This is my current project, in fact the thing that led me to find this place.Since I started this its been put on hold twice, Ive rescued the broken necked 3/4 Asian bass and built the twin tele in between so now I feel confident enough to post pictures of a work in progress
This is my short scale ET-280, my first bass, given to me as payment for a couple of days helping someone move when I was 15, I learnt to play on it, and loved it right up until my brother got given a p bass copy, and I realised that "Talulah" (we all gave our instruments names back then like BB king) was a pice of shit, she was too heavy, sounded like crap and was hard to play, I didnt know anything about set ups etc then, and thought that was just what short scales sounded like so as soon as my bro got bored of his bass I aquired that. I never got rid of Talulah though and dragged it around as a spare when I was gigging, and lent it to a friend when I taught him to play bass(where it aquired a new name"the plank")
When I got succesful doing video and gave up on music it went into my loft along with my main bass (by now a skinny necked Bass collection that I'd part exed my brothers Pbass for
) It came out of the loft again for a bit 5 years later when I spent a weekend teaching my godson the basics, and then 5 years later it came back out for good when I started doing music again with the kids at the special school where I got a job when I'd got tired of touring.
I was setting it up for a leftie for school when I had the brainwave to take a tape measure to my 3/4 samick and check the scale length and voila, the bridge was 2 inches downstream of where it should be, I remounted the bridge and set it up, and it was like a new instrument. when the leftie student got a real left bass, I restrung it right handed and fell in love again. there were a few issues though, the baseball bat neck for one, figuring that it had nearly ended up in a skip a couple of times already and that I had nothing to lose I took a former and a rasp and sandpaper to the neck until it felt comfortable to play
another issue was the electronics, which were noisy, one pickup was missing and the selector switch was completely loose in its housing resulting in random cutouts, oh and the one remaining pickup was really quiet on the D string, opening it up resulted in disaster, the electrics completely crumbled to dust in my hands, literally, all the insulation on the wiring was totally perished.. so complete new innards then.
bouyed up by the success with the neck reprofile. I then decided to get really radical: I cycle to and from work, and I use a hofner shortie for work, and had been using my 3/4 scalebass to travel with because I could fit them both in an acoustic gigbag and still cycle, so what would be a better solution to the weight issue of the 280 than to turn her into a travel bass
as it was only the weight not the size that was the issue, and I'd always fancied an ergonomic bass, I took a saw to her and cut off all the bits that didnt touch me, or have hardware on
having an instrument that that fits completely you is the most amazing feeling, I actually used to wear it around the house , making coffee etc, just for the kick I got out of how good it felt to wear her, I can hear all the howls of outrage about what she looked like though but at that point I was in "I don't care, its functional" mode.
I sold the last of my video kit to buy new hardware and electronics and then decided, what the hell, Ill never be in the position to do this again, and Ive always wanted a fancied a five string, so bought extra bridge&machine head and gave it a go, not knowing whether it even was possible to have a short scale fiver.
it is, although the action on the B has to be kinda high, but its playable
This is about the time you guys come in, while searching online for a picture of what it used to look like I came across this thread
http://bassoutpost.com/index.php?topic=4573.0 and was hooked. I conceived the Idea for my twin and with all the good advice from here nursed it to fruition. it was during this time that you guys rekindled my T-Bird love, and having the twin at school meant I could keep my BC at home and so no longer needed to cycle with bass AND guitar to school. so when I came back to it, the 280 project had changed direction, now its a T-bird inspired short scale 5 string travel bass: A TravelBird if you will. Still in prototype stage so looking a bit rough, but she plays great, feels great and sounds great
Thing is though I'm now thinking of another change in direction.... I had a go on a friends fender bass VI the other day, and now I'm jonesing for a baritone guitar, I don't need one, but I really cant stop thinking about it.
when I coach music at school, the last session of the day is an open blues Jam for any of the students who can keep up, I obviously fill in on whichever instrument there is a gap, the format is verse sung, then solo, then verse sung etc, so everyone gets a solo. all well and good if I am playing the drums, keys or bass, but If I am having to play the guitar(which is usually the case) I'm really rubbish at soloing so you can imagine the ribbing I get from my wunderkind guitarist, (and the rest of the kids) my thinking is that if I had a baritone I could play the Rhythm guitar parts on it, then solo on it like a bass , and retrieve my street cred somewhat.
Ive been looking for a beater shortscale that I can turn into a Bass VI (its a flying V in my head) but it's been months now and nothing has come up in my budget, so Ive started looking at the baby bird and thinking about six strings....
