3-pickup bass

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

The context of that discussion specifically was tone control, especially on passive instruments.  It's mostly the same control knob with the same capacitor that does the same job -- even though half of what it does is completely unusable.  (Nobody ever turns the tone knob all the way unless they temporarily want some weird effect.)  So we tried something different.  So far, so good.

Actually, that almost sounds like the Stellar ToneStyler, which uses multiple capacitors in the same little knob.  It's what I'm using on my current build in progress.  :glasses10:  In your case, though, I'd love to hear a quick run through of some groove played with each of the different settings to compare.  I bet it's going to be amazing.  :guitarplayer2:

Not to hijack, but my next project will be something like a Landing Bass.  The body platform will be P-Bass with Strat/P-Bass hybrid pickguard, 5-way switch, 3 pickups, V-T-T.

eh.... looks like they just took a standard strat body & pickguard, routed for a different bridge & neck and sent it on it's way.  I have no idea how it would sound, but I'm thinking somehing like the attached.  Slap on a Tele control plate w/5-way + VT and you're good to go.

 

[BlueTalon]

The context of that discussion specifically was tone control, especially on passive instruments.  It's mostly the same control knob with the same capacitor that does the same job -- even though half of what it does is completely unusable.  (Nobody ever turns the tone knob all the way unless they temporarily want some weird effect.)  So we tried something different.  So far, so good.

Actually, that almost sounds like the Stellar ToneStyler, which uses multiple capacitors in the same little knob.  It's what I'm using on my current build in progress.  :glasses10:  In your case, though, I'd love to hear a quick run through of some groove played with each of the different settings to compare.  I bet it's going to be amazing.  :guitarplayer2:

The ToneStyler represents another departure from what I am increasingly thinking as a traditional bass player's paradigm.  In that paradigm, "normal" is one or two pickups, with one or two volume and one or two tone controls each with a single capacitor, maybe a two or three band pre-amp... and that's the whole world a lot of bass players live in.**  The ToneStyler makes an effort to break that paradigm using a cascading series of different size smaller capacitors, and achieves a broad range of tone with it.  Much superior to the standard approach IMO, and I appreciate them breaking the paradigm.  Not everything that is different is good just because it is different, but this is.


Eventually I do want to some audio/video clips to demonstrate the tones my bass is capable of.  The TurnStyle differs from the ToneStyler in that whereas the ToneStyler gives a bass/guitar a much broader and more usable spectrum of tone, the TurnStyle allows my bass to sound like a completely different instrument.


In my particular case, when I contacted Stellar about what I wanted to do with multiple inline tone controls, I got a response saying basically "don't mess with it."  I contacted TurnStyle at the same time as I contacted Stellar, and got a response that was both quicker and more optimistic.  In the end, the ToneStyler wouldn't have worked for me anyway because it won't work with concentric pots.




**20-30 years ago, I remember hearing about some recording engineers who, if the bass player showed up with something else, wanted to make the guy go get a Fender Jazz.  I always thought I would want to go get a different engineer.




Regarding your attached diagram -- if you plan to do anything like a J-bass strat configuration for J style pickups, I recommend routing for and getting a 5-string bridge pickup with rails for the slanted pickup.  Otherwise you're going to run into issues with string alignment.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

The context of that discussion specifically was tone control, especially on passive instruments.  It's mostly the same control knob with the same capacitor that does the same job -- even though half of what it does is completely unusable.  (Nobody ever turns the tone knob all the way unless they temporarily want some weird effect.)  So we tried something different.  So far, so good.

Actually, that almost sounds like the Stellar ToneStyler, which uses multiple capacitors in the same little knob.  It's what I'm using on my current build in progress.  :glasses10:  In your case, though, I'd love to hear a quick run through of some groove played with each of the different settings to compare.  I bet it's going to be amazing.  :guitarplayer2:

Not to hijack, but my next project will be something like a Landing Bass.  The body platform will be P-Bass with Strat/P-Bass hybrid pickguard, 5-way switch, 3 pickups, V-T-T.

eh.... looks like they just took a standard strat body & pickguard, routed for a different bridge & neck and sent it on it's way.  I have no idea how it would sound, but I'm thinking somehing like the attached.  Slap on a Tele control plate w/5-way + VT and you're good to go.

Mine, if I do it will be similar to this.  I like the contrasting pickups/pickguards on Strats; SRV Strat, David Gilmour Strat, etc. 

The Strat design is based on the P-Bass, and the Strat and P-Bass pickguards I have laying around, when overlayed on each other, it's amazing the way the lines line up in places.  What I have in mind as far as routing and fabricating, it will unique but familiar.  The hardest thing is pickups.  There's a shortage of white bass pickups, atleast ones I'm interested in.  I've got no interest in EMGs, just because I already have 2 basses with them already, as well as a guitar set laying around.  Besides, those in that bass, although guitar sized, are bass voiced and made just for them.  They may not be available separately.

