X-Bass - Experimental 3 Pickup Bass

[twocargar]

Feel better, man!

 

[Basshappi]

I wondering what had happened to you Flux.
It is good to "see" once again and I hope you get back to full health very soon.

Good luck!

 

[Flux Jetson]

Thanks fellas. Geez, I got that shoulder issue all squared away (I do plenty of excersize, ride my bike about 5 to 7 miles per day and so on). Turns out that shoulder issue was sortof a "50 year old thing". After I got it worked out it's been fine. But some other stuff has been plaguing me for several years has been getting worse, at least we may have found the root cause and can address it at the very core of the issue now. Nothing infectious or contagious, nothing like HIV or anything like that. Taking a very long story and condensing it down to a very short statement, it comes down to severe PTSD from several previous incidents in my rather eventful life. After learning about all of this, it truly amazes me at the sheer amount of diseases and maladies that are caused by PTSD. That stuff can literally cause physical illnesses, such as heart disease, intestinal disease, renal diseases and malfunctions, strokes, and the more obvious "killers" like substance abuse and suicide. Any of it can kill. These ideas used to be thought of as sortof "new age" or "theories". But today (and since roughly 20-odd years ago) this is clinical knowledge and accepted as fact. Good thing, since there is and will be a LOT of PTSD cases coming around with our all volunteer military. Some of these poor bastards have 5 and 6 tours of duty.

Write it on the wall, there will be more Fort Hoods.

We need to reinstate the military draft. Americans are feeling no pain while these wars rage on. They have no dog in the fight. If Americans knew that their sons, or their daughters, or THEMSELVES, may be drafted into the military and sent off to some war, there is a FAR better chance that we as a people will be far less likely to vote to go to war in the first place! And there should be a WAR TAX put into place anytime we want to go play shootem-up in some shithole country. Anytime we decide we want to march into some other nation, there should be a war tax placed on every single taxpayer. That tax would be taken directly out of each person's paycheck, right off of the bottom line after FICA and SSA deductions.

Why? Why a draft? Why a war tax? Because war needs to be painful ... for everyone involved. Not just those that are so poor or jobless that they have no choice but to join the military. How many "rich kids" do you think are in active duty combat units? Not many, is my guess. And it's no odd thing that over 65% of the combat Marines have Spanish surnames, either.

Nope, Americans aren't hurting enough with these wars. All of the pain is placed upon a select few people that are willing (or needy) enough to go fight "our" battles for "us". The pain is too distant and disconnected, going to war is far too easy. Well, at least for those that are not sent off to fight in it.

Thanks.

So ok then, I'll be back around annoying everyone again fairly soon. I'm just sticking my head in to let those interested that I'm still alive and that I'll be back around to continue with this and other projects as soon as I **** my get together.

Thank you very much for the interest in what I am doing here with this project.

Be well everyone. Fluxhole.

 

[eddododo]

Hope you're doing well flux

 

[Flux Jetson]

Hello folks. Well, I'm feeling a bit on the upswing again. Hopefully I will be continuing this project soon. The studio is nearly remodeled .. er .. um .. more like "put back together" after having had to take it down and move things a bit. What a chore that has turned out to be.

I've every intention of resuming this project and continuing on with it. With my brother's help the studio where I ~do~ this stuff is nearly back to operational status, and my own ~self~ is nearly back to operational status as well (health junk, that is).

I hope I haven't disappointed to many folks that have shown a genuine interest in this little set of curious experiments. I'd been fooling myself with optimistic denial and telling myself that my health issues were just little annoyances that would get better over time. Yea, see that little lie only works for a short time, then the reality of the situation begins to demand proactive action. I've turned 54 years old in the passing months, and it seems there comes a time when the Superman suit no longer fits properly. Or, more correctly said, there comes a time when one must admit that it's time to hang up the Superman suit and admit one's vulnerabilities and weaknesses. I no longer change clothes in a phone booth, I no longer wear that "S" on my chest. Leaping tall buildings in single bounds is easier done in an elevator these days, and stopping bullets is out of the question. As far as being more powerful than a locomotive .. yea .. well .. we can kinda forget that! Heheh ...

