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:
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