To celebrate 25 years as a bassist I went shopping and found a Karina brand P-bass copy in need of some love. I'm giving it that, and so much more. The Tortoiseshell pattern can be downloaded here: drive.google.com/file/d/1lxPl...
As someone who almost has to concentrate to make sure I'm using a screwdriver the right way round, I am always in awe of someone who can dive into an instrument, carve bits out of it, swap parts around and generally make it how they want. I sometimes have to go for a nice lie down after I've changed my guitar strings!
I once worked on a piece of wood for 10 hours only for it to break apart, haven't touched my tools in 5 years since that, I gave up and I'm still bitter about that defeat
Dude, I just love your channel so much, and as a bass player that likes to nibble with electronics and mods you are now my go to channel if I'm in need to see some awesome work, love ya brother!
Interesting you should say that, I have never recorded anything using electronic drums or a drum machine. I hate them and always will. I've used them to make a handful of demos over the years - NONE of which have ever been released in any form because they all sucked. Any music you've ever heard on this channel has had either my 1963 Pearl jazz kit or my newer Mapex kit with the same cymbal set. Now that I think about it there may also be some tracks with my friend's '62 Premier kit from way way back before I got my own. As a drummer I've always found electronic kits infuriatingly limiting and unresponsive in terms of dynamics and tonal variety, even if you spend the big bucks the limitations of what sound generation modules can ever do are still there, and if you know what to listen for you can spot the drum machine every time. I would love for someone to set up a blindfold test for me, I might get one of my friends to help me make a video, I would either prove my point or learn a lesson. Sorry about the rant, it's a hot button subject for me. Thanks.
Great video! That was a huge amount of material you removed - have you ever considered making a bass with the minimum possible amount of material remaining? That could be really cool, in my opinion.
Those pickups very nearly went into a cheap Steinberger copy I have stashed away. The reason I have a cheap Steinberger copy is that I really like the idea of them, but the reason I didn't use it is because it's not cheap=affordable, it's cheap=terrible. I was preping it for the video and I realised I hated it too much to put any effort into it. But yes, minimal body basses are totally my thing. Thanks.
DFTBA actually came from the Vlogbrothers youtube channel. It's definitely all about the sentiment. DFTBA records and the associated merch is all run by them, and they treat their employees pretty well and donate a ton of money to charity. Are they a corporation at this point? for sure. But they're pretty all right.
Omg dude it's like your reading my mind! Personally I like a heavy bass , but I do understand the weight issues. I was in a pawn shop saw 1 exactly like this it also had a dead low string..can you give me some lottery numbers!
Hey! Thanks for the new video: I really enjoy seeing the ideas you come up with for your basses. Pleeeease don't refret that bass - the sound was great fretless. Question: can there be a side effect of taking out wood off the body? I support the idea of making instruments lighter, but maybe the sustain or the tone can get worse with that.
The fretless sound of that bass was something special for sure, I'm going to reassemble it and see how it sounds after all the mods I've already done, then I'll be able to see what direction to go in next. Thanks.
I have a similar 1969 P base that weights 5.7kg, your weight cut is something I wanted to do for years but never really dare...!! 17:34 I'm surprised you didn't use a router for this?
I avoid routers where I can, one wrong move and you can easily destroy a workpiece or mangle yourself. They're loud, dusty, and dangerous. In the time that it takes to set up a router, find/make a template, check the tooling, secure the workpiece and finally make the cut I'm already 2/3rds of the way through with a chisel. It's safer, quieter, and rather than being stressful it's actually quite relaxing to go at a bit of wood with a chisel. At some point I'd like to have a go at more decorative carving, I think that would be great fun. Thanks.
Hey mate…. The busted burned stapled unit was a Korean made Samick …. Am I right ? Or it at least came out of that same factory …. Maybe an Onyx ? …. I recon good chance it’s a samick cause I used to have an identical bass with the same angled jazz pups and the bevelling at the horns of the guitar
You are absolutely correct. I have an ebay search saved for Samick basses looking for one of the same series with the same finish I had - mine used to be a blotchy black and gold affair that looked quite good, but being young and an idiot I sanded it off and then kept doing things long after I should've been happy.
@@fanbladeinstruments exact same colour I had mate …. Well the bass is still reasonably close to home …..my adult step daughter now owns it and is giving it the love it deserves haha …. It plays and sounds great …. I’m glad she is wrapped with it !!
It's been diagnosed as a "non-essential tremor", whatever that means. I'm actually a recovered alchoholic, now 2 years sober and loving it, but it seems there's some residual damage to my system, you'll also hear me 'um' and 'ahh' quite a lot while I'm talking, I edit a LOT of that out but I'm a bit scatterbrained sometimes. Some of the raw footage is quite funny, more than once I've just stopped and started daydreaming about some random thought for over a minute before picking up right where I left off. Thanks for your question, and if you know of anyone who wants some support with similar issues then I'm here to help. Cheers.
Matsumoku, Fujigen, and Tokai started using CNC machines back in the 1970's in Japan. If this was made in Korea, it could easily be the mid to late 1980's, but you're right that it probably the 1990's.
Interesting that they had cnc all the way back then, I thought it was a more recent development. The pickguard pattern looks very 70's and my instincts are screaming at me that it's 80's except that under all those stickers it's actually in fairly good shape and the stickers themselves could all be dated to the last 10 years... So who knows? I'm gonna go with late 90's because there's just no way to tell. Thanks.
@@fanbladeinstruments Matsumoku started using a pre-cursor to the modern CNC in the early 1970's, which allowed them to do some pretty cool stuff making the Aria Proo II neck-through instruments, which were groundbreaking at the time. When they folded up shop they were absorbed into Fujigen--which was the first instrument maker in the world to adopt CNC tooling, which allowed them to turn out perfect replicas of Fender instruments, eventually getting them the exclusive Fender contract--which they farmed out work to Tokai and Dyna Gakki to fulfill. Other Asian instrument makers (Japan and Korea) quickly adopted the new technology, which was pretty much the industry standard by the mid 1980's. Interestingly, Fujigen in a bit of a thumb to its own innovation, still hand cuts all of their neck blanks--probably so they can continue to say they are hand-crafted.
Those Bartolini pick ups look like the ones they made for late 70's Ibanez Musician basses and much sought after to replace the original noisy ones and Bartolini don't make them anymore
I think they were originally used in a Washburn mid 80's something-or-other, but I've seen other manufacturers use the same form. There's a Warwick Rockbass Streamer in a local pawnshop that has MEC's the same design, part of me was/is tempted to buy it and drop the barts in but the asking price is a bit steep. If it's still there in 6 months I'll make them an insultingly low offer😉
@@fanbladeinstruments Yes looking at them again they look a bit wide for the Ibanez Musician originals..i think the MEC's have a sliver logo for passive and gold for active pick ups