 

[alterbridgefan]

I bet if you ask nicely and have money ken could put something together for you..?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

The only thing I need from them is a finished body that's neither top or bottom routed.

 

[alterbridgefan]

The only thing I need from them is a finished body that's neither top or bottom routed.

Sorry, I meant roadhouse Ken.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Ah..

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

The ToneStyler represents another departure from what I am increasingly thinking as a traditional bass player's paradigm.  In that paradigm, "normal" is one or two pickups, with one or two volume and one or two tone controls each with a single capacitor, maybe a two or three band pre-amp... and that's the whole world a lot of bass players live in.**  The ToneStyler makes an effort to break that paradigm using a cascading series of different size smaller capacitors, and achieves a broad range of tone with it.  Much superior to the standard approach IMO, and I appreciate them breaking the paradigm.  Not everything that is different is good just because it is different, but this is.

I went with the ToneStyler because it was outside the norm & had some versatility, and because it was a passive syste, but mostly because it was an off the shelf product.  :glasses10:

**20-30 years ago, I remember hearing about some recording engineers who, if the bass player showed up with something else, wanted to make the guy go get a Fender Jazz.  I always thought I would want to go get a different engineer.

Damn straight!  What a close minded twit!

Regarding your attached diagram -- if you plan to do anything like a J-bass strat configuration for J style pickups, I recommend routing for and getting a 5-string bridge pickup with rails for the slanted pickup.  Otherwise you're going to run into issues with string alignment.

Yup, I would use Carvin J99s with W/RW/W for hum cancelling at the 2 & 4 positions, which are indeed the bar/rail magnet configuration (they use the same pickups on 4, 5, & 6 strings!)  Not that I'm building it anytime soon, but it would be a fun way to get something unique & different, yet reminiscent of the classics.

Mine, if I do it will be similar to this.  I like the contrasting pickups/pickguards on Strats; SRV Strat, David Gilmour Strat, etc. 

The Strat design is based on the P-Bass, and the Strat and P-Bass pickguards I have laying around, when overlayed on each other, it's amazing the way the lines line up in places.  What I have in mind as far as routing and fabricating, it will unique but familiar.  The hardest thing is pickups.  There's a shortage of white bass pickups, atleast ones I'm interested in.  I've got no interest in EMGs, just because I already have 2 basses with them already, as well as a guitar set laying around.  Besides, those in that bass, although guitar sized, are bass voiced and made just for them.  They may not be available separately.

Hmm.... I think I'll just wait to see what you come up with; hopefully something less weird than the Landing.  Speaking of Carvin J99s, though - they do come in cream if you're willing to compromise there.  I don't know of a single pickup maker - other than EMG - that makes white pickups, alas.

 

[JaySwear]

Looks so awesome! I can't wait to see it all together.

 

[BlueTalon]

Looks so awesome! I can't wait to see it all together.

That's going to happen soon.  I just got word from Michael that he's finished with the electronics, now he just has to tidy up, remove the neck, pack the body up and ship it back to me.  WOOHOO!

 

[BlueTalon]

Looks so awesome! I can't wait to see it all together.

OK, so "soon" is a relative term.  (My camera was hiding.  In plain sight.)  (Bad camera!)  Here are some up-to-the-minute shots.  The bottom picture includes a piece of wenge that will eventually become a thumbrest.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Outdoor shots please! That flash is throwing everything off!

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

That fingerboard looks killer.  Nice wiring job too.

I'm curious, did the turtle do the 3rd p/u route, or did your guy do that?

I'd be curious what he could do with a single MM Humbucker with a single volume and that turnstyle switch for the tone.  I like bass to be simple as far as the amount of stuff on there.

Very nice, unique project, I can't wait to hear clips.

 

[BlueTalon]

Outdoor shots please! That flash is throwing everything off!

Sorry about that, but I literally didn't find my camera until it was dark out, the evening before I traveled across the state (Washington).  The bass is in the possession of Mike Lull right now, and the next pictures I'll be able to take is when it's completely finished.

 

[BlueTalon]

That fingerboard looks killer.  Nice wiring job too.

I'm curious, did the turtle do the 3rd p/u route, or did your guy do that?

I'd be curious what he could do with a single MM Humbucker with a single volume and that turnstyle switch for the tone.  I like bass to be simple as far as the amount of stuff on there.

Very nice, unique project, I can't wait to hear clips.

One of my favorite basses ever had no onboard controls at all.  It was a Rickenbacker with two Carvin pickups wired straight to the jack.  So I understand the attraction of simplicity.


The Turtle did the pickup routes.  The bridge pickup is in the normal position, the two neck pickups are spaced 2" edge-to-edge.  Those were custom routes for which they charged $45 each.  I did the measuring and calculating before I called Warmoth, so I pretty much already knew exactly what I wanted.  It was fairly easy to communicate what I wanted, and make sure we were on the same page.  I plan on doing it again in the future.


