Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,011
- 1
- 31,719
- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
That looks amazing. I love the chocolatey grain! Glad to hear the balance is decent. Nuts are easy to fix. Looking forward to sound clips!
Ok,
Finally got a change to play this beast at volume. For all of those that know what these pups do, it comes as no surprise, but this thing sounds massive!
Finally got a change to play this beast at volume. For all of those that know what these pups do, it comes as no surprise, but this thing sounds massive!
I consider myself lucky in that I play regularly every Wednesday night. It always gives me an opportunity to try out new builds
Tomorrow night she goes on her Maiden Voyage.
I'm really interested in hearing how well this will sit in the mix. To me, that is a sign of how good the bass is.
Tone report by the weekend
Cheers
Tomorrow night she goes on her Maiden Voyage.
I'm really interested in hearing how well this will sit in the mix. To me, that is a sign of how good the bass is.
Tone report by the weekend
Cheers
I'm thinking there may be more than one of us who wouldn't mind having that bass. Beautiful.
Last edited:
Just saw this thread - can't wait to hear your review of how it sounds.
It will be staying au-naturel. The neck seems to be "self polishing" as I play it.
I did get a chance to play this live last night. As a point of reference, I play weekly at a Blues club. We have a group of regulars that show up every week. All the members in the band, as well as some of the audience members commented on how nice the bass sounded, and how different it was, as compared to my other basses (most of my other basses are P, J, or PJ).
My impression: Really a great balanced sound with a real deep bass presence. I was really surprised to hear how nice the B string sounded. It all sat very well in the mix as well. I can see why ASAT's have a treble boost circuit. For some players, this may be necessary, but for this bass, maybe not so. I am very please with it, and look forward to building a 4 string version of this beast!
I'm hoping to get sound files created soon, but that may not happen.
Cheers
Means2nEnd
Supporting Member
Thanks for the comp!!!
And in that I am my own worst critic, doesn't help.
Aside from that, I'm not the most skilled builder by a long shot. I do have 3 overriding strategies that help me get down the road
1) Use the most gorgeous wood I can find. (don't think I need to explain this one)
2) I don't draw out much of anything in terms of plans because plans are made to be broken. This happens in a number of ways. Sometime I F'up. Sometimes the wood misbehaves. There is a myriad of other things too that could go wrong as well. Critical dimensions are all in my head, or I look them up when needed. To be honest with you, if you asked me to build something to spec, I couldn't do it, rather, maybe I really don't want to (See #3)
3) When #2 happens, which it will, design/build around the F'up to make it look like that was the intention. Mistakes are the mother of invention.
YOUR mileage may vary
I love Wenge wood grain. I had one all wenge a few months back and it had growl for days and sounded killer in a full band mix. Good tone wood.
I love wenge this was a great buold thread and the bass looks just awesome! Excellent work!
Would an easy-out bit not work on the sheared bolt? Ive had good success with those in the past, looks like you got it out no problem though.
Would an easy-out bit not work on the sheared bolt? Ive had good success with those in the past, looks like you got it out no problem though.
@Rabidhamster - I had have one of those, but when I get a screw broken off in an incredibly dense wood like wenge, the easy out seems to just chew up what left of the screw.
Update:
It's been about 3 weeks since she went on her maiden voyage. I've had the opportunity to play it at 5 different gigs, and 4 band practices with 2 different bands. The genre's of the bands I am in are Chicago blues, and Classic rock, which leans a little to the Metal side.
I always find it difficult to review my stuff because it's hard to be objective, but I will try.
From a band mate perspective, the feedback is positive, and everyone says this is the best sounding bass I have. In one of the bands I'm in, the BL was disappointed that I didn't bring it to the last job we played. And has requested that I bring this bass only from now on.
From my perspective, I can hear the bass better, as well as the rest of my band mates. It just sits in the mix really well!! I don't know why this is superior in its sonic presence, but I have no desire to play my other basses at this time.
The setup has been dialed in, and here's where I currently have it set
Action at the nut
B - .023"
G - .013"
Action at the 12th fret
B - .070"
G - .054"
Pickup height is set to .120" on the bass side and .070" on the treble side
When I play this without an amp I get a lot of fingerboard buzz. That disappears when I plug it into an amp. However, if I go direct into a board, you can hear it. I play with a very light touch, so it all seems to work out for me. A tweak of the truss rod is about all it would take for someone with a heavier touch.
And of course, because the action is low, and the fingerboard is hard, the mwah and growl factor is high.
