That wood grain is absolutely beautiful, if the body ends up looking like that too I'm gonna have to steal this bass when it's done. Also, interesting description. 😂
The look of those pickups reminds me of the Nordstrand Big Breaks that are fitted to my Ibanez SR600E. Hope the temps drop a bit soon. Here in the mother country we've got mild weather and rain!
Wonderful work Geoff. Love the p up design. 6k seems low, but can't wait to hear it. If they are loud enough, I am going to use your idea - except with 4 alnico cylinder magnets. Great stuff sir.
6k may seem low but it's not so much about the amount of copper as much as where you put it - and every last mm of that copper is right in the hot zone for generating current, and the magnets are good and strong too, The prototype that I briefly showed with the cut down bobbins all lined up only reads 4.4k, and that one is a little quieter than I'd hoped, but now each bobbin has 6000 instead of 5000 winds, and bigger magnets, I'm anticipating it'll have a fairly healthy output. Thanks.
Nice work mate, love the pickup design...and I bet it was a relief when the headstock turned out so nice! Been a bit warm across the ditch too, and a tad wet as well.
I heard a description of Wal's pickup design and this looks similar to this design. Very cool and makes sense seems like less chance of breakage also when winding.
Not dissiimilar, indeed. I used to work with the guy, Ivan Bozi who deigned the electronics for Wal basses, and indeed actually met Ian Waller himslf. Nice guy.
WOW, the electronics in a Wal are on a whole other level, I stumbled on that pickup design when I was trying to solve a different problem but the preamps in a Wal are works of art, as are their basses. That's super cool that you got to meet Mr Waller, I'd love to pick his brain about all kinds of things but sadly it's not to be. Like Greg Curbow, absolute legend, gone too soon.
Hey I get a bit shaky in the hands too , but I think you’re more steady when it comes to soldering , my Doc said I have a thing called resting tremors, gotta take my hat off to you mate you do such amazing work with them hands of yours
Really enjoy watching your videos. I build electric ukes up in Palmy Nth. I've been looking at building my own pick ups too but ive been put off by the cost of the pick up wire (more so the shipping). Do you mind me asking where you source your wire from please? Regards, Ian.
Aliexpress. It's the cheapest source I could find, here's the actual stuff I'm using, 0.06mm www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001450008582.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.162.523918028aTAjr The important thing is to make piece with the idea that you'll use up your first roll learning the dark art of pickup winding and might not get the results you're after until you've wasted a lot of copper. But you're investing in your own skills at that point, and who can put a price on that? Good luck.
It's nice to follow your builds. The music, editing and voice overs are great. The bass is going to be beautiful! I'm really intrigued with the pickup design, it's a great take on a humbucker. Did you come up with the design yourself?
I fell over it while I was trying to solve the problem of a pickup for an upright bass, and needing to curve the top of it so it would match the radius of the fingerboard. I don't know how or where the idea to use sewing machine bobbins came to me but it works waaay better than it has any right to. even within that idea though there's still parameters to explore and so the design isn't fully nailed down yet, and making a 5 string version will be weird, I'll most likely need a dummy coil in there somehow to balance the humbucking effect too. There's literally no end to to possibilities.Cheers.
If you wer going to make anumber of these, it would be an idea, possibly to get the base plate made as a PCB instead of perspex, that way you could route the coil connections on board to good sized copper pads.
GENIUS! I absolutely love that idea! The whole time I was fiddling with those wires I was thinking "there must be a better way of doing this" and you've nailed it 100%. ❤
Wow, that's a major editing screw up from me, lost a couple of days to the heat so I'm scrambling to make up lost time, glad I dropped the ball on the video and not the bass, sheesh. Thanks.
You may or not cover this in the next episode, but wanted to ask: what’s your preference on pickup placement when using a two pickup design, and why? I.e how close to the bridge, neck, how close to each other etc.
