Thursday 3 May 2012

Bass Guitar and Amp

A couple of recent projects - a bass guitar conversion and another Ruby amp.

1. Bass


Above is the finished bass - it started out as a Fernandes Pie-Zo (called a Nomad Bass outside Japan, I believe).


Usually looks like the above - this was not the one I messed about with! The one I got was trashed - it came from a junk shop. There was a piezo pickup in the bridge with a built in amp and speaker. On my junk acquisition, these were sort of working but very temperamental and, when they did work, I couldn't get along with the sound.  I decided to rip it all out and install a magnetic pickup. I used an old Schaller humbucker. (I hope to use the piezo for something else if it does work OK). The neck was also a bit off but luckily it could be adjusted. The new bridge also allows the action to be set - the old one was fixed.


Filling the body.


Respray, red oak veneer and lacquered.


New bridge.


Done.

2. Amp.

This one turned out pretty decent sounding when hooked up to an old Hi-Fi speaker. Even with the gain cranked up it remains fairly clean and this particular speaker/cab gives a warm tone, so it became my bass amp.



Build your own amp, check out the Ruby page here: http://www.runoffgroove.com/ruby.html

Guess I should post some audio & video