The Super P-Bass
Hi there friends and family,
Here’s the much postponed update on the Fretless Precision Bass. It’s pretty much done. I’m only waiting on the gold Hipshot Detuner that I ordered in July. Hipshot apparently, is having problems with their gold parts and so we wait. Best Bass Gear, where I bought the thing has been very apologetic to me. I have given them somewhat of a hard time, sending them pictures of the bass with missing parts and asking if they could tell what was missing . . . I’ve used humor to gently inquire about my tuner. They occasionally send me an update regarding their inquiries to Hipshot. Best Bass Gear really has the best customer service anywhere!
I have named the bass The Super P-Bass. It has many very special yet, hidden features that I will detail in this article.
The body is a Precision Bass body from Guitar Fetish. Paulownia wood with a Vintage Sunburst Urethane finish. The body weighs 3.5 Lbs!
The neck is a Warmoth Slim Taper profile Maple with Lined-Fretless Pau Ferro Fingerboard and a 1-11/16 P-Bass size Bone Nut. The strings sit very nearly flush with the fingerboard the neck is so straight! I found this neck used on eBay, so I had to fill a bunch of tuner holes in the head and sand the crap out of the neck to get rid of nicks and dips in the fingerboard. I then used a finishing technique that uses Tung Oil and Cyanoacrilate Glue to give a very smooth yet, woody feeling finish. This neck is a pleasure to play!
For hardware I installed a lightweight Gold Babicz Full-Contact Bridge (super adjustable and stable). The tuners are Gold/Black Schaller BM Light Tuners for three of them. The fourth tuner (E-String) will be a Gold Hipshot HE6Y Bass Extender with a Black Double-Stop Lever. The Bass Extender has three settings which are set to E, D and C. You can instantly detune the string to those settings! Right Now I have a Chrome Tuner on it until the Gold one becomes available. There are also two Gold Hipshot String Retainers. The nut is so low the only way to hold the strings down is with string retainers. The Gold Planet Waves Eliptical Strap Buttons work well to hold straps without slipping.
The electronics are extra special on this bass. For starters, there’s Gold Knobs with Pearl Caps and Concentric Volume/Tone Controls. The Stellartone, Tonestyler 10 is basically a filter control with 10 Capacitor settings including True Bypass. Using the Tonestyler and the Tone Control knob there are endless tonal variations to be found. The operator will no doubt, find a setting or settings they prefer but, the Tonestyler is a huge help in finding the right tone setting that will cut through the rest of the band. This bass won’t be lost in the mix!
There is also a switch that switches to a capacitor called The Black Ice Overdrive! Using the Tone knob, The Black Ice can be dialed in to add anything from a subtle grit to full-blown overdrive. It simulates the sound of a Tube Amp breaking up in a very sweet spot! A very cool sound!!!
The pickups are Nordstrom Alnico 3 Pickups. Alnico 3 is a Vintage type magnet which gives a very smooth output. Perfect for Fretless basses.
All that electronics outputs to a solid-as-a-rock Gold Pure Tone Multi-contact Output Jack. which has two contact points for positive and ground. The best I’ve ever used! The Electronics Cavities are also lined with Copper Foil to insure this bass is extremely quiet.
For strings, I tried Kalium hand wound, balanced round-wound strings. Very nice strings but, too ‘Zingy” for a Fretless Bass. Then I tried LaBella Flat-Wound Strings. Nice strings also but, they didn’t have the tone I was looking for. Then I tried LaBella Tape-Wound Strings . . . The best of both worlds! Very smooth feel with much of the tone of round-wounds but minus the squeek and rattle. The black Tape-Wound Strings look very cool on this bass, also!
Total weight of The Super P-Bass is 7.5 Lbs.!!!!! The only bass (or guitar) I have that’s lighter is the Kala U-Bass (Ukelele Bass)!
