Fender Telecaster Bass transformation

godofthunder · June 20, 2009, 07:00:19 AM

When that color came out I didn't like it much but I have to say I really like it now !

hieronymous · July 22, 2009, 01:42:31 PM

Quote from: godofthunder on June 20, 2009, 07:00:19 AM
When that color came out I didn't like it much but I have to say I really like it now !

Hey GOT - sorry I missed this post - I was going to say that the color this bass ended up as is a little different than the traditional ~~poop brown~~ mocha/whatever it's called - it strikes me as a little bit richer, maybe a little bit more red. I like to think of it as root beer...

Anyway, here's a couple of more shots:

The lighting is different in both - you can tell by looking at my shirt that the first shot has a bit more red, also no flash, while the second one was taken with flash.

I also went nuts with some soundclips - they're all the same performance, but with different pickups. I named the jam "tamanegi" (onion in Japanese - don't ask why, cuz I don't know!), there are little flubs here and there, but I thought it might be fun:

A word of caution - this is not a scientific study! We worked harder on the Alembic sound than the humbucker - each pickup is going separately into separate channels of an Alembic F-2B preamp, and to tell the truth the humbucker was more of an afterthought. I should also point out that I didn't work too hard on the recording with both pickups - they are panned a little bit left and right, pretty much equal volume. If I were going to do it right, I think I would mainly use the Alembic pup and then add in a bit of the humbucker to beef it up. The humbucker sounds really midrangey on the track by itself, but it actually blends in nicely.

PhilT · July 23, 2009, 09:50:21 AM

I love that colour.

Does the humbucker in this bear any relation to what they've put in the Squier Modified Precision TB?

Dave W · July 23, 2009, 01:07:43 PM

Quote from: PhilT on July 23, 2009, 09:50:21 AM
I love that colour.

Does the humbucker in this bear any relation to what they've put in the Squier Modified Precision TB?

No, it just looks the same. The new ones are standard humbucker construction with steel polepieces and an alnico bar magnet underneath put into an old style cover. The original has threaded cunife magnets as polepieces and is way overwound.

Here's the innards of the original style:

hieronymous · October 23, 2009, 06:05:54 PM

Been meaning to post this for a while - a tune I posted in the "post your music" thread but with a bass-only track so you can hear the sound of the Alembic Activator pickups:

Here it is with everything else on top:

It's the P-Bass Activators through an Alembic F-2B preamp, a dbx 162 compressor, then into ProTools. Until this song I had been playing with my fingers, but switched to a heavy pick. I had the filter pretty open, and as soon as we started playing, I realized that it sounded kind of too "trebly" with the pick. I remember turning down the filter as I was playing, and thinking that I had ruined the track! But I kept playing. In hindsight, I think it sounds great! The different filter settings totally change the mood. Obviously Greg's drumming has a lot to do with the different moods, but I think the variety of tones that the Activators make possible had a huge impact too.

I guess I should point out too that the Rhodes electric piano is also going through the same signal chain, with a Budda Phat Bass distortion as well. Most of the keyboard parts were improvised and overdubbed afterwards - the section in the "extract" took several overdubs to get right, so not as "spontaneous" as the rest.

Here's the entire piece:

Highlander · October 24, 2009, 02:45:48 PM

Great tone... there's a lot of your music that is "out there", but in a thoroughly enjoyable way...

hieronymous · October 27, 2009, 10:54:14 AM

Quote from: Kenny Five-O on October 24, 2009, 02:45:48 PM
Great tone... there's a lot of your music that is "out there", but in a thoroughly enjoyable way...

Thank you sir - it helps that ultimately I don't make my music for anyone but myself!

hieronymous · November 04, 2009, 11:22:45 PM

Got to post this one - it's called "

" - guess who's on drums? Definitely not my usual drummer - it's me! I can't really play, only a few beats, but when we were setting up for my most recent recording session, I played a little bit so that Damon could check the sounds. Later on I overdubbed a bass part - it was fun playing along with myself! I guess I do it all the time while recording but for some reason it was interesting - hopefully not only for myself...