So I admitted that the Superman suit no longer fit, and I needed to have health care professionals do what they do. "The child is grown, the dream is gone ... I have become comfortably numb" Well, not really.

But there comes a time that we all must admit our frailties and attend to them.

It has just been my turn, that's all this is.

 

[twocargar]

Hello folks. Well, I'm feeling a bit on the upswing again. Hopefully I will be continuing this project soon. The studio is nearly remodeled .. er .. um .. more like "put back together" after having had to take it down and move things a bit. What a chore that has turned out to be.

I've every intention of resuming this project and continuing on with it. With my brother's help the studio where I ~do~ this stuff is nearly back to operational status, and my own ~self~ is nearly back to operational status as well (health junk, that is).

I hope I haven't disappointed to many folks that have shown a genuine interest in this little set of curious experiments. I'd been fooling myself with optimistic denial and telling myself that my health issues were just little annoyances that would get better over time. Yea, see that little lie only works for a short time, then the reality of the situation begins to demand proactive action. I've turned 54 years old in the passing months, and it seems there comes a time when the Superman suit no longer fits properly. Or, more correctly said, there comes a time when one must admit that it's time to hang up the Superman suit and admit one's vulnerabilities and weaknesses. I no longer change clothes in a phone booth, I no longer wear that "S" on my chest. Leaping tall buildings in single bounds is easier done in an elevator these days, and stopping bullets is out of the question. As far as being more powerful than a locomotive .. yea .. well .. we can kinda forget that! Heheh ...

So I admitted that the Superman suit no longer fit, and I needed to have health care professionals do what they do. "The child is grown, the dream is gone ... I have become comfortably numb" Well, not really.

But there comes a time that we all must admit our frailties and attend to them.

It has just been my turn, that's all this is.

Welcome back!

 

[eddododo]

you know... im only 25 and yet this last year has been a VERY tough year on my body... permanent wear-and-tear, acute injuries, and the little treats that come with no longer being 18... its funny how often we need to be reminded of the realities of life.

Hope you find a nice balance, and get to enjoy the hobbies that keep us sane

 

[Shardik]

Thanks so much. I honestly appreciate the encouragment.

I'm going to start out using FOUR J-bass pickups. I forgot to take a picture of the 4J pickup configuration when I took all of those configuration shots. DOH! But I have two pairs of Duncan Design Jazz Bass pickups. 2 will go in the stock locations, and the extra two will go in the Rickenbacker locations (what I call "F24" and "F36" positions).

I've also worked out a pretty cool setup to install and remove the pickups easily, as well as very easily change their configurations from series to parallel in any combination of pickups and locations. And after the config-strip the outputs of the strip are soldered directly to a set of 4 output jacks that I'll use to connect the bass to an array of 4 separate ART mic preamps to provide great input impedance levels for the pickups as well as phase inversion switches for convenience. After the 4 ART preamps those 4 signals will then be sent to a buffered 8 channel mixer (used in a modular synthesizer) to provide pickup selection and pickup mixing. The mixer is a clever design that permits any input channel to be routed to either of two output jacks. The mixer is also SUPER transparent and almost 100% noiseless. So it will not contaminate the pickups' outputs with it's own tone or add any noise. From the mixer the signals will go to various destinations depending on what tests and recordings I am doing. For "bare" tonal comparisons I'll send the outputs directly to my audio interface for recording. But I'll also run them through some of my favorite EQ settings and FX processors to see how various pickup combos or pickup locations perform in my own rig.

So there is much to look forward to.

Thanks again for the encouraging remarks. It all helps push this project forward.

Sorry for picking up an old post, but since I just got a Stingray (well, a Ray34, but still), I wonder if you know how the Stingray pickup position lines up compared to the other positions here...

