A few weeks ago the very first shortscale semi acoustic bass came in from my Czech friends.
It had no bridge (and so also without strings)
Initially I had planned to install a bridge that I had found on Ebay: a two point wrap-around bridge
But when that arrived a few days ago, it appeared to be much too small for this bass. 15 mm string spacing and ridiculously tiny holes to pull the strings through. Perfect for a mandolin, but useless for this bass
So off to Plan B. The trusted three point bridge
.
I have no problems with those bridges, and it sort of fits with the whole design of the bass anyway.
I had one lying in a drawer, so I went ahead with a ruler and a drilling machine.
So far so good.
But like I already knew; the angle of the body and neck was rather big. I had to raise the bridge very high on the strings posts to make for a normal action. I didn't figure it would be a good idea to have the studs raised that high, so I decided to use taller saddles. I have an old Pearl Bass that has tall saddles. So I tried these. But they wouldn't fit the three point bridge that I had installed. There are obviously differences between the three point bridges that are out there...
So - for the time being - I decided to make my own saddles, just to get the bass up and running.
I had some ebony at home. It is as hard as stone, so I thought that might be a good idea.
In the proces of cutting out the saddles, two snapped before they were done. But after some work I had four decent saddles.
I am going to use nylon for the rest of the series. I is much easier to work with and I happen to like the sound of nylon saddles. Plus it fits the EB2 nicely.
The bass is very comfortable to play. The mahogany neck feels very familiar. The sound of the humbucker is rather different than the sound of the humbucker on the longscale BaCH semi acoustic that I have. The humbucker in this blonde shortie is more focussed and clear. Not muddy.
I have no idea what it is exactly. It has a BaCH logo on the chrome cover. But BaCH does not make their own pickups...
I'll ask them where they found this
Anyway, here's the bridge with ebony saddles:
And here's the SAB-1S NA (Semi Acoustic Bass -1 humbucker, short scale - natural) in it's full glory:
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