The Last Bass Outpost

It's an awful design. Nothing you say will convince me otherwise.

I clock it up to 'period charm'. You take off the strings and the bridge falls off, shedding the saddles in the process. However, what other bridge design allows you to control the yaw?

Hmm that's strange. It doesn't mention any of that in neither the manual, nor do they mention it on the product info at their website.
I'd say an on board speaker simulator is a bit of a feature you would want to boast with.

Its a 'dumb' copy of a Tech 21 design. Joyo simply had to copy the circuit path and maybe futz with one or two component values, then design and plan the thing down to a lower price point. Maybe Joyo don't even realise there is a speaker sim in the design!

Many thanks guys! I will look at these when I get some down time.

I used to have one of these;



I'm glad I don't any more.

Thanks for the links! They sound like a nightmare of hot plexiglass and mains voltage...

I still don't understand the circuitry involved, from converting the output of passive pickups to 3-bands of control voltages for the lights.

I've not seen Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines since I was a kid. I watched a trailer for it on YT last night, and the special effects don't seem quite so special.

I remember a similar phenomenon when I watched the film 'Mosquito Squadron' the second time. At one point a Mosquito crashes, and it is quite clearly a small scale model projecting a shadow on some poorly painted scenery. The 'squadron' itself is made up using crude film doubling techniques, though they did scrape together a good collection of then-flyable Mosquitos for the film. I don't remember much else about the film, other than that it all took place around a prison castle in Germany...  As a young 'un I found all the killing a bit overwhelming.

My 'Rok Sak' arrived yesterday, alongside a cheap Badass II clone. The bridge is safely on the Tokai, and I also installed three Tele-style barrel knobs. My chroming is now complete for the time being, until I pluck up the stones to re-skin some pickups and re-route accordingly.

Tomorrow I go modding project hunting. My plan is to still make a bass that sounds like a Rickenbacker, out of some neglected mutt. I'm trawling the pawnbrokers for Staggs, Washburn Lyons, Squier Broncos etc. I'm looking for a bass where, with some judicious routing and a new pickguard, I can drop pickups into the 24th and 36th fret positions, stick a bass-cut cap on the bridge pickup and get a Rick-like tone. Something along the lines of a Stingray would work, as I've seen Dave Meros rocking out on a modded OLP.

Everything about that was good. 

I read in the interview John assembled the bass himself, soldering iron in hand. I have no idea if this is correct. So I wonder was one pickup from the carcase basses just a bit hotter? Or maybe a capacitor of a different value? Maybe it was a odd pairing of potentiometers?

John Kallas told me that the Slab circuitry was bone stock, as per regular P basses. He got to explore an original one. Likewise the one I've seen dissected online had normal Precision circuitry, though two different coloured bobbins were used on the pickups; a real mutt.

My unproven theory was that Jazzmaster 1 M ohm pots were used, because the original request had been made for a 'Telecaster bass' from Fender, and the first run of slabs was a response to that. 1 M pots would be brighter, and more Tele-like, and were a standard Fender component in 1966, though I have no evidence to back this up and evidence that refutes this idea! The classic Leeds tone doesn't have any perceptible treble roll-off, so surely the cap would be less of an issue?

Gareth, who is behind the Slab 66 basses, builds them with a hotter pickup apparently. I've quizzed him and he doesn't do anything else deliberately to get slab tone. Conversely I've got a pretty good Slab tone out of a Yamaha BB bass with low action, fresh rounds and a tube amp emulation.