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Warmoth Owners Club!!

got a warmoth bass a week ago now, and made a few changes to the order because i’m totally clueless, so i’ll expect it by maybe february (in time for my birthday!). walnut body j bass, front route with the 4 holes, j bass maple neck, maple fretboard, vintage style frets, standard profile (unfortunately!!! i wish i had gone with slim taper, but that’s okay. i’m used to a chunky neck, and my hands are pretty big for my age.), with the usual j bass specs. i got it all in a satin finish, going for something really “raw” and simple looking, like a hunk of beautiful wood dressed up to play music with. and me and my father are going to help set it up together, he can wire guitars and he makes guitars from bodies and necks all the time. i’ll definitely be posting pics when it gets here! note, though, hopefully this thing won’t be like 12 pounds or something. maple is heavy, as is walnut, so there’s no telling. but my current 90s p bass i’ve been using and been getting very good on for the past several several months is about 7.8 lb give or take and it feels super light on me. i’m tall!!
Congrats!!

I think you’ll be very happy!
 
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Not yet, but soon. Waiting on necks.
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Very cool!

I've always been curious about the Lace Alumitones. Do they wire up the same as any other pickup? Do they react when you touch them? or when the strings touch them? And what's your opinion of their tone?

A little bit different in wiring, they have two leads that go to ground. I haven’t used them yet (this is my first experience with them) but I watched a few videos of them in use looking for exactly that, can you touch the pickup body without any issue, and I haven’t seen any where that seemed to make any difference at all. I’ll let you know about the tone, as best I can, when it’s done. I would point out that there’s a LOT of experimenting with this bass, for me. First try with Alumitones, first wenge neck, first 2TEK bridge, so it’ll be a pretty broad overview of how any one component sounds.
 
A little bit different in wiring, they have two leads that go to ground. I haven’t used them yet (this is my first experience with them) but I watched a few videos of them in use looking for exactly that, can you touch the pickup body without any issue, and I haven’t seen any where that seemed to make any difference at all. I’ll let you know about the tone, as best I can, when it’s done. I would point out that there’s a LOT of experimenting with this bass, for me. First try with Alumitones, first wenge neck, first 2TEK bridge, so it’ll be a pretty broad overview of how any one component sounds.
I'm of the opinion that if any of it matters at all, then all of it matters a little. Some more than others, of course. But a wenge neck and a 2TEK bridge aren't going to change the character of the pickups, so I'll be interested in your opinion once it's all together and you have some time on it.
 
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A little bit different in wiring, they have two leads that go to ground. I haven’t used them yet (this is my first experience with them) but I watched a few videos of them in use looking for exactly that, can you touch the pickup body without any issue, and I haven’t seen any where that seemed to make any difference at all. I’ll let you know about the tone, as best I can, when it’s done. I would point out that there’s a LOT of experimenting with this bass, for me. First try with Alumitones, first wenge neck, first 2TEK bridge, so it’ll be a pretty broad overview of how any one component sounds.

I'm of the opinion that if any of it matters at all, then all of it matters a little. Some more than others, of course. But a wenge neck and a 2TEK bridge aren't going to change the character of the pickups, so I'll be interested in your opinion once it's all together and you have some time on it.

Just to throw my two cents in here
I had a Fender Precision Roasted maple neck ...and as the single different aspect of basses I attached it to....Roasted maple makes the bass sound more alive, resonant...and snappy..and feels wonderful.

Just some info for TB world to know about Roasted maple necks

Question...Has anyone tried to remove the finish of your Warmoth bodies?....If I wanted to do a Nitro finish with one of my Warmoth bodies?
 
So, I finally go the courage to mod my Warmoth Dinky P. I bought the body here on TB as a straight v/t P bass configuration. I wanted to put a MM style humbucker in the bridge position but not too close to the bridge to keep it a little closer to the tone sweet spot. Routing the body was the scariest thing I’ve done, I was so worried I’d mess it up but it came out okay.

Went straight passive V/V/T. I bought the Mad Hatter solderless V/V/T controls and that let me choose 250k or 500k for the volume pots which allowed me to balance the pickup volumes better (the MM pup is super hot). I’m quite happy with how it turned out! That’s the best part about building a Warmoth, it’s almost like having your own “signature model”.

