The Frankenbass Club (Moderately modded basses count too!)

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#41
Here's mine
MIM? Jazz body Refinished in Nitro Olympic White
Lefty Warmoth Jazz Neck w/ Matching headstock
Corian nut
Schaller tuners
Fender CS 60's pup's
CTS pots with .33 and .47 Orange Drops
now has Series/Parallel switch
WD Music pickguard and bridge
Dunlop Straplocks
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#42
Neck/tuners are courtesy of a lefty SX. Body from ebay (unknown plywood brand but very heavy)w/ neck pocket widened to take an SX neck.
Hipshot bridge, CTS 250K ohm pots, orange drop .047uf cap, pullup series/parallel master vol. Fernandes P/ Carvin j99 pups. Fully copper shielded/star grounded. Homemade jackplate. Paintjob (by me)is a rustoleum 'rust' kit w/ clearcoat and enough orangepeel to make you pucker.
 
#43
My frankenbass has an interesting story behind it...

The bass...

Hoyt/Warmoth J5...

Karl Hoyt neck, 35 in. scale Maple with Pau Ferro fingerboard, 18 in radius (IIRC), asymmetrical flattened C profile, 1-7/8 in nut.

Warmoth J body in ash. Karl's hand rubbed polyurethane finish. Looks and feels very earthy. I believe that it's a 34 in. scale body so the pups are placed in the 34 in. scale position AFAIK.

EMG J pups

EMG BTS system with Volume, Blend, Bass and Treble. Running at 18 Vdc.

EMG-EXB Bass Expander (essentially an on-board contour control).

Gotoh tuners, don't know what the bridge is (nothing fancy but solid), straplocks.

DR Hi-Beams.

SKB case.


The bass started out as a gigging bass for Karl. He had a different neck on it and in order to help pay for a daughter's wedding put the bass up on eBay. No one bid.

I contacted Karl about it later and he said that he had parted it out and it was no longer available for sale. He picked up on a comment of mine about liking to mess with stuff so he made me an offer to build a new neck and sell the bass without electronics. We worked out the details.

After receiving the bass (complete except for pickups and electronics) I started looking for pups, etc. Steve "Dude" Barr (Vintage Bass Trading Co.) had some EMGs and electronics on eBay. Upon asking questions about them, I learned that he received them from Karl in a trade...they were the same pups (etc.) that were originally in the body. So I won the auction and put them back where they belonged.

The EMG-EXB seemed like an interesting idea, so I installed one of those too. The bass already had four holes in it, so I added the fifth in a position that looked OK.

The bass plays and sounds great...the neck is smooth as silk and it sustains very well. Kind of has a Ken Smith feel to it. I love it!!!

My first Frankenbass was a Charvel Model 3B that I added DiMarzio Will Power Neck and Middle pickups to. The neck pickup had a dedicated output (just like Sheehan's Yamaha). The Model 3Bs are great instruments if you can deal with the '80s color choices and pointy headstock. Flattened neck profile and neck through construction make them quite enjoyable to play.

And my MIM P Bass has a DiMarzio Will Power Middle pup on it...


Tbirdbassist...What's my membership number?
 
#45
here are mine (posted before on the asian bassists thread), the sx on the left now has a bassline stc-3m4 preamp. the one on the right has an 'aria pro the cat bass' neck and the body, built from local malaysian woods. the pickups and preamps are all bartolinis

regards
norman rashid
 

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#47
Does a Fendson count?

Gotoh GB7 tuners
Warmoth Jazz LP wenge / eboy neck with stainless frets
Graphite nut
Custom lucite pickguard
EMG DC-35 pickups
SX body with stock bridge / knobs

As it turns out the neck is too heavy for the body creating neck dive, so the pickups are sold. It sounded great though, and the neck feels terrific. Any buyers for the rest of the items? Watch the classifieds or PM...
 

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#48
My favorites so far are Toad's P/J & that slick P of BassGreasers. Lorenzini sold me this cool (dead mint!) alder-bodied MIM Jazz with basslines. I sold everything from the neck pocket up to a buddy of mine. My son & I selected this cool precision neck from the Warmoth showcase. I had them put in fretlines & set up the nut. I put on Schaller tuners & a Hipshot B bridge. Had to do a little trimming to get the tortise guard to sit right. Modding is fun!

Ken
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#49
Spiritbass thanks for the kind words. The bass looks awesome! I'm going to be doing more modding to my Pbass soon...which includes changing the tuning for EADG to BEAD, putting in a Villex pickup with a stacked knob for Volume/Treble, and the other knob for the VIllex mid control. I'm also changing the knobs to jazz bass knobs, and putting a Pbass pickup cover of the pickup to hide the fact that it's not vintage looking.
 
#52
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SOrry for the bum pic. It is old, and this bass is pretty ugly anway. Specs:

Warmoth body. Probably maple. Probably painted with a brush. Ebay.

Warmoth lined fretless P neck, ebony on maple (if I had it to do again, I'd go with a J neck).

BadassII

No name tuners

Riogrande powerbucker and J pickup (forget the model).

2 strat and one dome knobs.

Ugly, and probably the heaviest J bass in existance, but it sounds pretty good, and It was only a few hundred bucks when all was said and done.
 
#54
In order of modification from stock Fender MIM J
1. Fender MIM J body
2. Fender 62RI tort pg
3. Lindy Fralin pups, CTS pots
4. Dunlop straplocks
5. Fender 75RI bridge
6. Fender CIJ 62 RI J neck & tuners

The neck really just put everything right for me.

(The kitty is all-original.)
 

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#55
Body - Ibanez body bought off eBay, sanded down, and finished
PUPS - Schaller pups off eBay from old Kramer guitar factory in NJ (The bridge pup is a double jazz)
Neck - Mighty Mite Jazz Neck
Knobs - Fender (new) (pictured are plastic - changed since pic)
Tuners - Schaller (new)
Bridge - Fender (new) (pictured is Schaller - changed since pic)
Strings - TI Jazz Flats

Cabinet - also home-grown with Genz-Benz speakers from, where else, eBay.

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#58
The first two basses + a new All Parts tele neck with Fender tuners, a Gibson Sidewinder PU, a custom pick guard, an ivory fingerboard, a bridger cover and some new knobs gave the last two basses :hyper:
 

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#59
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Not a great picture. All parts purchased on Ebay or from online stores.

Fender MIM Jazz neck
P body of unkown origin
G&L MFD humbucker hardwired in parallel (I intend to put a series/parallel switch in sometime)
Tort pickguard
Hipshot Ultrlight tuners
Fender Deluxe bridge
Straplocks
Wiring harness from Bayou Cables
TI flats

It sounds really great. The MFD is hot, so hot that I had to take out the RavenLabs PBR-1 preamp that I originally had in it. It had so much output that I couldn't turn the volume past 3 without overdriving my amp, so I went passive.
 
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