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Been a looooooong fucking time since I posted in here. My bass lineup hasn't changed at all, but fuck it, reposting for the smell of it:

WWRRSS wrote:Here's my Epiphone 'Limited Edition' Ripper, I'm made up with it, just waiting til sunday when I get to play it loud/with pedals at band practice before I decide if to change the pickups in it, got a DiMarzio Split P in my P Bass which sounds awesome, so could see myself doing the same to this.

OH I love ripper/grabber bodies. Plus the maple neck and the P/J pickups is a sell for me. Looks so good.

You guys have a lot of cool and unusual instruments. I dig it.

I thought I'd post mine, as I expect few have seen a bass like this one before. I had this custom-made for me in 2007. You will notice some unusual features:

-the lower half of the fretboard has quartertone frets. Regular 12TET frets above the "12th" (actually 24th) fret.
-Sustainiac infinite sustain and harmonics system
-8 strings, in pairs, which is not so unusual except that the pairs are not octaves because of the...
-Hipshot detuners on all 8 strings. While playing I can retune the pairs to minor sevenths or fifths or however I want to set it up.
-besides making room for detuners on the "octave" strings, having these tuners at the body end means I can use any guitar strings rather than having to hunt and pay a lot for special piccolo strings.

I play it in various configurations, so right now it's a 6-string - single bass notes on bottom and pairs up top for chords/arpeggios.

As far as the regular bass specs, it's a 32" scale, bubinga body and top, wenge neck through and fretboard. The frets are, I think a brass alloy - it's halfway between the standard nickel color and the gold frets on Warwicks. The non-Sustainiac pickup is a SD Basslines, but I might swap it out. The Sustainiac functions as a pickup with a somewhat unique sound when not sustaining.

If you notice some wonky things when looking close, that's because it is wonky up close. The whole process of commissioning it and it being built was a very difficult and unpleasant experience for reasons I won't detail here. It was years ago. But this bass was pretty cheap by the standards of even regular custom instruments, let alone crazy experimental ones. I am currently removing and rebuilding the electronics, so excuse the empty cavity and any nasty wiring stuff you may see in there - I was not the one who installed or wired the electronics originally.

Here is an image album.

Carl Thompson's really let his craftsmanship slip these days.

Oh yeah, the headstock is a total CT ripoff, and I feel lame about this nowadays but at the time it didn't occur to me that that was in any way uncool. I have actually contemplated sawing the end off or something, as I would hate for even one person to think this is, or I'm trying to pass it off as a CT, particularly since I was rather disappointed by some aspects of the build when it was new.

That reminds me of something from like 2003 - wonder if anybody here remembers this. There was a guy who I guess bought a CT bass, hacked it up and added some strings and claimed to have invented a new instrument. The website was over the top levels of oblivious narcissism. Really wish I could remember the name of the guy or his business (which went nowhere and disappeared over a decade ago).

Can you imagine what a CT with these features would cost? Oh, probably NaN, because I think Carl's the type who won't build something if he wouldn't use it himself. I don't mean that as a dig because I guess I'm the same way with the stuff I make.

Sorry, Taylor, couldn't resist. It's obvious to me it's a CT rip… … homage.

I think it's a great bass. Sorry to hear it was so much trouble to have built.

With the Hipshots, it reminds me of Michael Manring a bit.

Holy crap that thing is amazing. Would love to try playing it.

Yeah, I like double course instruments. Makes things interesting when they're not tuned in octaves or unison too.

Yeah, I once spent a couple of hours tuning a friend's 12 string acoustic to a variety of weird intervals, got some really lovely chords and melodies coming out of it.

One finger power chords.

NBD, just before I drove away with it.



Sounds amazing! I always have had jazz or humbucker pickups on my basses. About time I tried a P! Think I might be a convert.

Just arrived, used Epiphone Thunderbird Classic-IV Pro. Still in like new condition, came with a hardshell case, I'm pretty happy with the deal I got on it. Always wanted a Thunderbird, but could never pull the trigger on a Gibby and the Epi ones never seemed that great, but these ones are neck thru, with Gibson pickups and identical specs to the Gibson model. Can't wait to try it out tonight and make some demos soon.

Corey Y wrote:

Damn sexy!

Dark Barn wrote:NBD, just before I drove away with it.



Sounds amazing! I always have had jazz or humbucker pickups on my basses. About time I tried a P! Think I might be a convert.

Wow, that is a stunning color.