I've noticed on several basses that I like the ones where the bridge pickup is centered around the 37th fret. I cannot tell you why that is, it's just a nice balance between girth and growl. I don't have a stingray here to measure but It's very close to that placement. Jazz basses put their bridge pickup too far back for me, I don't enjoy that tone on it's own, it needs the neck pickup to be useful. As for neck pickups, I've got no strong preference, the further up you put it the fatter it'll sound so I go as far up as I can before it looks weird. NEVER place one directly on the 24th fret, not if you want to tune using open harmonics, you'll be reading a dead spot on the string and get nothing from it. In the case of the bass on the bench the bridge pickup is going to have to go on top of the holes in the top, that's just a little further back than I'd prefer, but it might give me enough room to drop the other one in the P position, centered around the 32nd fret. haven't measured it properly yet, I'll work all that out when I get the neck on the body. I should probably go and do that soon...
Do you mean for height? There probably is a way to do that, the upright pickups I've made have a curve to the top of them so they're reading each string from the same distance, but I'm still in the design phase with these ones before I go declaring them perfect in every way. I'd love to find a way to have the screws adjustable ala Dimarzio, but I'm not sure how you do that and still have it potted in epoxy. I feel like it would require some specialist tooling built for a specific design that I don't have nailed down yet. Cheers.
@@fanbladeinstruments no not height but the way you have done it, that’s what I meant by commenting too early, as soon as I asked I seen that you had staggered them sideways already 😂😂 loving the content always something interesting going on, keep up the great work and content ✌️😎👍
The headstock turned out very well!
Yep! Looks fantastic! As ever, a bit of lateral thinking saves the day!
Man, I LOVE that pantograph!
That wood grain is absolutely beautiful, if the body ends up looking like that too I'm gonna have to steal this bass when it's done. Also, interesting description. 😂
Bloody hobbits, coming over here, stealing our basses😉
The look of those pickups reminds me of the Nordstrand Big Breaks that are fitted to my Ibanez SR600E. Hope the temps drop a bit soon. Here in the mother country we've got mild weather and rain!
the grain on the head looks great - I wasn't sure what to expect, but I dig it
Wonderful work Geoff. Love the p up design. 6k seems low, but can't wait to hear it. If they are loud enough, I am going to use your idea - except with 4 alnico cylinder magnets. Great stuff sir.
6k may seem low but it's not so much about the amount of copper as much as where you put it - and every last mm of that copper is right in the hot zone for generating current, and the magnets are good and strong too, The prototype that I briefly showed with the cut down bobbins all lined up only reads 4.4k, and that one is a little quieter than I'd hoped, but now each bobbin has 6000 instead of 5000 winds, and bigger magnets, I'm anticipating it'll have a fairly healthy output. Thanks.
Nice work mate, love the pickup design...and I bet it was a relief when the headstock turned out so nice!
Been a bit warm across the ditch too, and a tad wet as well.
I heard a description of Wal's pickup design and this looks similar to this design. Very cool and makes sense seems like less chance of breakage also when winding.
Not dissiimilar, indeed. I used to work with the guy, Ivan Bozi who deigned the electronics for Wal basses, and indeed actually met Ian Waller himslf. Nice guy.
WOW, the electronics in a Wal are on a whole other level, I stumbled on that pickup design when I was trying to solve a different problem but the preamps in a Wal are works of art, as are their basses. That's super cool that you got to meet Mr Waller, I'd love to pick his brain about all kinds of things but sadly it's not to be. Like Greg Curbow, absolute legend, gone too soon.
those pickups look cool
Hey I get a bit shaky in the hands too , but I think you’re more steady when it comes to soldering , my Doc said I have a thing called resting tremors, gotta take my hat off to you mate you do such amazing work with them hands of yours
Thanks, yeah, I've had mine called "benign essential tremor" which is probably the same thing. I try not to let it get in my way.
@@fanbladeinstruments yeah we gotta push past the things that may try to limit our ability to have fun doing the things we enjoy ✌️
Great stuff.
