Project Basses

Sure just buy a P Bass and you’ll be happy :smiley:

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Never!!! ^^

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I like P basses more than the HH’s that I’ve tried and just saw someone that modded 2 P pickups into a bass. I found the idea intriguing. I have no idea what that would even sound like.

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I like the tonality of the Humbuckers on my ESP a lot. But I also played a cheap bass with Humbuckers and it was just terrible!
My soon-to-be-sent-back Sire U5 has a very nice P pickup. Very nice indeed. I truly enjoy it!
While my ESP Humbuckers have kind of a mesmerizing and organic sound, the Sire P pickup makes my playing sound like I know what I’m doing. It harmonizes with the mix.

Both are great - but different!

So, @faydout: get your Dremel, destroy the Gretsch … and make it rise from the ashes again :slight_smile:

(And don’t forget to post pictures!)

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If you’re crossing the Rubicon of routing out the body, these quad coil pickups switch between J, P, and humbuckers:

Why force yourself to choose just one type of pickup?

Mark from TB demos them here:

( https://youtu.be/y1cHGyMzxWk?t=213 )

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This would be exactly the thing I would like to try!

Reasons against it:

  • price for two - can’t afford it.
  • don’t wanna be the first to have it (ok, 2nd after @markjsmith). I wonder if @Al1885 already has this?
  • The LED’s are missing a cylon-style effect:

Good thing that this is from the UK, so much easier to get than all that cool stuff from the US which is impossible to obtain here behind the iron curtain.

I will stick to a more conventional approach (dp126 or double humbuckers) for the time being.

Hmmm … or install one of those Sim Super-Quad pickup only on the 2nd bass (just noticed that my project let’s me get to 2nd bass - yay! ^^)?

Let me think…

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@John_E has one with 2 Sims pickup modded to hell with it, look so bad a$$. love to get into Sims one of these day.

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What a mind blowing thread that is: Building a test bed bass

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Are you returning all of your recent purchase and start over. That might not be a bad idea.

Yeah, Harley Benton is not a good starting platform though. It’s a cheap and great value as is for people who’s wiling to put in a bit of work to refine the finish and get themselves a kickass bass for little $$.

Are you kidding? I support, and encourage the mod projects especially one that you can sell. I went from 4 basses to, to gosh! whatever how many I own now, :sweat_smile: Affordable basses are fun to mod and can be quite profitable with some good mix of components. Many of my modded basses sold within hours of listing (which makes me wonder if I priced them too low), which in turns funded my, not for modded premium basses.

For fretless the popular platform is Jazz or single MM. Think Pino, Jaco and Steve Bailey. You want to have most of your muscle power near the bridge to make it sing. Not much benefit from the neck end pickups from the fretless perspective, generally speaking.

Fretless conversion is relatively simple task, just requires hideous amount of attention to detail and patience. It’s pull cleanly, fill evenly, then carefully radius and level.

You can get the Affinity Jaguar short scale for less than two hundred quids at Thomann or better if you can find some good used deal locally as in Germany or easily shipping nearby.

I even want to get a Bronco and do a fretless conversion and put a super cool EMG Strats pickup on it. Now that’s definitely a giggable axe for sure.

This would be a cool project to do with the short scale Jaguar.

My ultimate short scale fretless project would be the Pino’s Stingray fretless

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Agree! this is 100% correct until you start replacing components and lessen the weight it punches.

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Yes, and I am really sorry that I had to put you through all those discussions! Seriously!
But: you should have “allowed” me to buy the Avocado Bass (Reverend Dub King). But you didn’t- so it is also your fault :slight_smile:

I am not in this game for profit. Unfortunately, I never am in any game for (my own) profit, even professionally. That is why I am one of the best in my business - and one of the poorest ^^
I must be the worst capitalist ever!

Fretless is one of two options for the 2nd bass - the other being two humbuckers.

Fretless would be an easy sell for my girlfriend. I gave her a long monolog on how I need to have a fretless bass, so I can improve my finger memory and (fret) fingering in general, by practicing on a fretless.
She believed me enough (or was just tired from listening to me) to give me a thumbs up.

Selling the need for humbuckers on the 2nd bass will be harder, as the monolog will be: “it sounds different!”.
I know her. She is devious. She will not fall for it easily…

But I have the price argument (two basses for the price of one) and I found a place to hide my 3rd (secret) bass (as there is a “only two basses allowed” rule in this dictatorship) .
She will NEVER find it (it’s under her bedside :-))

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Well now you have more funding to play with. Lemme know what’s the next project would be. I’ll be the 10th man!

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I found an honest to god luthier who is not on the other side of the ferry. Not even on the other side of the drawbridge, still about 80 minutes. Not bad.

Anyway, I was talking with him the other day, and I mentioned that I couldn’t find a 51P with the single coil P pickup in a short scale. He said it would be easy to buy or make a neck, and probably move the bridge, but it would be easy. I don’t know that I would want to do that with my Sire.

But my Squier, with the baseball bat for a neck, now I could go for that. What do you think? I have a Fralin pickup for it

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Do iiiit!

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Not bass per se but I am now several hundred dollars in to a guitar project which has been such a comedy of errors it is making me consider selling all the parts, calling it a loss, and just buying another Revstar :rofl:

The latest is the drill was slightly off drilling the tuning machine screw holes so I need to drill them out, dowel (again) and redrill so they line up more nicely :rofl:

I also still need to solder or glue nuts to the pickup mounting holes on the pickup legs because the prior owner drilled them out for a surface mount.

So now I am asking myself how much I want to put in to a $89 guitar in the end. Granted, it will be nice when done. But still not worth much for resale even with the high end parts.

These modding projects are always a terrible idea in terms of resale down the line, and in my experience they are very rarely things you keep forever, but this one has me seriously asking myself how much more time I want to dump in, which is a bad sign .

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That’s for sure, upgrades don’t add much resale value.

An idea would be to sell everything except the pickups, and use them on a Revstar :grin: it would make a great guitar for sure.

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it makes me think about my Stratocaster “partcaster” which is a 700-800€ project, that’s a nice guitar but certainly not better than a 700-800€ (maybe less) used Fender. I could (should) have bought a used Vintera instead of spending a lot of hours on this guitar (that I never play, by the way).

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That would be awesome. Of course the Revstar’s stock pickups are also great already (even on the Element). But the Nazgul/Sentient sounded pretty awesome to me online.

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Most certainly my favorite HB set ever. I like the SH5 as much as the Nazgul, but the Sentient is for sure the best neck HB I’ve ever played.

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Oh man that’s a gorgeous green.

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