My guy Michael at Turnstyle Switch offers a Turnstyle for Precision basses, so he is used to extracting multiple tones from a single pickup.  If you don't want a tone control, the Turnstyle would give you the unaltered signal from your pickup in one position, maybe a split-coil variant or two, and customized tones in the rest of the positions.  (I gotta say that his wiring jobs have evolved since he first posted pictures of his work on his website.)


The neck is wenge on bubinga.  I really lucked out with it, as it was a showroom sale.  Even luckier, I got a piece of wedge that matches the fretboard pattern. 


Sound clips will come eventually, but I gotta learn how to do all that first.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.

 

[BlueTalon]

Outdoor shots please! That flash is throwing everything off!

Ask and ye shall receive!  (A month or so later...)

Here is the latest (completed) addition to my family:

Warmoth Jazz body (alder, with wenge thumbrests)
Warmoth Jazz neck (bubinga, with wenge fretboard)
Schaller tuners
Schaller bridge
Schaller straplock pins
Fender Super 55 split-coil humbucking pickups
Custom electronics package from Michael at Turnstyle Switch
D'Addario rounds

And it sounds sah-weet!

Love that reflection!

 

[stubhead]

Classic piece. I hope the tone controls give you some range - most guitarists don't even notice what the bass player is doing, only that they (the guitarist) sound better or worse - little do they know that a bassist can either make them sound good - or awful.... :evil4: How many times has the singer's best friend ("this really awesome guitarist!") left an audition, wondering just where all his talent went, while the drummer & bassist snicker and cackle in the darkened corner?

I read through the tone stuff at Turnstyle Switch, and I'm wondering what it is that he's doing different? Several years back, I came across this article in Premier Guitar:

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Mar/Auditioning_Tone_Capacitors.aspx

And a light went on - if you can't USE the tone control's 2,3,5 settings - you're capacitor's too big. It's very, very simple. For a few decades I'd known to set an amp's ideal sound with the guitar tone & volume at 7 and 7 - duh - you get room to go somewhere - but halving or quartering the capacitor adds even more range. If you set an amp to sound great with tone and volume at 10 - you've just destroyed the point of all that fancy electronics.

 

[ThePhilosopher]

That's one nice bass and I think my next W. build will be a 5 or 6 string bass. :help:

 

[BlueTalon]

That's one nice bass

Thank you!


[/size]

Classic piece. I hope the tone controls give you some range - most guitarists don't even notice what the bass player is doing, only that they (the guitarist) sound better or worse - little do they know that a bassist can either make them sound good - or awful.... :evil4: How many times has the singer's best friend ("this really awesome guitarist!") left an audition, wondering just where all his talent went, while the drummer & bassist snicker and cackle in the darkened corner?

I read through the tone stuff at Turnstyle Switch, and I'm wondering what it is that he's doing different? Several years back, I came across this article in Premier Guitar:

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Mar/Auditioning_Tone_Capacitors.aspx

And a light went on - if you can't USE the tone control's 2,3,5 settings - you're capacitor's too big. It's very, very simple. For a few decades I'd known to set an amp's ideal sound with the guitar tone & volume at 7 and 7 - duh - you get room to go somewhere - but halving or quartering the capacitor adds even more range. If you set an amp to sound great with tone and volume at 10 - you've just destroyed the point of all that fancy electronics.

I take a slightly different approach to get to the same place.  My amp is EQ'ed flat, and I start with all the tone controls wide open on the bass, and then adjust the bass as desired.  So far, I haven't even needed to adjust the tone controls on the amp.  I consider that a pretty good statement about the tonal capabilities of my new bass. 


:icon_biggrin:


I know Michael is using smaller capacitors.  The trick he figured out was how to have multiple tone controls in series and parallel without the problems inherent in having capacitors in series.  (I have no idea what those problems are, I've just heard from multiple sources that they exist.)

 

[stubhead]

Capacitors in parallel are additive - which is neat, because you can start off with a .015uf or something and if it's too low, patch another in beside it real easy (I don't mind "messy" mad-scientist wiring, if it gets the results - as long as the current knows where it's going, hey). But capacitors in series are multiplicative, which means he had to start off low and do lots and lots of experimenting, because even a small change in value makes a big change. And you can tune their sweep with resistors, but the results vary from pot to pot, cap value to cap value.

This is one reason why rock stars' guitars sound better than ours - because they have guys who do this for them, full-time. Do you really think Santana & Paisley & Govan & Petrucci & Julien Casper & Robben Ford & all them "tone guys" have the exact same things as in your guitar? Huh, huh, huh..... I just scored some genuine, old, 300K Gibson pots - they actually test to 300! Ever test your so-called + -10% CTS pots? Yikes... 250=180 and 500=420 if you're lucky.

The other reason is because they're way smarter, harder-working, and just better than everybody else. That's how stuff works. Wanna drive in the Indy 500 too? Idiot.... ccasion14: