Sonics 4th Build - YB-4 - The Steampunker Bass

[Sonic Mountain]

Oh yeah, that's pretty nice. Thought I'd get this finished over the weekend, but school holidays, partner on night shift and visitors pretty much killed all my spare time. I also managed to by short shaft pots when I actually need long ones so that's a stall point as well...

[Sonic Mountain]

I can see they've used an engraved serving platter which i thought about for this one as well. I probably have enough doodads left over for a couple more if I wasn't completely over it!

[Sonic Mountain]

Bit more progress. I ordered the wrong pots so bit of a hold up on the wiring. I made up a decal using the print the outline reversed, colour in with gold pen technique. It's come up OK...since the pic its gone a bit milky... so I'll see how it drys overnight. The head stock needs a few more coats of clear, so hopefully the edge will blend in fine.



Also worked out a sufficiently steam punk input jack.



Did a really good level and dress of the frets as well, but didn't take pics.

I can see light at the end of the tunnel thank god. I have a new project on order and I really want to have this sorted.

[Andyxlh]

Love that decal, perfect! Where I'd you get that lovely small gear for the socket?

[Sonic Mountain]

The gear came out of the clockwork mechanism. Hoping the decal looks a bit better this morning but haven’t been out to check yet.

[Sonic Mountain]

Two goes at the decal now and both have gone cloudy. I'm guessing it's the satin poly. Time for a rethink.

[wazkelly]

Rattle can spray acrylic usually does the trick.

[Sonic Mountain]

Okey doke - finally got some decent pots that fit and wired it all up. Basically the same as a tele with a 3 way switch 1 volume,1 tone. It probably should have a blend, but this is a bit of a compromise due to tentacle placement.

It does make noise and everything works. A little bit of hum, I should shield the cavity, but it's really not too bad, seems to cancel when both pickups are selected, which I imagine is where it will be played most.

Quick dirty demo here - picking up a lot of string noise, they have not really been played so pretty noisy but you get the gist - obvious caveats for my playing. One day I will get a decent demoing setup...This is just recorded through the web cam on my old mac.

These are the kit strings so there is a problem with the thick part of the E and A strings not going over the nut. This makes setting the action a bit tricky as the diametre of sting resting against the nut is quite a bit less than the actual string diameter, so everything is pretty much just ball parked now. It's not terrible to play as is and all of my builds have improved with further tinkering and adjustment as they settle. Right now its fine barring the top 3 frets on the E and A. Action is 2mm at the 12th currently and seems acceptable.

I have a new type of decal to try on the way, so I won't call it finished until that's installed. I also have a graphtech nut for it, but due to the above string issue, I'll wait to fit that.

Anyway, nice to take another decent step forward on this one.

[wazkelly]

Looking good now that it is playable.

Definitely more grunt on both PUP's than on either one which is weird as it is usually the other way around. Seems like they may be in series when both selected? Not sure why they sound so thin just on their own?

Cheers, Waz

[Sonic Mountain]

To be honest it's not a great demo. I've been playing and adjusting it this evening and it's already better. I think the thing is that it's very bright, so the mic is making it sound thinner than it is... I think anyway.

At one point in that demo I wound the tone right down and it was better, but it seems best at about halfway in all switch positions, I can only assume that's the brass saddles and bridge.

I'm going to invest in a decent mic so I can just put that in front of the amp and run it into the computer clean. Then I can record the same way with hopefully better sound reproduction. I can put it through Garageband amp emulator, but that seems to process the sound too much and its not an accurate representation of how the guitar really sounds. I'll do another demo then. I might try and think of something to actually play and practice a bit.