Bass VI Project

[Darwin]

Steve, 24 frets is a plus on the high strings. Fenders version is not a 24 fret. I have LaBella round wounds on it and am going to order a set of Flatwounds for backup.

Growler, It is fun and I am trying it on our next gig.

Dru, because of the neck length and no change in the neck width it does become a bit narrow at the pocket but it doesn't bother me. I have adjusted the neck to give a bit more space on the high E intentionally as I would never get that high on the low E string. The neck is very playable at the 24 th. Also the low string is a .095 which is just a bit smaller than a normal bass string. The neck is thicker than a normal 6 string neck with the same neck width as a normal Fender neck.

[MBE]

That looks like a lot of fun. I've got one of the Squier Bass VI's and it is the most fun I've had for $300 in years. How distinct do you find the tones of the different pickup positions? The pickups are overall much closer to the bridge and more closely spaced than on the Bass VI.

[Darwin]

MBE, the spacing is different due to the Jazzmaster type bridge and trem on the Squire being closer to the end of the body. have not tried one of those so I can't make a fair comparison but the tones are well covered with the JM pickups so far. I will know more after I gig it. As a bassist I do not change my controls on my regular bass but adjust the tone by where I pick the strings (after initial setup for room). The controls on this will give me easy options with the selector switch. -- Darwin

[The Growler]

Darwin - I forgot to ask: does your bass amp have a tweeter? It would seem with the higher range that would be best. One of my cabs does not have a greater and sounds great with any of my basses. The other cab does and has the adjustable cutover (Mesa).

Curious as to your setup and experiment when you gig this. Thanks

[Darwin]

Growler, each of the cabinets have an adjustable tweeter which will help. When testing the cabinets individually, the 2-10 cabinet had the least high frequency but that could just be a result of the crossover. -- Darwin

[The Growler]

Thanks Darwin. I'd expect you'd want the tweeter.

I'll have to kick this around. Thanks

[Darwin]

I used it a bit a week ago but this past weekend was the big test by accident. We played a wedding dance on Saturday night with about 130 guests in a new city hall location. The room was filled along with a good sized dance floor. Typical new construction, block wall with standard ceiling height, probably 10 ft or less. About the worst setup you could find for acoustics.

I started the gig with my G&L M2500 (5 string) and I could not get dialed in like normal. A bit muddy with poor definition. It just didn't cut through the mix loud and clear. After the second set I decided to try my Bass VI. We started with the Race Is On- George Jones version and that is what I believe this type of guitar was originally used on. I was blown away by the clarity and definition. This guitar cut through the mix loud and clear. Most in the crowd would not know the difference although a guy told me it looked like a strat and he had never seen a bass player with a trem arm. He was an old bass player and intrigued by this thing. It does give a good bass sound and you can get into some pretty cool territory high on the neck. I finished the evening with it and our lead player actually liked it. When I was building this he was very clear that he didn't like them from his experience in the old days, but he thought this one really sounded good. He would tell me in no uncertain terms if he didn't like it.

I used it for three sets yesterday and used my 5 on the last set. It is a bit of a challenge switching between the two and I wouldn't recommend using it just for a song. It has a feel that you have to adjust to a bit. Someone who had only been a bass player may not like it as the string spacing is the same as a regular guitar. Not the room that a bass player is used to. I happen to do both so it just a bit of adjusting when I switch.

Tonight I just lowered the action another .010 to .070 on the low E and .060 on the high. I started higher as I didn't want to deal with string buzz. At these settings it is still not prone to buzz. Another thought for a bass player is that your picking has to be very articulate and precise as this guitar is very articulate and everyone will hear what you are doing and the close string spacing doesn't leave any room for error. For a guitar player it is nothing new, just lower and bigger strings.

The bottom line is that this has been a great experience, much exceeding my expectations and I will be using this a lot. For a bass player, the weight at just over 8 lbs is a real plus and the balance is perfect. I thought I would only use this on a few songs but it could work as an only bass. BTW, I am using LaBella round wounds and probably will not change to flats. I do have flats on my 5 string.

As a final thought I am thinking about doing another set of strings with a low B and tune B to B. I miss the low B from my 5 string but I'm not sure how a low B would work on this scale. I would essentially add a low B in place of the low E, probably a .105 and move each of the other strings over 1 slot leaving the high off and using a high B much like a baritone but an octave lower. It would be interesting if any of you have tried this and if you have, how did it work?

It does work very well through my bass rig and I added a reverb pedal for when I do "The Race Is On"

Way more information than you needed but I am stoked with this thing. -- Darwin

[moon]

Originally Posted by Darwin

Way more information than you needed but I am stoked with this thing. -- Darwin

Not at all - It's really interesting to hear how it performs in battle. I feel like I'm learning a little bit about an instrument I don't know anything about.

[The Growler]

Very cool. Thanks for the update.