I bought my Wishbass number 1050 new, from Wishnevsky. It's a Fantasy, made of Bubinga. Here is a not so great picture:
It is my first and only fretless, which presents it's own challenges, but I had issues I didn't anticipate. Mostly it was the noisy, tone with no apparent bass. Of course the key factors were the hum from the single coil and the effect of the pickup being only one inch from the bridge.
Recently I was without my fretted bass (a 1976 Ripper) for over a week and decided to experiment with the Wishbass. First thing I did was buy a cheap Carvin H50S pickup. Actually, the EMG it came with had slightly better tone but the Carvin is quiet, which is key.
Also found an article showing the effect of pickup position. Being close to the bridge isn't fatal, it just means the low end rolloff starts higher and is bigger at the low end. I resurrected my Craig Anderton Super Tone Control and was able to dial in a significant bass boost over the range where it is less on my bass. Suddenly I was able to get lots of good useful tones, ranging from acoustic-ish to standard jazz bass to bass heavy. Cool!
However, the absence of hum let me hear the other issue: buzz due to lack of string grounding. I pondered for a while and came up with a low tech fix: I took a bit of copper wire, wrapped it around each string just behind the plastic Corian bridge and then tucked the end under the (grounded) aluminum cover plate. Not pretty, but not really noticeable and problem solved!
Now I'm really getting sounds I like and I've always loved the feel of this bass. Now I'm to the point that I more often want to play the Wishbass than the fretted Ripper, which has been my main bass since in got it back in about 1984.
Anyway, that's how I've tackled these issues. I'd be delighted to see any other, more elegant approaches to these issues, particularly the string grounding.
Otto
It is my first and only fretless, which presents it's own challenges, but I had issues I didn't anticipate. Mostly it was the noisy, tone with no apparent bass. Of course the key factors were the hum from the single coil and the effect of the pickup being only one inch from the bridge.
Recently I was without my fretted bass (a 1976 Ripper) for over a week and decided to experiment with the Wishbass. First thing I did was buy a cheap Carvin H50S pickup. Actually, the EMG it came with had slightly better tone but the Carvin is quiet, which is key.
Also found an article showing the effect of pickup position. Being close to the bridge isn't fatal, it just means the low end rolloff starts higher and is bigger at the low end. I resurrected my Craig Anderton Super Tone Control and was able to dial in a significant bass boost over the range where it is less on my bass. Suddenly I was able to get lots of good useful tones, ranging from acoustic-ish to standard jazz bass to bass heavy. Cool!
However, the absence of hum let me hear the other issue: buzz due to lack of string grounding. I pondered for a while and came up with a low tech fix: I took a bit of copper wire, wrapped it around each string just behind the plastic Corian bridge and then tucked the end under the (grounded) aluminum cover plate. Not pretty, but not really noticeable and problem solved!
Now I'm really getting sounds I like and I've always loved the feel of this bass. Now I'm to the point that I more often want to play the Wishbass than the fretted Ripper, which has been my main bass since in got it back in about 1984.
Anyway, that's how I've tackled these issues. I'd be delighted to see any other, more elegant approaches to these issues, particularly the string grounding.
Otto
