LeftyBassist.com

Sorry about the crappy cell phone pic... I've been meaning to do this forever and kept forgetting. When I finally rembered before I went to bed last night, all I had was my cell phone and I was too lazy to dig out the camera.

Anyway...

From left to right...

1.) G&L L-2500 lined fretless: "Blackburst" ash body, 1/4 sawn maple neck, matching headstock. I took out the preamp (I think they're horrible) and wired it completely passive. The bass and treble controls in G&L basses are already passive, so they stayed the same. The front switch is still the pickup selector as well, but I wired the two back switches to control each pickup. They will go series, parallel, and in single coil mode. Since each pickup has its own switch, you can now have the front pickup single coil and the rear pickup parallel... front pickup series and rear pickup single coil... etc, etc, etc. There are a TON of tonal options now, and it sounds frikkin' SICK. I have another fretless 5 on order that will probably take another year+ to complete... so this one MIGHT be up for sale at some point if anyone is interested. I dunno though... it sounds so good, I might have to keep it anyway.

2.) '72/'75 Fender Franken-P: '72 alder body with a '75 maple neck. Early 80's Fender tuners with a Hipshot D-tuner, 70's reissue bridge (putting a Badass II on tonight), Chandler pickguard, and Duncan Antiquity II pickups. I wired it up with true lefty reverse audio taper (log) CTS pots, cloth wire and a fancy oil can cap. I have the original '75 body, but it was butchered with an extra p-route in the neck position and an incorrect sized pickguard was drilled into it with bad fills on the old holes, etc... and I also have the OHSC which is a plus.

3.) Zon Sonus 519: Buckeye burl top, matching ramp, 3-band Bart pre with custom knob layout, Bart hum-cancelling "skinnys", Hipshot Ultralights, wenge tone block, swamp ash body... this is by far the most even and tight sounding bass I have ever had. Sounds exactly how it's supposed to... a jazz bass on steroids... but it's more than that. Strongest fundamental on any bass I have ever heard. Plays like butter... has to be played/heard to be believed. This alternates as my main bass.

4.) Mike Lull M5V: Oly white ash body, vintage tinted maple neck with birdseye maple board, Hipshot Ultralight tuners, Hipshot bridge, Nordy two-band preamp, custom Lull/Duncan linear hum cancelling pickups, and custom wiring with passive tone control. This bass came with an Aguilar OBP-3 and the Duncan single coils, but... even though I leave my basses mostly set flat and I'm not much of an onboard EQ tweaker, I do use it sometimes and I found the OBP-3 to be pretty useless... and the single coils were, well... noisy. So I got a Nordy two band from Rod, and I could not be happier... the highs are INSANELY clean and clear and the lows are super tight and defined. The bass itself had plenty of mids on its own so I'm glad I went 2-band, and I tend to think mid controls on preamps can muddy your tone. The Nordy is a much more musical preamp. Also, the Lull/Duncan linear HC's I put in sound just as good as the SC's, but they're dead quiet. This is my other main bass.

5.) Fender Custom Shop '64 NOS Jazz: Seafoam green alder body, 1/4 sawn maple neck, rosewood board... everything is stock, except I added a Hipshot D-tuner and I wired it up with true lefty reverse audio taper (log) CTS pots, cloth wire and a fancy oil can cap. In my humble opinion, this bass is what all other passive 4-strings aspire to be. It sounds and plays sooooooooooooooo good... I seriously pick it up and play it, just so I can hear it because it makes me feel that good. And if my bands didn't require a low B for a lot of material... or maybe I should say, if I wasn't so damned attached to the low b-string... I would be playing this bass probably 100% of the time.

Not pictured: Warmoth unlined fretless Jazz 4-string

*whew*

Awesome toys sir! I love this Custom Shop Jazz Bass!



+1 Roger Sadowsky has always said the same thing.

awesomeness on a stick....... great collection!

Good info regarding the electronics on the #4. - Mike Lull bass. I'll store that away for future mod/updates to the SX 5-string Jazz bass I bought awhile back....

