This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The current plan is to do a fully passive setup with Seymour Duncan Antiquity II split coil pickups (or some custom wrapped pickups with similar response) connected to a tone and volume knob. To be honest, I've even considered skipping the knobs entirely and using a pair of fixed resisters that leave both tone and volume wide open. That's how I tend to play a P anyway.
My goal is to create the warmest, darkest tone I can manage with a prominent fundamental. Concepts like "sustain" or "resonance" are distant secondary concerns. In conjunction with the BEAD tuning, I want this thing to sound like a hammer on a coffin nail.
In terms of comparable tone, think JPJ and not John Entwhistle.
Based on everything I've played previously, my current plan is the following:
For the neck, I'm probably just going to bite the bullet and shell out for a warmoth model in flame roasted maple with the graphite stiffeners and a tusq nut, unless you have any other suggestions.
Love this plan overall.
For wiring - for a kind of best of all worlds scheme that’s not too complicated: Standard V/T controls with a .68 or 1.0 microfarad capacitor (dark) and a push-pull to bypass the tone completely/or have different cap values (bright switch) or use a no load pot for the tone so it’s completely out of the mix when dimed.
Pickups: Duncans are great. I built a very vintage-sounding P with an SPB-1 and GHS precision flats (and a foam mute over steel threaded saddles). Not crazy high output but it has that thud and is warm and dark for sure. I would guess AII’s are a bit more 60’s voiced than the SPB-1, but we are not talking modern here in any case.
My favorite boutique P pickup is the Arcane 65, and I’ve had good luck with a few others too, Fralin and Fender vintage ‘63 come to mind. Any of these and more will get there. Pickups are a matter of personal taste and voodoo guitar parts synergy anyway. The right flatwounds are most of it probably.
Necks: I usually buy a Fender neck unless I need something specific. For example, I play fretless and I hate lined fretboards, so I have used Warmoth fretless bass necks almost exclusively. I’ve got one that’s about 30y old and one that’s about 5Y old. they’re consistent and high quality.
Oh, invest in lightweight tuners :)
Hipshots all the way, baby!
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