Did they really make a short scale 4003?

[godber]

I've got a 500/1V62 here - ska and dubby reggae sound great too!

Worked well enough for Robbie Shakespear, didn't it?

Oh yes.

yabrob.jpg

[peewee]

What a great shot that is! He be feelin' it, mon!

[teb]

If it's true to the original, the SG reissue will have a thin, fast neck and play quite well. The big neck humbucker will put out full, deep bass, but not have very much definition, even with the treble cranked all the way up. Whether or not it puts out a sound that's crisp enough to get much use out of will likely depend on what kind of brightness you can get by adding the bridge pickup and what sort of blend is possible between the two. The EB3 (which is basically what reissue is) was far more versatile than the EB0, single pickup model. I played an EB0 for a long time and it got a whole lot better after I added a P-Bass pickup at the bridge. It also helps if you grow your hair and get kind of spooky looking (gee, I look just about as zoned-out as that rasta-dude in the last photo).

[DanJ]

The 350-style body shape like I used on my modified 2030 would make a really nice short-scale bass. This is an instance where I actually remembered to plan ahead and measure the case before building the body, and to get it to fit in there, the bridge (Schaller) had to be moved way back to the end of the body. A couple inches farther forward and a slightly shorter neck would have looked about the same. The 4001/4003 shape strikes me as one that is too nice to mess with, but build a short-scale, 350-style, non-bolt-on, toaster-equipped model and you would have one hell of a nice, high-end bass. Even with the bolt-on neck and 2030 electronics, this one is a really nice instrument that both plays and sounds excellent. One of these days I'll stumble on a 3000 when I happen to have money to blow and I have a big slab of figured maple wide enough to do the body just waiting.

That looks very interesting. Is it the same guitar that I see over your left shoulder in your avatar, with a different pickguard? Did you build it yourself? What scale is it? If you want drop me a PM and we can discuss this in greater detail there.

[godber]

If it's true to the original, the SG reissue will have a thin, fast neck and play quite well. The big neck humbucker will put out full, deep bass, but not have very much definition, even with the treble cranked all the way up. Whether or not it puts out a sound that's crisp enough to get much use out of will likely depend on what kind of brightness you can get by adding the bridge pickup and what sort of blend is possible between the two. The EB3 (which is basically what reissue is) was far more versatile than the EB0, single pickup model. I played an EB0 for a long time and it got a whole lot better after I added a P-Bass pickup at the bridge. It also helps if you grow your hair and get kind of spooky looking (gee, I look just about as zoned-out as that rasta-dude in the last photo).

Thanks for the description Todd!

[teb]

Dan, other than the shape of the block of wood that is the body and the guards, the bass is a stock Rickenbacker 2030 that I bought used a few years ago. The scale is 33.5" or so (bolt-on neck) and the electronics are all on a modular circuit board. The original body was kind of a funny, non-Ric-like shape with horns that reminded me far too much of Mickey Mouse ears, so I made a new body and transferred the neck and electronics. The only other change I made was to move the bridge pickup back a little bit for a little more brightness. It has several sets of guards and a couple TRCs, depending on what mood I'm in. These were designed to be an economy line, but they are very under-rated and as good or better than most manufacturer's top of the line basses. The sound is very versatile and you can dial-in just about any kind of tone you want with the onboard knobs and a good amp. At one point, I was looking for a good acoustic bass and wasn't thrilled with any of them - especially their performance on the low end. With half-rounds and some knob tweaking, I found that I can get far better acoustic bass-like tone out of the 2030 than any acoustic that I've seen yet. Then if you want, you turn a few knobs and it sounds like a P-Bass. Here is the faux-acoustic sound sample. As you can hear, even though it's a bolt-on, rather than neck-through construction, it's not hurting in the sustain category either.
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... 0drive.mp3