YA KNOW CHRIS,THE SEAFOAM GREEN JAZZ LOOKS LIKE ITS OUT OF PLACE, MAYBE YA SHOULD SELL IT! LOL! JUST KIDDIN ! FUNKTASTIC COLLECTION ! THERE ALL KICK ASS !

Oh yeah!

Really nice collection

Congrats

Sly

Interesting philosophy re the mid control.

Me, i'll adjust the bass and treble to fit the room/stage/hall/whatever. Once I'm satisfied with those, I'll use my mid control as a volume control to cut through the mix. It works really well on my Ken Smith and Wyn basses, probably because they're both active electronics.

I'm sure this would not work when recording, since the goal there is to have more tonal consistency.

Cool... don't take my word for gospel, though. A lot of people love the OBP-3 preamp, and that's alright because everyone's tastes are different. I've had the luxury of being able to try quite a few different gadgets over the last couple of years, and that's what I came up with based upon my tastes, playing style, amp selction, etc. It might be completely different for you, so I encourage you to try as much stuff as you can.



You're first in line, brother!

Right on... I'm quite different than you, as I hardly ever touch the controls on my bass and rely on my amp for EQ changes as much as possible. The few times where I have used a "house rig" or a direct box or something are really the only times I'll rely on any onboard EQ to get a sound that I like. And even then, I can't remember a time where I ever touched the midrange control.

With passive basses, I typically play with everything dimed, but on active basses, I keep everything "flat"... volumes dimed and all EQ at the center detent. If the preamp has a gain control, I usually set it so the volume of the preamp is as close to my passive basses as possible.

There are several reasons I do this... first is that I honestly think my basses sound better this way. They're also more consistent across the board. I can play one bass and if I switch to another, it still sounds great through my amp without any extra tweaking.

Next is that I am a pretty active and aggressive player and I don't want to have to worry about bumping knobs and trying to tweak it in the middle of a set to get it back to where it was before I bumped them. I like consistency, and volumes dimed with EQ at center detent is as consistent as it gets. To be honest with you, if EQ controls on active preamps were notched so I could always set them the same way every single time, I'd be more apt to use them.

And finally... in my experience, both effect pedals and amp front-ends respond WAY better to a bass that isn't running with a ton of extra EQ. With my basses set flat, I'm able to increase the gain stage on my amps a lot more which results in a MUCH better sound from my amp... this helps the amp EQ become more effective as well. Also, my effects pedals all work well with all of my basses with little to no extra tweaking.

So... when I need onboard EQ, I like that I have it... but most of the time, I keep everything set flat.

Well said, I share your philosophy.

Ya, i can dig where you and Frenchy are coming from, quite logical indeed.

I started using mids as a live vol control about 4 years ago, after watching countless videos of Stanley Clarke and John Entwhistle (and a couple of other who I forget right now, maybe Mark King?) using theirs. Once I finally got a bass with a decent mid knobbie I got the chance to experiment using that technique in live band settings, and I've kind of gotten used to it. I have a tendency to gravitate to drummers with large biceps and thick wrists who are somewhat dynamically-challenged so I rarely get to hear my bass in an optimal acoustic environment. And the only pedal I use is an Analogman chorus and only rarely at that. Maybe a compressor as well, but if it's on, it's in an always-on situation.

I too favor proper gain staging and maximizing the use of my amp. The mid control only gets tweaked a bit, it's not like I'm wailing on it every other bar. I'll leave that one to Stanley LOL

In fact I try to use some instruments that require the least eq as possible. In my opinion, it really tells you you got a got bass in your hands. Too much eq makes you lose in definition and punch. I was really surprised to find out in his interview that Aston Barett (Bob Marley's bassist) would leave everything flat and get this big thump by using a lot of cab and amp power (Ampeg) but playing at relatively low volume without pushing the amp. The flatwounds strings definitely help in this case. I use a little more eq when I use roundwound strings.
I just got this Summit Audio tube preamp and it sounds just perfect plugged straight into it.

Great collection !!!

I really would be interessted in playing a ZON one day....