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After a long wait for a nice body to appear on their showcase, I finally found a home for this blocked neck I've had sitting around since I sold the body it was attached to last year. I finished the final setup yesterday.

This Bartolini Quad coil was a nice surprise. It's a real tone monster, giving me 4 totally noiseless sounds: both single coils, parallel and series humbucking on two push / pull CTS pots. Even the passive tone pot functions really well -something not always the case with a Musicman style humbucker.

I don't know why but this particular bass neck produces one of the best B strings I have ever had, especially considering it's a 34" scale. I have another almost identical neck and although its B string is very good, this one just sounds better which is why I couldn't bring myself to sell it!

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After a long wait for a nice body to appear on their showcase, I finally found a home for this blocked neck I've had sitting around since I sold the body it was attached to last year. I finished the final setup yesterday.

This Bartolini Quad coil was a nice surprise. It's a real tone monster, giving me 4 totally noiseless sounds: both single coils, parallel and series humbucking on two push / pull CTS pots. Even the passive tone pot functions really well -something not always the case with a Musicman style humbucker.

I don't know why but this particular bass neck produces one of the best B strings I have ever had, especially considering it's a 34" scale. I have another almost identical neck and although its B string is very good, this one just sounds better which is why I couldn't bring myself to sell it!

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Nicely done!!
 
After a long wait for a nice body to appear on their showcase, I finally found a home for this blocked neck I've had sitting around since I sold the body it was attached to last year. I finished the final setup yesterday.

This Bartolini Quad coil was a nice surprise. It's a real tone monster, giving me 4 totally noiseless sounds: both single coils, parallel and series humbucking on two push / pull CTS pots. Even the passive tone pot functions really well -something not always the case with a Musicman style humbucker.

I don't know why but this particular bass neck produces one of the best B strings I have ever had, especially considering it's a 34" scale. I have another almost identical neck and although its B string is very good, this one just sounds better which is why I couldn't bring myself to sell it!

View attachment 4111046 View attachment 4111047 View attachment 4111048 View attachment 4111049 View attachment 4111050
Stunning! `Nuff said.
 
Did you do the interior electronics? Very neat & tidy, very impressive!
Thank you for the kind words -everyone! :);)

The trick to the wiring is to do the majority of it OUTSIDE the bass. I trace where I want the pots to be and make a rigid cardboard replica of the bass's top. This gives much more space to work on wiring things together using the shortest possible lengths of wire, and also removes the risk of dripping hot solder everywhere on the bass!

At the last moment you can pop the wiring harness into the cavity and solder the pickup leads and bridge ground.
 
Thank you for the kind words -everyone! :);)

The trick to the wiring is to do the majority of it OUTSIDE the bass. I trace where I want the pots to be and make a rigid cardboard replica of the bass's top. This gives much more space to work on wiring things together using the shortest possible lengths of wire, and also removes the risk of dripping hot solder everywhere on the bass!

At the last moment you can pop the wiring harness into the cavity and solder the pickup leads and bridge ground.

That picture of your wiring makes me so happy!
 
Love your wiring job. As clean as I've ever seen on any bass. Do you have a schematic for it? I want to build the same exact thing you have. Color variations, but MM on a Jazz body. Also, where did you get those POTs? Cheers.
Syco.
Many thanks for the kind words. :thumbsup::)

Yes, the wiring system is pretty cool because you don't need to drill loads of holes in your bass for those mini switches that are sometimes hard to find with long enough threads to fit the thickness of the bass's top -if you're using a control panel on your Jazz I guess that becomes less of a problem, but I figure the less clutter on a bass the better -right?

The circuit I designed myself a couple of years ago and sometimes needs slight tweaking depending on the wire colour schemes for the pickups you wish to use. I'll send you some close up photos of another similar bass to show you what goes where tomorrow wired to a Nordstrand MM pickup.

As for the pots, they are CTS push / pull 500k and they can be bought from eBay or from Stewart MacDonald. These ones have solid 1/4" shafts but you can find them more readily with splined shafts -in that case you can always put those brass sleeve adaptor rings over them and convert them to 'solid shaft' if needed. :thumbsup:
 
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