A while back I became obsessed with building a hybrid Ric/Precision sounding bass, after listening to one of Jeff Rath's 2030 basses on his page(the Red "Van Halen" one). I stopped playing my Ric for a couple years, and was just getting into John Wetton and King Crimson, so I wanted something like that, but a bit brighter, like Squire's tone.
I built this bass from a maple Warmoth body, and a maple Allparts neck. The wood was the same, but I think it was too thick(and heavy) for the same resonance as a Ric. I thought it sounded great, though, and the project came out awesome, for only putting together 2 basses and just starting out:
Before putting that together, I also put together a Saga P bass, for practice. It has a basswood body:
I wound up giving the Saga bass to my sis as a Christmas present, and while she was over my house, I played all the different basses I had for her, an old Squier P bass w/Dimarzio Model P, a Fender Jazz, her Saga bass, my Ric, and my beloved Warmoth.
When it came to the Ric's turn, she said "Wow, that one sounds beautiful!"
I messed around with other basses for the next few months, and one day I went back to some old recordings I had done with a few friends, playing the Ric. It was going through my Mesa amp, and sounded perfect, like the tone I was still chasing...
I wondered why I had ever stopped playing it in the first place.
