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I think that's where I ordered from before... checking it out again now.

For anyone making their own cables these days, where are you buying your supplies? It's been a long time for me, but I need to make a few now that I'm playing again and I'm not sure what the best current place is to get supplies.

Hey guys, I'm both glad and sad to hear it's not just me. I went through everything I could with this guy. He is the worst! He is really nice which is why I'm trying to work with him but I am loosing my mind here. I should have just cut it off the first time I got it back but hindsight is 20/20 right. I will get the other back and list it on reverb or something only because I want this thing out of my sight and house. I actually told him that he was the reason I decided to stop custom builds. Not my best moment but I was fed up at the time...and still am. Thank for the input guys. It helps to hear how others handle this kind of stuff.
I told this guy in the 10 years of me building and modding pedals I have never had one that was DOA or didn't work properly. It's so irritating.
-Mike-


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I agree with what others have said... you're being really nice about this, but just cut your losses on it. Refund him and move on. You've done what you could.

I have certainly been a pain in the ass, but after being on the other side of things learned to dial that back and be normal.

But yeah, I also stopped doing pedal repairs after one of "those guys." I fixed an old big box muff that just had a loose wire that had become desoldered. Those pedals suck and the wire eventually came off again a few months later. He wanted a refund, yadda yadda. And while it's not the biggest deal, there was something about dealing with him that just turned me off of building/repairing for customers. It just clicked. I like to do this kind of thing for fun and I'm not really making much off of it and I have weird people coming into my house... just no.

[no]

Old thread, but just seeing it: I work at a bass shop and we make instruments with bolt on necks.

I have a few opinions about this whole dilemma (which is clearly far over).

A) When we build instruments, we very closely match the neck and body. There's a lot of sanding and math that goes into getting the angle and fit as perfect as possible. People sometimes ask if they can just get a replacement neck and the answer is no, because we fit them so carefully. Keep in mind, though, that these are 5K basses. I mean, we will put on a replacement, but you have to send the whole bass in so that we can do it properly. Sounds dickish, but if our name is on it and you expect a certain level of quality, we're going to want to do it right.

B) For personal, partscaster instruments, I've done a lot of neck swapping and that has worked out great. My number 1 bass is a body I bought off of talkbass and a cosmetic reject neck that I got at work. I did a fit and it's a great bass. If you know what you are doing, you can get great results.

C) My other main bass is a Lakland-- the only new bass I've ever owned. The neck pocket was never right on this bass and I always had some weird string buzzing that I could not solve with a setup. During quarantine I finally fixed this by removing the neck and sanding the pocket and heel flat. It ends up that there was a bunch of overspray in there that was preventing a solid fit. I couldn't really see it, but I could feel it. I also installed some of those neck bolt inserts to get an even better connection. This is exactly why I tell everyone who gets a new instrument to get an intense setup from a really good luthier. This brand new bass when from "okay" to "very good" after an intense setup.

D) Buying a used bass where some random guy is going to just put a neck on it is a bit of a crapshoot. 75% chance that it will be totally fine. You don't know if he knows what he's doing. Getting it mostly right is fairly easy. Dialing in that last 20% is where the real skill of luthiering comes in. If I really wanted a bass like this, I'd buy it and fix it up myself-- which I'd end up doing anyway. It also depends on how much you will use the bass and how sensitive you are to a fine vs. really good instrument. If you can tell the difference, then it's gonna be an issue. If not, it will probably be fine.

What did you end up doing?

Exactly. And just because you use a CNC, it's not like the pieces are ready to go when you get them. And with things like necks, there's a lot of room for error and a lot of bad necks that we throw away. The quality control eats up a lot...and hat cost has to be factored in. Wood is not a perfect thing and there is a lot of variation—and that's before you get into the pretty/master grade stuff.

There's also the cost of running a business (which extends beyond labor).

We've found that out with Function F(x).  Even with ordering higher quantities of parts, once you actually factor in the cost of labor and running the business, a pedal is significantly more expensive than a DIY build.  Particularly if you use better grade parts.

Exactly. There are a lot of associated costs.

That said, it doesn't sound like Gibson was running a tight and efficient shop.

Exactly. And just because you use a CNC, it's not like the pieces are ready to go when you get them. And with things like necks, there's a lot of room for error and a lot of bad necks that we throw away. The quality control eats up a lot...and hat cost has to be factored in. Wood is not a perfect thing and there is a lot of variation—and that's before you get into the pretty/master grade stuff.

From what I can tell with other boutique makers...

BUT... Gibson is NOT a boutique builder. They are a major guitar manufacturer.

Of course, labor wise it's all fairly close to the same as most/all use CNC machines and finish from there.

Exactly!!

I actually work for a boutique guitar maker and you'd be shocked to know how much it costs to make a non-fancy guitar/bass. The margins are a lot slimmer than you would think.

That is my morning jacket...

Best pedal I've ever used with bass is a compressor.  Super helpful when recording.
There are several variations to try.  ( optical, OTA, VCA, ... )

I agree and also feel that a slight boost can do wonders for your signal. A comp usually adds just the right amount of boost as well.

Hey JR.  Interested in your bass pedal ideas.  Curious though, would the circuits you mentioned be stock BOMs or with components tweaked for bass.  I'm not much of a guitar player and even less of a bass player, but interested in adding some compression, drive and octave or chorus options for a Jazz Bass.  Thanks.

Bruce, I'll PM you... got the boards from you! Thanks.

The Boss octaver is fine as is. Muff's are a journey--don't give up. I went through a lot of them to find the one that is right for me, which ended up being the civil war. Never could quite make the pharoah, green russian, ram's head, etc work for me. All good, but not for my sound. The DOD 250 has been a nice surprise for me the past few months. I fixed one for someone, but knew nothing about it. Ends up that it makes a nice light OD/dirty boost. Really gives that nice edge of distortion sound. Very worth building. The DAM Ezekial, which has a blend, is also really good for that kind of thing. I also built a bass Klon and that never really did it for me. It was always just too much gain and too loud.

The envelope filter is something that I just have had so much trouble finding just what worked. I never like to go with a commercial pedal, but the Source Audio is really good and dependable.

Thanks for all the advice, I'll look at modding a few of my pedals. The Kraken works great for me with bass, although it has a big volume boost. I get better results with my 3 Leaf GR2 than my Naughty Fish. I did build a Wooly Mammoth Clone that is monstrous and huge, but I don't use it much. I wanted a real gated fuzz bass sound to try and get a synth tone. The Bloviator is really amazing for the bass. Thanks again for the direction.

I never got good results from my kraken, but glad it works for you! I have a nautilus with a blend and can sometimes get a great sound, but it's hard to find again if I lose it. The source audio bass envelope (I have an older one) is pretty easy to dial in every time. For a synth tone, try an octave into an envelope. The boss octave into my source audio sounds really good.

Instrad of an eq, i just go with an onboard pre. I have a 3 band nordstrand i really like and a 2 Band Sadowsky. Diff tools for different basses.

I'm a bass player and work for a bass builder.

I have been back and forth on all of this for years.

Currently, I'm liking an old boss octave>civil war muff with blend>DOD 250 clone>smoothie>source audio envelope filter

I have a bass zirconium comp that I'm almost done with to add to this.

Does the kraken work for you? I never felt like it was deep or thick enough.

You want to get a block and sand right inside the Treble side of the neck pocket towards the back of the pocket. This will allow some space for the neck to move. Though take with a grain as i haven't seen the actual guitar. Also, I'd first try loosening the bolts and seeing if you can just push the neck into alignment and then retigjtening.