that was completed last summer

>warmoth neck-body
>seymour duncan pups
>gotho 201 bridge
>hipshot ultalite tuners
>TI jazz flats

this has become my daily player

/L
 

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#8
cableguy said:
Nice build. What wood is the neck? I'm thinking of building a Warmoth myself. Just not sure what, they have a lot of choices. Although I'm leaning towards a fenderbird (just to be a little different) with a J-P pick-up config. Anyway your build looks damn nice and I bet it sounds even better. Good work.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliments, I do love it and it was a real good experience building it, the Warmoth guys were great to work with. I went with the Indian Rosewood neck and fretboard because I wanted a raw wood that didn't need painting or coating. It has turned out to be a fantastic choice. The rosewood really brings out the bass tones in the P pickup. Note that I did go with the brass frets and a brass nut to keep the bass from being too dark, again both good moves. I was also a little concerned about neck dive on a 5 string solid rosewood neck but it turned out to be a non issue, hangs perfect for me at about 2:00 . I did reshape the headstock to something I felt was a little more sleek but still Fenderish and used ultra light hipshot tuners. This deluxe 5 neck has the dual steel truss rods but I think Warmoth now offers the same with graphite rods which would make it even lighter. Here's a good porn shot of her from the rear where you can see the neck wood a little better:

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The rosewood neck is ultra fast and dead smooth with no finish. About twice a year I wipe it down with a rosewood conditioner on a rag just to keep it looking nice but really its zero maintenance and looks fantastic.
 
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#10
M.R. Ogle said:
Good heavens!

I'm not a five-string player, but that bass has all the right stuff to me... you even got the P pickup in my preferred arrangement! That's one fantastic looking bass, I can only guess it sounds as good as it looks!.

Love it!
Click to expand...

Thanks Mr. Ogle. I played around with a Music Man SUB5 test mule (tub routed it for easy pickup changes) for the better part of 6 months with different pickups and locations and preamps before locking in on this set of pickups in this orientation at these locations. I didn't want exposed poles so that limited my pickup selections quite a bit. With the Bart pickups a reverse P bass set up made a significant difference and really tightened up the E and B strings (closer to the bridge) and darkened up the G D and A strings (closer to the neck). I also found the Bart MM pickup had to go a good deal north of the standard MM location to get any real depth or bloom out of the tone. Here's a porn shot of how tight all the electronics are on this beast:
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There's about a hairs width between the MM PU screw and the control plate and the Precision PU is about a far north as I could put it without becoming a mudbucker. It can get very dark with the bass knob rolled up and the treb and bright knobs rolled off but bring in a little of the MM and it really tightenes up or bump the treb and brite knobs on the Precision pickup to bring in the full tone and definition.
Again, fun build. Thanks for the comments.
 
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#13
BTW I went with a vintage white color that's not quite cream but not quite white either. I didn't want it to look to stark, cold or formal with all the gold hardware so I softened it up a bit with a vanillia type color. Here's a shot next to something white for reference.
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#18
thobie said:
i think teenagers should be payed a few thousand dollars every once and a while to explore their interests more thoroughly than reality allows
Click to expand...

Well, like I said in my OP - a Warmoth build isn't cheap but you do get a heck of a bass for your money not to mention all the learning's along the way. If you want low bucks go the Squier Mod route it's a lot of fun too and dirt cheap. I'm working on a Bronco right now that I have a total of $75 in, when all the mods are done I might have $150 in it and it should give $1000 basses a run for the money.
 
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