I Dream of Seafoam Green

Warmoth's website works seamlessly between its "custom builder" section and "in-stock" section.

In the custom builder, you get to add all of the features you want to your guitar body or neck, and it tallies up the price.  Don't know what some feature is?  Just click on the "more info" button with the question mark, and a pop-up window shows up with a detailed description.  The pop-up windows become crucial when you need to find out about less obvious (but no less important) technical design aspects like nut width or fret size.

The in-stock section presents a selection of bodies and necks that are, get this, in stock, I'm guessing primarily due to customer returns or order cancellations.  This section of the website is fully filter searchable by body/neck type, wood construction, color, price, etc.

So when you're working in the custom builder, the website will give you a notification if there is already an in-stock item available with the same or similar specs for less than the cost of ordering a new piece.  And that's exactly what I found: a seafoam green standard P-bass body for $60 less.  With a brief window of opportunity open a couple of weeks ago, I went for it:

Specifications:

Construction: Solid Body
This is rock and roll.  Either you play a solid body bass or you sit at your tech job and wonder why no one is interested in your jamz.  Chambered body is not an option.

Core Wood: Alder
Joking aside, while I love the resonance that a solid body guitar brings, there are limits to how much any instrument should reasonably weigh.  The maple body construction of the Big Riff Strat made it over 10 pounds; far beyond the normal weight of a Strat.  A solid-maple-body P-bass would probably sit at the 14-15-pound mark and destroy my left shoulder over time.  Alder is a good standard medium-weight tonewood with a decent amount of resonance that should match well with the maple neck I intend to put on it.  (More on the neck in a later post.)

Unique Choice (Optional): None
Solid color alder, no special choice needed.

Orientation: Right-Handed

Control Cavity: Top Rout
Pickguard going on this bass, so no rear rout necessary.

Pickup Routs: P-Bass Standard Split (Neck) Only
Why not add another pickup rout in the bridge position?  I thought of putting a Jazz Bass pickup here, "just in case" I wanted to punch it in for different tonal variations.  But then I thought, don't mess with a good thing.  With the J-bass I'm currently playing at church, I'm already completely rolling off the bridge pickup's volume knob.  The humbucking Duncan Quarter Pound split-coil P-bass pickup is all the sound I need and want.

Input Jack Rout: No Side Jack Hole
Standard pickguard going on this one.

Bridge Rout: Hardtail, Gotoh 201
I've been interested in the higher-mass Leo Quan Badass bridges for a long time and would have opted for one in black, but I may be a few years too late. Leo Quan appears to be out of business.  What happened to that company?  The Gotoh 201 looks like a solid adjustable bridge with a standard mounting screw-hole configuration.  I should be fine with the 201 until I can find a Badass II to replace it.

Mounting Holes: Standard 4-Bolt

Contours: P-Bass Style, No Contoured Heel
It's cool and all that Warmoth offers this choice, but why in the world would any rock bassist play high up on the register enough to need a contoured heel?  Or if the contoured heel is actually needed, why isn't said bassist playing a neck-through?

Top Binding (Optional): None
The Telecaster is the only Fender body design I think I would ever consider ordering a top binding for.  Not saying I'm in the market for a Tele at this time.  Not saying I won't be in the future.

Battery Box Rout: Single Battery Box
This is the only modification I had done to the existing in-stock body that wasn't already there.  This is a "just in case" situation even though I have no intention of using it for the time being.  Yes, that means there will be a battery box on the back of the bass with no battery inside and nothing to wire it to.  Lately I've been working with Arduino electronics, both in my engineering physics class and through a NASA-funded scholarship program, and there are some rad things that could be done with the bass internally.  I'm thinking of putting a gyro sensor and a transmitter into the control cavity (and powered by a 9-volt battery) which could control a colored LED strip based on how the instrument is held.  More on this in a later post, I'm sure.

Finish: Solid Color, Seafoam Green
Yes!  I love this color and I'm not ashamed to have a second instrument with it!

The months of October and November are a nostalgic time for me, and I wind up listening to several of the emo records I enjoyed in high school.  I still think it's awkward that Jason Gleason was in the music video for a Further Seems Forever song that Chris Carrabba sang.

That Dream BASS!

I thought that I had finished this blog and that it would remain as a testament to a ten-month period of design, experimentation, building, and tweaking.  I had a lot of fun with the project and the blog, and I'm still very much satisfied with the end result, but I didn't expect that I would return.

I'm building a bass guitar!

It makes a whole heck of a lot of sense.  I play bass guitar live far more often now than I get to play electric guitar.  This year I've filled in on low-frequency duties for my friends in the band Ghost Ship as they've released their second full-length album, Costly, this year on BEC Recordings.  I've played our church's Fender Mexi Jazz Bass for the last three years, and took care of it as if it were my own instrument, but have never been completely happy with it.

Image courtesy Doug Finefrock (Instagram @finefrock).

I've stalled hard on owning a bass and/or bass gear for years, mainly because of my pride.  Guitar is my first love; bass is just what I played when I couldn't get my way.  Another main reason, honestly, is because I didn't know what I wanted in a bass, and I was determined not to buy one unless I was going to be satisfied with that one for a long time.  Vintage Gibson Grabber basses are rad but I was never going to get the right opportunity to fully put one through its paces with a heavy-handed pick attack, and besides, Grabbers are getting harder to find in a clean condition for a decent price.  Rickenbacker 4003 basses sound awesome, but honestly, there's something about the Rick brand aesthetic that throws me off just a little, at least such that I don't want to own one as my main bass or sole bass.  Ernie Ball Music Man StingRays are solid instruments for playing rock and roll, but I hate the raw feel of their necks, and to get one with a lacquered neck would cost an arm and a leg.

So the crossroads or the fence or whatever you want to call it has existed for a long time, and I've hung back from the pursuit of the instrument, which feels more like a mistake with the passing of time.  But then I saw one of my all-time favorite bands, Failure, on their 2014 Tree of Stars reunion tour.  I stood right up in the front at stage left, and witnessed Ken Andrews wielding a Fender American Precision Bass with a Seymour Duncan SPB-3 Quarter Pound pickup installed.  I've seen P-Basses a thousand times before, but for some reason I was floored by the dark, growling tone of Ken's that night.  I realized, too, that the split-position pickup made it possible to get an even pickup action underneath all four strings, unlike a Jazz Bass where the A and D strings sit higher to compensate across the fretboard's radius, which causes a volume drop when I switch from, say, G to C on the third fret.

Questions came up like: Would I rather have a Precision Bass, or a Jaguar Bass with a split-coil pickup in it?  Should I buy a Fender bass or make a new one through Warmoth?  I had my eye out on a few options, and found that a Warmoth custom P-Bass with a birdseye maple neck would cost the same amount as a Fender American Standard.  So when the opportunity came along to purchase an in-stock seafoam green Precision body for less than the cost of ordering one from scratch, I went for it.  And I got a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder which I can't wait to try out.

Black adds a touch of sophistication to seafoam green.

I'm glad Duncan did away with their cheesy Basslines logo on their pickups.

So that's it.  This bass will be Warmoth custom build number two, although it will be far more simple overall in design and function than the Big Riff Stratocaster.  I intend for it to be a "twin" to Big Riff, with a seafoam green body, AAA birdseye maple neck, and black hardware appointments.  The neck will have a thinner and more comfortable Jazz profile rather than the baseball-bat C-shape typical of most Precision basses.  (See what I did right there?  I've already made a decision based on years of experience although my proud six-stringer self wouldn't have wanted to admit that I know that much.)

More planning, tech specs, and photos to come in future posts.  Listen to that boom here: