Skully's wife's P Bass: Restoration and Love Story

[skullservant]

Sanded down the brass nut a bit last night. Also realized that the D'Addario's that I got fit in the nut slots a lot better than the spare Boomers that I had laying around that I originally string it up with.

So I also reinstalled the nut, got the new strings in, got the black pickguard in. Realized the pickguard that I bought was the wrong size, so I put the white pickguard back on. I might eventually buy another black pickguard. Oh well. I also added a switch that connects the pickups to both outputs, so that you can either run stereo or dual mono or just through one jack. I have a feeling that will come in handy when I don't want to lug around multiple amps.

Also, the missing link (the bridge!!!) will be here today, so I will be able to finish this guy up this week. I'll have to slot the saddles but that shouldn't be too hard.

Lastly, I think that the tension bar will be here soon as well, Gonna throw all the strings on and then find the best spot to install it.

[skullservant]

Got the new bridge last night- installed it. It seems like it's made for a bass that has a routing for that particular bridge, but I really didn't feel like routing it. So I shimmed the neck a little bit and the action dropped to a pretty decent level.

I slotted the strings pretty loosely last night using the extra bits of strings that I clipped off, which worked out pretty decently. I'd still like to file them down a bit more so the strings are snug in the saddles.

I'm going to need to sand the nut down even more, just possibly another few millimeters so that the action at the first fret isn't such an effort.

Between the nut at the height that it is, along with the bridge being a little higher than expected, when I tuned it to E standard it was pretty difficult to play. I dropped it down to B standard and it was a lot easier to play. Not sure whether I will keep it in E or B, but I'm going to file the nut and possibly shim a little bit more and see what comes of it.

Also I might need to mess with the wiring a little bit, I noticed when I had both jacks plugged in that I was getting a little bit of noise, both when each pickup was on together, and when they were split. Not sure if I just need to ground the switch that I used or not.

Other than that, it's really awesome. Right now I have the octave strings tuned the same as the standard strings, which is incredibly rich sounding

PICTURES:

[Chankgeez]

Needs more gold glitter.

[skullservant]

It does!!! Speaking of, I think I might take the pickguard off tonight and sand it down for painting

[AxAxSxS]

that things looking badass!

[skullservant]

Thanks dude I gotta get some clips up soon

[skullservant]

Got to play around with it a little bit more. Re-shimmed the neck a little bit lower. It's getting there. I still need to sand down the nut some more and then I think it will be perfect. Also going to pick up a saddle file so that I can finish off the saddles, but for now they are holding with the ones I originally made, I just want them deeper.

I seem to only want to play it fingerstyle with the bass. More control, although the octaves are more pronounced with a pick.

The octave strings do take some getting used to, and I guess I could have spaced them over a little closer to the bass strings, but I kind of like that they are a little farther away in case I want to ONLY play the octave string without the bass string.

I was getting some buzzing/noise when using both pickups split into two different amps, but then I realized that it's coming from running the pickups to both amps. When I run the bass to one amp there isn't any noise at all. Tonight I set up a bass board and a guitar board to run everything through. I don't have any clips of that yet as I want to practice and play around a bit before I record anything, but until then here is a poorly recorded clean demo:

SOUNDS:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5pqWopNLus[/youtube]

[Chankgeez]

Sounds pretty badass, skullservant. Can't wait to hear more.

[skullservant]

Thanks Chankgeez! I'm getting stoked on it. Hopefully tomorrow night I can record a small loop to hold you guys over to next week!

[skullservant]

Also thanks Blargh!

I did a comparison of the action between this bass and my Jazz Bass and they are pretty much in the same realm which I'm pretty happy with. If I could drop it just a little bit more over the frets, I'd be completely happy, but for now I will live.

I forgot to mention that right now the bass is in D standard, which is providing nice string tension, no mud or flop, etc. I might end up raising it to E standard, but we will see. It really honestly comes down to if I will use this to track bass with my projects or use it in a completely stand-alone instrument.

Also, I'm enjoying the brass nut. Seems like everything is very clear and the notes like to ring out very very well.

Here are the last few pictures I have of the build as of yesterday, these show the action before I dropped it a little bit more today. Surprisingly the pickups are still strong and clear even though they are not extremely close to the strings.








The shim really helped the action in the last picture where you can see it's risen a lot compared to the action at the nut, although the nut is still a little high and in need of sanding. It's almost there!!

[Achtane]

NEVER STOP IMPROVING

[AxAxSxS]

I'm glad the brass is working out for you
I recently got a new bridge for my chinese 12 ric copy project and initially did the spacing to far apart as well. I was able to switch the saddles around and get them more to my liking. So now there are extra, unused grooves on some of the saddles but everything is where it needs to be. I dont know if the schaller saddles will allow you to do something similar

I'm about to completely tear that thing apart and alter the body to make it a more comfy shaped guitar, and refinish it so it's not clown burst. I'll try to get some pics and post em up as it might be relevant to what you are doing here... or not lol.

I also find the alumitones can be at their best pretty far away from the strings. Cool weird ass pickups

[skullservant]

Yeah I definitely COULD make new grooves in the saddles if I want, there is room. But I dunno. It's probably just because its SO new to me that it's a little difficult. Once I actually start to really play it I think I'll get used to it for sure

[skullservant]

So I sanded the nut a little more and I'm really really enjoying the action now.

Here is a short clip with the two pedalboards:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDMfcqn0Yo[/youtube]

[Chankgeez]

So I sanded the nut a little more and I'm really really enjoying the action now.

Here is a short clip with the two pedalboards:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDMfcqn0Yo[/youtube]

Someone needs to make a pedal with a built-in camera.