The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs => Topic started by: Alanko on October 29, 2021, 12:38:53 PM
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I had a look on an old portable hard drive today for the first time in several years. I found some photos of my early bass modification projects. Some results were quite good, some were quite terrible. Learn from my mistakes!
(https://i.imgur.com/0SsNneW.jpg)
So far so safe. A nice Westone Thunder I body mated to a Samick shortscale neck from a 'Greg Bennett' bass. This is where I learned that if you chop four inches off the scale length of a bass you have to move the bridge inland.
(https://i.imgur.com/e4FoGcv.jpg)
The body of the Samick bass was paired to a Squier Bronco neck. This bass was wired in stereo, with the option to mute the D-G coil of the P pickup. I was interested in stereo bass rigs, pushing the extremes of treble and bass response from one instrument. I think this had dual concentric pots, so one volume and tone per stereo channel. A rough bass but a fun idea to play around with.
(https://i.imgur.com/VRahCpU.jpg)
An Aria Jazz Bass copy bought for the sole purpose of installing two Artec mudbuckers.
(https://i.imgur.com/dqsZ4dp.jpg)
My poor Jazz Bass. This was my first "proper" bass, bought when I landed my first serious job after college. My love/hate relationship with Jazz Basses started as soon as the bass was home. I wanted more meat, more girth... after much modding and pickup swaps it ended up like this. The neck was a left handed Fender Mexico neck I bought from Italy. It had had a ski jump shaved down at some point as the fretboard got thinner above the 15th fret. The pickguard was a custom job I paid a guy in England to make and the pickups were bought as used Dimarzios, but almost certainly weren't. I've seen the body for sale twice since I sold it on. I should have kept the bass for sentimental reasons I guess, but I just don't enjoy Jazz Basses enough.
(https://i.imgur.com/e56q4BP.jpg)
An OLP Stingray copy with two Epiphone Thunderbird pickups in Rickenbacker 4003 pickup locations. This bass sounded outrageous.
(https://i.imgur.com/ieF5VGt.jpg)
A Cort GB Bass with an Epiphone Thunderbird pickup installed in the neck position. I ditched the stock preamp and had an Alembic Stratoblaster clone in there. This was my one attempt at giving active basses a shot. The damn thing ran down its battery overnight, so I ditched the Stratoblaster circuit and had some exotic mix of bass cut and coil split controls going on.
To make sure I didn't go back to active electronics I filled stuck a toy car in the battery box route and brimmed the compartment with blue epoxy resin. The dye in the epoxy turned green due to the heat of the stuff curing:
(https://i.imgur.com/Nzpn8L1.jpg)
Finally, a Tuscany 'Bird' bass. This was the worst bass I've ever owned, due to the cheap construction and finish. I tried to make it closer to Rickenbacker specs/aesthetics with a toaster pickup. I also opted for a simplified wiring harness.
(https://i.imgur.com/3hc65Vh.jpg)
This bass ended up getting attacked with a saw until it could fit in a bin. Around this time my wife asked me "why do you keep buying basses that look like Rickenbackers or modifying basses to sound like Rickenbackers? Why not just buy a Rickenbacker?"
If you tally up how much I spent on shit basses she maybe had a point!
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Those all look nice, even if they didn't work out for you. At least they don't look like anything from the Reptile Dentistry FB page.
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... At least they don't look like anything from the Reptile Dentistry FB page...
:mrgreen:
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Very nice.
And it's good to see I am not the only one who modified basses beyond repair :mrgreen:
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:mrgreen:
That sent me down a rabbit hole too 8).
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Reptile Dentistry is very much like the page A Guitar A Day on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/aguitaraday/?hl=en (https://www.instagram.com/aguitaraday/?hl=en)
Some of the stuff they post is brutal. People take very rare or collectible guitars and do irreversible modifications.