Is that a Rit*** bass..? (non Warmoth)

[MortenB]

Hi all - just thought I would share this one with you... Also to say: Don't buy cheap instruments from Asia unless you are ready to do some work on them to make them... We are soooo spoiled with the quality from Warmoth 

I found this bass on E-bay in Germany and at first I could not figure out where I had seen that body shape before... Then I thought: Is that a copy of a Ritter bass..? Yes it is..! The bass is made by Tokai (the lawsuit company) as a one-off show piece for NAMM 2012. Somehow it ended up at this guys place in Germany who sells Tokai instruments. I don't need it, and I was sure that the quality would be nowhere near the level I'm spoiled with from my Warmoth basses, but I could not resist - so I bought it. They only made this single piece, so it's also unique.

The body is a thick top of zebrano, over rosewood, over swamped ash. The neck is layered quatersawn maple with ebony inlays. Fretboard is rosewood. The pick ups are unknown, so is the preamp. The pick ups has EMG 35 soapbar shape, and I happen to have two of those... Hmmm... Just need an EMG preamp and this might be good..!

The build quality of the body is actually amazing, the neck -hmmm- needed a bit of work. There were actually several issues with the bass when I got it, and it was obvious, that it had been put together more as a showpiece than a bass for playing.

... The battery was wired directly to the preamp, so when a battery was installed it would draw power. I installed a stereo jack to get the on/off switch.

... The angle of the neck pocket was all wrong, so the neck pointed ''up'' meaning crazy high action. I have carefully sanded and leveled the pocket and action is now good.

... The frets were the worst I have ever seen. Looked more like old nails or something they had thrown in the thing as a last resort before bringing the bass to NAMM. It was almost impossible to play on. Yesterday I replaced the frets with SS6150 that I bought from Warmoth. Still need to level them  (need to get the proper files etc as I have never done this before and have no tooling for it).

... The headstock had the shape of the Ritter headstock, but for some reason not the rounded edges  (one of the really cool features of the original), so I did that as last night and repaired the edges with clear coat. Still need to carefully sand it to blend with the satin lacquer of the neck.

... Finally another cosmetic issue, they have managed to drill the hole for the *E* tuner several mm off. I don't know how one can put together such nice woods, make such a nice finish and then drill a simple hole way off..!? I will move the hole slightly.

Here are a bunch of pics of this weird bass. As mentioned I got it cheap, so I see it / use it as a ''platform'' to learn DIY stuff such as working with frets etc etc etc... It's fun and a good learning experience (so far).

 

[Corey P.]

That's a really handsome bass, looks like you did some great finishing work to it that's way beyond my ability - that's a heck of a platform.  :hello2:

I think that's a lot of the appeal of Warmoth - finding rough-cut diamonds and shaping them into their full potential, especially if/when no one else saw it.

Do you have the EMG's in it now?  How does it sound (with the understanding there's still some setup and fine-tuning to be done)?

 

[MortenB]

Rough-cut diamond... That describes this one well..!

It's a bit of a weird bass, and I would really love to understand the decisions made when they put it together. Obviously they wanted to make the shape and form-factor of a Ritter Roya - but with different materials, aesthetics and so on, and they did just that. But when it comes to materials and build it get's a bit odd... It seems they put A LOT of effort into making the body, it's such beautiful woods and the finish is amazing.

The neck... hmmm... Extremely bad frets and actually also the worst kind (very loose wood) rosewood you can imagine. See the pics for this. I'm sure this affects tone since the frets does not really have that solid foundation as a base. If I decide to go really DIY crazy on this one I will replace the fretboard with an ebony one, to get some stability built into the neck.

The pick ups are EMG 35 shape, but of unknown brand / quality. The worst part in that department seems to be the preamp and pots. It's one of these cheap systems you see all over E-bay for a few bucks.

The tone is OK, but it's also a bit dull and boring, sustain is not great either. When listening to the bass acoustically it does not have the output and the resonant quality that I'm used to from my Warmoth basses. I think a new fretboard would help on this. I also think, that a different preamp will help, when plugged in, so this will be my next project. Actually I have two EMG 35's (active) and they fit right in, but I will need to order a EMG preamp system to try them out. And you know, I try to balance my investment in this one. On the one hand I think it would be really fun to work with it and cut and polish the rough-cut diamond. On the other hand I don't want to sink a lot of money into the bass if I don't feel that I can get it to work really well.