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I used the stubby at band practice tonight, it felt really weird to use in that environment, but it cuts through nicely and sounded great through my big amp. I'll pull it out again at practice once I get the octave pedal. After playing a song with it I got the full sized five string, that thing is huge. :-D The stubby is super loud!
the tuners work well. It stays in tune as well as any bass I own, minor touch ups when I pick it up. There is definitely a variety in how difficult the knobs are to turn though - the D string is super easy to spin, the A is tight, the other two strings somewhere in between. It's not enough for me to say "never again", but it is the reality of using one of these off brand bridges. Surprisingly the screws they sent with the bridge are of high quality, I've received some with other bridges that were made out of pot metal or something, easily damaged and impossible to get all the way in.
Andy Brown
Commercial User
- Jul 23, 2004
- 5,675
- 312
- Disclosures
- Founder/Owner: Wing Instruments
I've been getting static and even some complete silence out of the Stubby. Today when I opened up the control cavity (the magnetic cover is a great idea - no tools to open it up!) I found some of the "solderless" connectors had migrated down the little pins they sit on. I think these things are moving around - they are a lot looser than the ones inside an EMG set up. Simple fix, cut 'em off, solder the wires. I did it an hour or so ago and all seems good. I'll report back if anything changes. I recall having similar problems with the short scale when I put these in there, I guess I didn't do enough trouble shooting to figure things out.
This is my submission for the Winter 2017 Build off:
The things I did with this build I've never done before:
- first wing bass (that kind of says a lot, but...)
- first bass made out of a single piece of wood
- first headless completed
- first true single cut
- first bass with a control cavity that is too big
- first 18v bass (not planned)
- first bass with a flat fingerboard
- first time cutting fret slots
The build thread can be viewed here.
I put together this movie with pictures of the finished bass, all the music is played on the Stubby, I used an octave dropper in Garageband for the lower range bass part, I plan on buying an octave pedal to use this in the band. It sounds really nice. I plugged it into my big amp this afternoon, huge sound for a tiny instrument. It has a very expressive sound:
Specs for the build:
17" scale "Wing" bass (props to the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed])
One piece black walnut body with sap wood (white area)
Ebay headless tuner (no name)
Guitar Fetish active pickup with passive tone and volume controls (with 18V it really sounds good!)
D'dadrio XL (yep!) flatwound strings, I think I threw more of the string away than is mounted on the instrument
Tiger maple fingerboard with walnut stringers - 17 frets
Maple/walnut laminate nut
Formby's Tung oil finish
The idea behind the build:
I've seen those wing basses around and thought it was a cool instrument. Without trying one I'd be hesitant to spend that much on one - I'm sure they are well worth it, but not if I can build one! I spent about $90 to make this one. It plays so nicely it's one of those things I just can't put down, always a good sign. I fashioned it after the Wing, but I didn't really measure anything off it, just used it as a general guideline.
The wood is amazing, it is deeply 3 dimensional, I guess you can kind of see that in the pictures, but in person the thing changes as you move around. Especially this part of the front:
The fingerboard also has some real depth, no pictures show how cool it is:
I love the back - my first few instruments I was upset that the "cool wood" ended up on the back, but that's where the large expanses of uninterrupted wood are, it's especially true with this one being one piece of wood.
The control cover came out cool, the magnets seem to hold it ok, it fell off once when the batteries moved, I taped them in for now, I'll have to put in some kind of holder:
Maybe the one thing I'd change for the next one would be to make the lower bout a bit smaller, but overall I'm very happy with how this one came out:
In the words of @Scoops thanks for looking!
As
I's likely that the sockets weren't seating well in the housings. I grown to despise those things in my own builds and solder things for the most part now.I've been getting static and even some complete silence out of the Stubby. Today when I opened up the control cavity (the magnetic cover is a great idea - no tools to open it up!) I found some of the "solderless" connectors had migrated down the little pins they sit on. I think these things are moving around - they are a lot looser than the ones inside an EMG set up. Simple fix, cut 'em off, solder the wires. I did it an hour or so ago and all seems good. I'll report back if anything changes. I recall having similar problems with the short scale when I put these in there, I guess I didn't do enough trouble shooting to figure things out.
I suspect this instrument is not too many people's cup o'joe, but it was a ton of fun to make and play (and look at those other entrants - wow!).
Well Stubby got a vote from me
......As you point out though....There's a lot of "Wow" going on with all of the builds.....drool
Well....That's two out of my three picks in the space of a handful of posts!....
.....Loved your bass @mapleglo
I couldn't make a decision if I got just 1 of them FOR FREE. So imagine voting...
Amazing work guys, really.
Amazing work guys, really.
I got a whammy pedal, I have a feeling my bandmates will tire of it before I do :-D
I have an old desk made out of birds eye maple and a 75 year old piece of hickory. I want to make my first bass, any advice? How did your first bass turn out? pic?
