Best bass for travel?

[chris_van_hoven]

It really is!

Please note that removing the neck often might “screw up” the screw holes. I have removed the neck about ten times now without any issues. But I cannot imagine that this will work forever.

I am thinking about installing neck screw inserts, ie: 3 reasons why guitar neck screw inserts are better for bolt-on guitars. - Nectite

[Mike_NL]

@chris_van_hoven

heavily modified

Cool! So what have you modified and why?

[chris_van_hoven]

Why? Short answer: because I can

Long answer - I wanted to see, how much I could make this tiny bass sound grown up.
In other words: it was totally unnecessary ^^

• I replaced the cheapo bridge with a Fender Hi Mass Bridge IV Brass. It gives a little more sustain. And looks great.
• I replaced the passive pick-ups with active EMG P pickups. The sound improved in my opinion.
• I replaced the not so good tuners with the tuners from my ESP LTD B-4E (and put new Gotoh GB707 on my ESP). Now it holds the tuning much better.
• I replaced the surprisingly good nut with an ABM 6240. This was a GREAT decision because of sustain and easy string height adaptation.

Next will be the neck screw inserts … and … wait for it … a Hipshot GB7 Bass Extender!!!

Yeah, I tend to overdo stuff!

I still would like to replace the strings with flatwounds, but all my experiments failed unfortunately. But I will revisit this, surely…

[Johnnyb]

Blackstar on its first trip:-)

[chris_van_hoven]

Cool!
You like it?

[Johnnyb]

Takes some getting used to, but nice tone:-)

[chris_van_hoven]

Is that Norway, by the way? One of the best countries I’ve been to (except for the monstrously large mosquitos)!

[Johnnyb]

Yes, it is on Hvaler, about an hour and a half outside of Oslo.

[Moonshine]

I built these a few years ago, the idea was to build a boutique travel bass that you could also play onstage… These are hollow (weight: 4lbs). I have a 30" scale 6 string SlimBass in the works (these are 25 1/2" scale, 27 5/8" opitional). Complete with an onboard headphone amp and tuner.

[Al1885]

Gorgous! @Moonshine I wish the tip of the horn is at 12th. I’d get disoriented, lol.

[06.driller_trifle]

Can attest to this! My p-bass was getting setup in the shop last week, and I played mine in its absence. I thought it would be tough navigating the BTB course without a normal scale bass, but I proved myself wrong! Although the small scale is tough at first, it will get easier with time. The only thing that’s tricky is doing stuff higher on the neck.

[PlayerUno]

If money is not an issue… Stradi makes The Little Thing.

[chris_van_hoven]

As I’m going to be travelling next week, these are some pictures of how I prepare my Blackstar for the voyage:

This is the bass, on it’s “custom made” neopren bags:

First I remove the bridge.
I replaced the wood screws with “normal” screws and thread inserts to have a travel-friendly solution.
I know, nobody will like removing the bridge, but with the threaded inserts this is no problem. The alternative would be unwinding the strings at the head - which resulted in broken strings after 10-20x doing that in the past.

Then I remove the neck.
Note that here I also replaced the wood screws with something better, using threaded inserts. After many time removing the neck, the wooden screws simply don’t hold anymore…

Next, I put everything into the neopren bags.

And finally I put the disassembled bass into my luggage. It would also fit in hand luggage, but that is full of other stuff already.

Usually I take either my Spark Mini or Spark GO with me.
This time I will take my JBL Charge and an iRig HD2 as well as my Fender Mustang Micro.

Reason: the Sparks are great but are not good as audio interfaces, as they add substantial latency in DAW or Tonelib Jam mode. And I want to do some DAW-related stuff on the beach

EDIT Correction: my IRIG HD2 just died and I found out that my Fender Mustan Micro is only an INPUT audio interface. That s#cks!
Another reason to get the Katana GO, I guess.

Now I will be travelling with the Spark Mini, play my music via Bluetooth and enjoy no latency for my bass at least. Meh!

[itsratso]

this is a clear case for a mikro

Small Bass But Big Tone! - Ibanez Mikro GSRM20 [Demo]

[chris_van_hoven]

Not so fast, my friend!

First: I discovered the Ibanez GSRM20 too late, unfortunately. Otherwise I would have gotten that one, cause of it’s P/J setup.

But: the Ibanez is a “huge” bass with a 28.6" neck, compared to the tiny Blackstar with a 23.46″ neck…

In any case, the Ibanez also needs to be disassembled if you want to take it as hand luggage with most European airlines. And even if you put it in your normal luggage, dissassembling makes quite a difference (only one bag that can be reasonably small).

So, this is quite a good solution, that I have used tenths of times now…

[itsratso]

it is a good solution, no doubt. howevs, i’m not sure how many people are going to disassemble and reassemble their bass. like me for instance

[chris_van_hoven]

Yeah. I worked for a cruise line and had to travel almost every week - by plane and ship.

You learn to be very efficient in that job

PS And with the "normal " screws and the threaded inserts it’s really 5 minutes work! OK, except for the fact that I do a setup after reassembly - but that is necessary anyway cause of all the temperature and humidity changes when travelling…

[Johnnyb]

Blackstar joined the 25 year anniversary:-)

[chris_van_hoven]

@Johnnyb

Blackstar joined the 25 year anniversary:-)

Ah, Norway in April

[Johnnyb]

Hehe