 

[qersty]

Sorry for picking up an old post, but since I just got a Stingray (well, a Ray34, but still), I wonder if you know how the Stingray pickup position lines up compared to the other positions here...

It would be the fret 36 position

 

[Shardik]

It would be the fret 36 position

Ok, same as the Ric postion, then. Thanks.

 

[eldoryder]

I just read through this entire thread, and I am alarmed at the lack of posts from Flux since Nov. 17 of 2014! Naturally, I am anxious to hear of new advances in this project, but am even more concerned as to why someone with such prolific thread output would be MIA for the last seven months. My first thought is that his physical challenges have taken a turn for the worse, which saddens me. I, too, have an existing disability with five previous back surgeries and two fusions which have left me impaired, but not paralyzed, which was my outlook without this last surgery. Permanent pain meds were also part of this devil's bargain. So I can definitely relate to some of what he has been going through.

I'm by no means any kind of a techie, so some of what he has been posting has been over my head, but I challenge myself to try and follow it. Flux is an excellent writer, and able to effectively describe his procedures in a way that even laymen have a chance of keeping up with. I've just now finished the thread, and am already missing his posts. What I hope to learn above all is if the Rickenbacker pickup positioning is key to the Rickenbacker sound. I have a Squier Cabronita that I am hoping to put two (or maybe three) Fidelitron pickups on, and would like to duplicate the Rickenbacker positioning if it proves to be a key component of that sound.

Flux, wherever you are buddy, I hope you are doing well. Please come back and bring us up to date on your personal journey. I wish only the best for you and hope to see you back here soon.

 

[Ric5]

I rediscovered this thread ... I was thinking of building a Dave Meros style 4 pickup bass something like these ...

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[Ric5]

I might add 2 more pickups to this bass here ...

 

[Raka]

You will like it. Can't tell if will get a pure rick sound, but you will get close. I really like mi SD in the 24th fret location.

 

[Doner Designs]

I might add 2 more pickups to this bass here ...

You might want to browse and post in the thread called "Show us your 3 pickup basses" (really it means 3 or more).

Here's the quad J I made. Sold it last summer. Also my current lineup of triples which might give you some ideas. For wiring I usually put the middle and neck together on one channel of the blender and use a 3 way mini toggle. These are all set up that way except that my triple J treats the two rear pickups as alternate bridge pickups (3 way toggle on the bridge pair instead of the neck pair on the others). Sometimes instead of the 3 way switch I put on/off toggles on each pickup (or each coil) but still pair them up into the blend control as noted above.

 

[AltGrendel]

You might want to browse and post in the thread called "Show us your 3 pickup basses" (really it means 3 or more).

Here's the quad J I made. Sold it last summer. Also my current lineup of triples which might give you some ideas. For wiring I usually put the middle and neck together on one channel of the blender and use a 3 way mini toggle. These are all set up that way except that my triple J treats the two rear pickups as alternate bridge pickups (3 way toggle on the bridge pair instead of the neck pair on the others). Sometimes instead of the 3 way switch I put on/off toggles on each pickup (or each coil) but still pair them up into the blend control as noted above.

View attachment 787207

I would have bought that one just for the factor. Looks sweet, was that an auction bass?

 

[Doner Designs]

I would have bought that one just for the factor. Looks sweet, was that an auction bass?

Not for auction. All of these are personal/prototype basses. So far all of our charity builds have had some kind of a theme in hopes of expanding the pool of bidders beyond players. We are however experimenting with a think called Ebay Giving Works where you can sell something on ebay and then have the proceeds automatically given to the charity of your choice. We are testing that with some low dollar stuff to get the hang of it. At some point I would like to try selling/donating a guitar that way. I guess if we put a reserve on it the only thing at risk is the fee. The benefit of using ebay is that the pool of bidders is MUCH bigger and the net proceeds could therefore be higher. The loss is that the charity loses the opportunity to have a cool item in their live auction.