The B string is wonderfully clear and clean sounding, and doesn't fart out.
The D and G strings don't seem to be over bearing when I pop em, like they do on Fender style pups. Said another way, it doesn't seem to need a compressor/limiter when playing slap.
I went record it the other day, (direct into the board) but the fingerboard buzz irritated me, and I didn't feel like miking up my amp at the time. I have a week off, so I might get around to it this coming week.
I'll see what I can do to get a sound file out soon.
Cheers
Update:
It's been about 3 weeks since she went on her maiden voyage. I've had the opportunity to play it at 5 different gigs, and 4 band practices with 2 different bands. The genre's of the bands I am in are Chicago blues, and Classic rock, which leans a little to the Metal side.
I always find it difficult to review my stuff because it's hard to be objective, but I will try.
From a band mate perspective, the feedback is positive, and everyone says this is the best sounding bass I have. In one of the bands I'm in, the BL was disappointed that I didn't bring it to the last job we played. And has requested that I bring this bass only from now on.
From my perspective, I can hear the bass better, as well as the rest of my band mates. It just sits in the mix really well!! I don't know why this is superior in its sonic presence, but I have no desire to play my other basses at this time.
The setup has been dialed in, and here's where I currently have it set
Action at the nut
B - .023"
G - .013"
Action at the 12th fret
B - .070"
G - .054"
Pickup height is set to .120" on the bass side and .070" on the treble side
When I play this without an amp I get a lot of fingerboard buzz. That disappears when I plug it into an amp. However, if I go direct into a board, you can hear it. I play with a very light touch, so it all seems to work out for me. A tweak of the truss rod is about all it would take for someone with a heavier touch.
And of course, because the action is low, and the fingerboard is hard, the mwah and growl factor is high.
The B string is wonderfully clear and clean sounding, and doesn't fart out.
The D and G strings don't seem to be over bearing when I pop em, like they do on Fender style pups. Said another way, it doesn't seem to need a compressor/limiter when playing slap.
I went record it the other day, (direct into the board) but the fingerboard buzz irritated me, and I didn't feel like miking up my amp at the time. I have a week off, so I might get around to it this coming week.
I'll see what I can do to get a sound file out soon.
Cheers
Any final photos of the completed build? It's such a lovely looking bass it seems a pity to leave your diary here.
Will these work?
As a side note, this has become my go to bass. It's got a really nice clarity of tone, and very well balanced across all of the strings, with the exception of the B string, which is a little boomy.
Speaking of the B string, I have a number of 5 bangers, and this one definately has the best B string
So now I have a new paradigm, but I don't know exactly what it is.
- This is my first venture into G&L pups and bridges, so that could be it.
- This is also my first venture into all Wenge. That could be it too.
- I have the body that is 1.41" thick
Looks like I may have to build a replica 4 stringer. I have all the parts...Stay tuned
That's going to "wear in" really nicely, with shiny spots polished up by hand and clothes, eventually like a favorite set of leather loafers.
Sen- Freakin-sational! 
I don't often look at a fender style bass and want to own it. This is an exception.
I don't often look at a fender style bass and want to own it. This is an exception.
how did you come up with your body template? I've been wanting to make an ASAT bass, but all I have to go off of is a telecaster body, which I assume is too small.
I have a couple telecasters laying around, which I used as a base for making the outline. I started by drawing the outline on a piece of poster board
Because my lunchbox planer will only handle pieces 12.5" wide, I then made the drawing of the the body 12.5" wide. you can see the offsets on my paper template in the 1st post of this thread. I did this by cutting this out of the middle section. Next step was to incrementally draw the body outline in .25" steps for six steps, until the body was an inch and a half longer. I then drew a line that seemed to be the "median" of the stacked up lines. I probably did some other things like keep the lower horn in it's original position.
Once I got my line drawing the way I like, I cut out the poster board so that I had a positive and a negative.
From there I just transferred the line drawing to a chunk of MDF.
Great looking bass.
Regarding the boomy B.
It could be the pickups are too close on the bass side. The MFDs are very hot pickups. You could try lowering the bass side and fine-tuning the string-to-string volume adjusting the pole-pieces. That might or might not help the boominess. This would be my approach to attempting to remedy the situation.
Regarding the boomy B.
It could be the pickups are too close on the bass side. The MFDs are very hot pickups. You could try lowering the bass side and fine-tuning the string-to-string volume adjusting the pole-pieces. That might or might not help the boominess. This would be my approach to attempting to remedy the situation.
