My long scale semi-hollow bass prototype, the PhattKat

[chromium]

That bass is beautiful, and even though its inspired by the Epi you've really made it your own.  Perfect execution and color choices on the sunburst finish.  It shows off that pretty top nicely!

The clips and sounds were great!

I'm also curious - once you get a design nailed down, do you still produce them by hand or move to larger scale production techniques?  I like the other basses you have on your site too  

[Highlander]

sub-zero...  (just in case that does not "translate" into Portugese, Daniel - that just means "cooler than cool"...)

[Daniel_J]

Thanks again guys.

sub-zero...   (just in case that does not "translate" into Portugese, Daniel - that just means "cooler than cool"...)

I did not know that Kenny. To me, Sub-Zero is a blue vest ninja that throws ice balls out of his hands...

I'm also curious - once you get a design nailed down, do you still produce them by hand or move to larger scale production techniques?  I like the other basses you have on your site too  

I share the shop space and power tools with two other friends, but we all work independently.
I'm a one man business, every single detail of the guitar was conceive by my hands (a little "God moment" here...).
So there's no larger scale production techniques what so ever. All hand built, and not always I build a guitar in the same production way I did the last one, even if it's the same model.
I don't even have templates for body shapes, so even if it's a model I already built there are always diferences between guitars of the same model because each one is hand shaped.
The instruments I showcase on my site (with the exception of the left hand Ric) are my own personal projects. Usually when I build under comission I don't have the time to take pictures and do sound tests because after it's assemble and setup, off it goes to its owner because I usually fall behind schedule and clients can't wait to get their hands on their new babies...

The bass is beautiful. What species is the top wood? If it's not a mahogany, is it related? I really like the grain.

The top wood is locally know as "Freijo" (Cordia goeldiana - from the Huber Boraginacea family).
It's my favorite wood to work with for bodies and I've been told it's very similar to Korina in all aspects. And in the same wood board you can find parts there are uniform light colored and parts there are stained dark colored which makes it very similar to Black Limba.
I've built a neck-through SG guitar completely out of this wood and it looks very similar to a Korina SG.

Tell us more about the pickups and hardware.  Did you finish it with poly or lacquer?  Are you building and selling?  

Yes, I am building and selling. I've been a full time builder for almost five years now. It's been quite a struggle and I couldn't have made it so far if it wasn't for the support of my parents, so Thanks, Mom and Dad! And also my friends that I share the shop with, so thanks to them aswell!

Anyways, finish is a bi-component polyurethane over a polyesther sealer. If it's a very resinous wood I also use an acrylic neutralizer before the poly's.
The polyesther sealer is very thick and easy sanding, so when properly used it can completely seal and fill the pores and it cures clear, so no worries about dyeing the sealer to match the wood color.

Pickups are from a local manufacturer called "Stellfner". These are single coils and RW/RP between each other.

I've put a lot of thought when deciding for pickups. Because they are closed spaced I knew the tone difference wouldn't be too drastic, if anything there would be very little difference between each other. So two humbuckers would sound very similar when used solo and together there would just be that little drop in output from being wired in parallel. So I decided for singles in RW/RP because I knew (from when I built Ric copies and did the same setting) that when both pickups are working together they would cancel the hum and also the mid-to-high frequencies that comes with it and that makes a huge difference in tone comparing to when a single is working solo with the hum and everything else.

Also the neck pickup is hotter than the middle pickup and not the other way around which is the commom thing to do. That's because I wanted to make sure that the neck pickup sounded "muddier", because they are close spaced I thought that if the middle pickup was hotter it could actually sound "bassier" than the neck.
And it works! The difference in tone is very subtle, but you can definitely hear that the neck pickup is muddier and the middle has more bite. And both together is a completely different thing, it's very mooshy and constipated (you know what I mean...) and very quiet of course.

Another thing I like to point out is that I used 500k pots because I wanted to get as much high frequency as possible.
Why? Well, most of the modern semi-hollow basses out there are equiped with humbuckers and I think the logic behind this is that approaching a acoustic-bass-like sound would mean make it sound less electric as possible, and that also means make it sound less metalic. So you put humbuckers to get as much low end as possible and cut off the high frequencies that makes it sound metalic.
And I think that is what happens with the RumbleKat. Unpluged it has a great acoustic like tone to it, very percursive and similar to a double-bass. Then you plug it in and all that great acoustic like attack disapears in to a sea of low end. Don't get me wrong, I love the RumbleKat, but that is not what I wanted for my bass.
I knew that the semi-hollow body and wood choice would prevent the single-coils to sound metalic (the flatwounds help too) so I wanted to try and get all the high frequencies I could get, just to see what would happen, so I went for the 500k pots and I really like what came of it.
And the decision to make it a 34 inch scale also has to do with the fact that I wanted to get more punch and attack that I think lacks on short scale basses.

[shadowcastaz]

Truely beautilul!!! Asusual , Im humbled.M

[Lightyear]

Truly a beautiful piece of work!

[drbassman]

Very nice, thanks for the info.  I hope to do the same when I retire!

[Dave W]

Thanks, Daniel. The grain does look like it could be a korina as well as mahogany, it's hard to tell the color of the unfinished board on a finished bass.

[Daniel_J]

Thanks, Daniel. The grain does look like it could be a korina as well as mahogany, it's hard to tell the color of the unfinished board on a finished bass.

Close-up of the Freijo SG. I think is not as yellow as the Korina guitars I've seen.

[Dave W]

Thanks for the pic. Somewhere in between mahogany and korina.

[godofthunder]

Thats one nice looking bass !

[Basvarken]

Whoa!! I totally missed this topic. 

That is one amazing bass you built Daniel!
Excellent.

[Andrew]

That bass looks amazing! Really stunning.

[Daniel_J]

Thanks, guys! I thought this post was long gone...

Well, but I would like to take this opportunity to inform that this baby is going to a new home tomorrow!   

I wasn't going to put this to sale at first, since it's a prototype and it was built with salvage woods and cheap hardware, but I sure could use some extra cash now that things are a bit slow at the shop, so off it goes!
And the new owner said that he wants to order a fretless version next year, so I already have the chance to do a real top notch build next time!

[Dave W]

Good for you! And when his friends see and hear it, it may bring even more builds for you.