My Custom Fanned Fret P-style Bass

[iiipopes]

I don't think I've ever posted this bass here. Here's my custom P-style bass I designed myself, acted as my own general contractor, and did the electronics work myself. So about 10 years ago I set out on a quest for an instrument that I could play more than 20 minutes without cramping up. Nothing commercially worked, of course. Then I stumbled across the Novax site, with links to Sheldon Dingwall. But fanning both ways made it worse, not better. Then I stumbled onto an etching of a 16th century lute called (translated) "Pandora's Box," with a square nut and fanned frets forward. I was off and running.

I measured my hand very carefully at rest to arrive at a 1.67 nut width and 2.38 (1/8 narrower than standard) heel. I like the full 34 inch for tone on the low E string, but the 33 1/4 Rick scale for feel on the G string. Under the bridge cover is a repro "bolt stock" bridge cut in two with half of it moved up for the G & D strings, narrowed to 2 1/16 overall spacing for my right hand; crown radius 10 inches; .875 thick @ the 1st fret, C profile with rounded edges.

The P position pickup is a Rick HB-1 measuring at @ 14kohms. The J pickup is a DiMarzio UltraJazz neck version to match the narrowed spacing. Since they're wound the same, they sound the same from neck to bridge. The HB-1 is placed proportionally in the position of the GD segment of a traditional P pickup, and the J pickup is between the '60's and '70's position. Notice the angles are different to match what would be the continued fanning of the frets if carried through.

The strings are through body, with the G string at a perpendicular angle down from the bridge saddle for maximum sustain and the E string as shallow as possible to retain as much brightness as possible. The alder body was from a no-name bass I was just going to use to whittle on to make sure the neck worked until I could get a better one, then I accidentally bumped it against the Am Std P-bass I had at the time. They tone-tapped the same tone, and I got lucky when I got under the paint: real 2-piece alder, well seasoned, not too heavy. A friend routed the pickup routs for me.

The neck blank, traditional maple w/ rosewood, came from an east coast wholesale supplier custom turned to my width & thickness, and was fretted by Sheldon Dingwall with Dunlop 50X100 frets so I have a lot to crown over time with wear. The tuners are Hipshot Ultralights, which weigh 1/2 as much as traditional Fender-Schallers, so no neck dive. I shimmed the neck on both sides of the heel for a really tight fit in the neck pocket.

The electronics are straightforward Jazz wiring VVT, with a .033 orange drop tone cap and a .01 inline cap to the J pickup to eliminate phasing and comb filtering with both pickups full on. CTS pots, of course.

Let's see: there are four actual Fender-brand parts on it: the string tree and the three knobs. I've added bone shims for intonation at the nut to eliminate string stretch pulling sharp at the 2nd & 3rd frets.

How does it sound? Huge. It's not just deep in the groove, it's digging it deeper. Even though I've played everything from Friday night to Sunday morning, the best way to hear it is my one lucky gig: the last Lawrence Welk Special, "Precious Memories," which was taped a few years ago and airs occasionally on PBS fundraising week. I'm straight into the board with just a touch of compression for broadcast and a slight broad dip of a couple dB at 1.3khz to even out the response of the pickup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uzcCKmE ... re=related

The pickguard started out white, and has patina'd nicely. In addition, if anybody is interested, I have a hardtail 2-HB Strat-style guitar to match and another guitar with active minibuckers in the pipeline.

[incubus2432]

Neat!

[jps]

Thanks for the run down on this, Scott. Very interesting bass, for sure.

[colin]

Interesting! Is the bridge angled also?

[iiipopes]

The bridge is a repro "bolt stock" bridge that I cut in to and moved the G&D segment up as necessary. It's one of the reasons I have a bridge cover: I can't let just anybody know all of my secrets!

[marc61]

The leaning tower of p-Bass

[cassius987]

The first time I met Scott I was all excited to play his 4002, then he brings this thing out! Sure enough it is a real beast and I have actually inquired with Novax if they would do this kind of work again--apparently not. Thanks for posting Scott.

At $1200 or so, a Dingwall Combustion is an easy way to experience fanned frets, but in the upper register it is much harder to play than Scott's bass, and it has a very bland tone.

[colin]

Quite remarkable!

[iiipopes]

Joshua, thanks again.

[walker]

Fascinating account of this project! You really know your science when it comes to basses. I'm already in love with the bass just based on your description of "sounds like a P bass, but with even more growl." I tried the Youtube link, but I guess the video's been taken down. Have you posted any other audio of this bass?

[iiipopes]

Thanks. Here's a new link of the repost of the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... Haa7ZFRAzY

[walker]

Cool - the vids are all the navydoc364 posts?

[iiipopes]

Cool - the vids are all the navydoc364 posts?

Yes. He's a retired Navy officer and a great aficionado of Welk. We have conversed.

[walker]

Yeah - I listened to a few of the vids, and I almost laughed at how effectively that bass cuts through! It's not too loud in the mix; it just cuts through so well that it pretty much carries the whole band. Great sounding bass.

[iiipopes]

Yeah - I listened to a few of the vids, and I almost laughed at how effectively that bass cuts through! It's not too loud in the mix; it just cuts through so well that it pretty much carries the whole band. Great sounding bass.

Thanks. At the time I had it strung with Rotosound Swingbass in custom gauges: 45-60-80-105, courtesy of Juststrings.com and the Rotosound rep when I had an E string go thud on me. I played through a DI straight through to the board, and the broadcast/recording engineer only had to give it a touch of compression (due to the limitation of broadcast bandwidth, not my playing - the same reason EMI finally put compression on Paul's bass tracks on Rain & Paperback Writer - to get more bass content without spiking the cutting needle) and dropped the 1.3kHz peak just a hair.