tubby.twins
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Here's one of my recent builds. I'm only putting it in the "Work in Progress" section because I intend to test a number of pickups with this bass.
Some of you may remember this fretless Bubinga neck. URL here: http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=10220.0
It's been installed on a few different Gecko bodies, but none really seemed to work well with it. Then I realized that what it needed was a simple body made of Maple, without a lot of flame or fancy figuring to distract from the natural beauty of the Bubinga. I also didn't want a dark or colorful finish because I thought it would be distracting for this bass. I really wanted to neck to be the main visual element, with a body that was more subtle. So with the help of Wyliee I ordered a Maple body with a clear satin finish, and added a few interesting details that really complement the neck well.
A close-up of the bridge and control knobs, which have a "cosmo black" finish. It wasn't easy to find all of these. I wanted something a bit more shiny than black, but a bit darker than regular chrome. This seems to work well.
Here we can see the black pinstripe on the body. I ordered this in order to complement the black fretless lines and Gecko inlay, as a common design element.
The body has a single "P2" pickup in a custom position. It is located about halfway between the typical "bridge" and "sweet spot" locations. As you might expect, the tone is somewhere between these two: very bright and aggressive, but with a nice dose of warmth. Currently this bass has a custom Delano "SMC 5 HE" pickup, which is a twin-coil inline humcanceller. This isn't a standard model, but Delano made this for me at my request. It is effectively one half of the contents of their quad-coil (dual twin-coil inline humcanceller) MusicMan size pickup, model "MC 5 HE" which I have on another bass. The pickup is very aggressive and ballsy, yet still has a deep fundamental and lots of clarity on the top end. It really brings out the bright and midrange-rich sound of the Bubinga neck.
Of course I'll be trying other pickups in this bass, but I have a feeling that I'll end up back with this particular Delano.
Thanks again to the wonderful people at Warmoth, especially Wyliee!
Some of you may remember this fretless Bubinga neck. URL here: http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=10220.0
It's been installed on a few different Gecko bodies, but none really seemed to work well with it. Then I realized that what it needed was a simple body made of Maple, without a lot of flame or fancy figuring to distract from the natural beauty of the Bubinga. I also didn't want a dark or colorful finish because I thought it would be distracting for this bass. I really wanted to neck to be the main visual element, with a body that was more subtle. So with the help of Wyliee I ordered a Maple body with a clear satin finish, and added a few interesting details that really complement the neck well.
A close-up of the bridge and control knobs, which have a "cosmo black" finish. It wasn't easy to find all of these. I wanted something a bit more shiny than black, but a bit darker than regular chrome. This seems to work well.
Here we can see the black pinstripe on the body. I ordered this in order to complement the black fretless lines and Gecko inlay, as a common design element.
The body has a single "P2" pickup in a custom position. It is located about halfway between the typical "bridge" and "sweet spot" locations. As you might expect, the tone is somewhere between these two: very bright and aggressive, but with a nice dose of warmth. Currently this bass has a custom Delano "SMC 5 HE" pickup, which is a twin-coil inline humcanceller. This isn't a standard model, but Delano made this for me at my request. It is effectively one half of the contents of their quad-coil (dual twin-coil inline humcanceller) MusicMan size pickup, model "MC 5 HE" which I have on another bass. The pickup is very aggressive and ballsy, yet still has a deep fundamental and lots of clarity on the top end. It really brings out the bright and midrange-rich sound of the Bubinga neck.
Of course I'll be trying other pickups in this bass, but I have a feeling that I'll end up back with this particular Delano.
Thanks again to the wonderful people at Warmoth, especially Wyliee!