Really enjoy watching your videos. I build electric ukes up in Palmy Nth. I've been looking at building my own pick ups too but ive been put off by the cost of the pick up wire (more so the shipping). Do you mind me asking where you source your wire from please? Regards, Ian.
Aliexpress. It's the cheapest source I could find, here's the actual stuff I'm using, 0.06mm
www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001450008582.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.162.523918028aTAjr
The important thing is to make piece with the idea that you'll use up your first roll learning the dark art of pickup winding and might not get the results you're after until you've wasted a lot of copper. But you're investing in your own skills at that point, and who can put a price on that? Good luck.
Awesome, thanks so much for your reply and the link. I'll check that out. Looking forward to seeing how this build progresses.
It's nice to follow your builds. The music, editing and voice overs are great. The bass is going to be beautiful! I'm really intrigued with the pickup design, it's a great take on a humbucker. Did you come up with the design yourself?
I fell over it while I was trying to solve the problem of a pickup for an upright bass, and needing to curve the top of it so it would match the radius of the fingerboard. I don't know how or where the idea to use sewing machine bobbins came to me but it works waaay better than it has any right to. even within that idea though there's still parameters to explore and so the design isn't fully nailed down yet, and making a 5 string version will be weird, I'll most likely need a dummy coil in there somehow to balance the humbucking effect too. There's literally no end to to possibilities.Cheers.
If you wer going to make anumber of these, it would be an idea, possibly to get the base plate made as a PCB instead of perspex, that way you could route the coil connections on board to good sized copper pads.
Wow...love that overly engineered pantograph, or whatever it's called, for engraving the headstock inlay!
GENIUS! I absolutely love that idea! The whole time I was fiddling with those wires I was thinking "there must be a better way of doing this" and you've nailed it 100%. ❤
And I had those little breadboard PCBs sitting there the whole time...facepalm😆😆
At 21:56, I think the background music re-enters a little early.
Otherwise, stellar work as always
Wow, that's a major editing screw up from me, lost a couple of days to the heat so I'm scrambling to make up lost time, glad I dropped the ball on the video and not the bass, sheesh. Thanks.
You may or not cover this in the next episode, but wanted to ask: what’s your preference on pickup placement when using a two pickup design, and why? I.e how close to the bridge, neck, how close to each other etc.
I've noticed on several basses that I like the ones where the bridge pickup is centered around the 37th fret. I cannot tell you why that is, it's just a nice balance between girth and growl. I don't have a stingray here to measure but It's very close to that placement. Jazz basses put their bridge pickup too far back for me, I don't enjoy that tone on it's own, it needs the neck pickup to be useful. As for neck pickups, I've got no strong preference, the further up you put it the fatter it'll sound so I go as far up as I can before it looks weird. NEVER place one directly on the 24th fret, not if you want to tune using open harmonics, you'll be reading a dead spot on the string and get nothing from it.
In the case of the bass on the bench the bridge pickup is going to have to go on top of the holes in the top, that's just a little further back than I'd prefer, but it might give me enough room to drop the other one in the P position, centered around the 32nd fret. haven't measured it properly yet, I'll work all that out when I get the neck on the body. I should probably go and do that soon...
@@fanbladeinstruments nice one! Looking forward to how this one turns out, PUP placement and all
What did you use for the ebonization process?
Can you stagger the pickup bobbins ?
See what happens when I ask the question too late 😂😂
Do you mean for height? There probably is a way to do that, the upright pickups I've made have a curve to the top of them so they're reading each string from the same distance, but I'm still in the design phase with these ones before I go declaring them perfect in every way. I'd love to find a way to have the screws adjustable ala Dimarzio, but I'm not sure how you do that and still have it potted in epoxy. I feel like it would require some specialist tooling built for a specific design that I don't have nailed down yet. Cheers.
See what happens when I reply too soon😆
@@fanbladeinstruments no not height but the way you have done it, that’s what I meant by commenting too early, as soon as I asked I seen that you had staggered them sideways already 😂😂 loving the content always something interesting going on, keep up the great work and content ✌️😎👍
@@fanbladeinstruments 😂😂