Peavey/8-string bastard bass guitar

In reply to Antihero :

I'm pretty sure it is. I was doing a bit more setup on it tonight & the bridge pickup is definitely lower than the neck pickup, and it's a bit too low, so I think it's overall just low output that's taking out the highs from the excessive distance from the strings. 

So I'd ordered the set of string for this bass, as well as a few sets for my 6-string, from Sweetwater last week, because I really like dealing with them. They don't stock either of them, but they can order them & put a sku in their system so I can get my fix a couple times per year. I figured it would be a week or so before they had them, but I didn't realize I'd be waiting for them to ship, so I went ahead & ordered another set from Just Strings. It's not like they'll go bad sitting on my desk for a few months before I need to change them again.

I played around a bit with raising & lowering the bridge pickup. Even just 1/8" makes a notable difference in both output volume & tone, so I definitely need to cut a couple more blocks to raise the pickups higher. 

I shimmed the pickups with more 1/4" luan & the tone is much better from both pickups. 
 

The GHS strings arrived today, so I have an appointment with Ryan Monday evening to get the new nut cut & installed. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing it as an 8-string finally. 

Pete Gossett said:

I shimmed the pickups with more 1/4" luan & the tone is much better from both pickups. 
 

 

The GHS strings arrived today, so I have an appointment with Ryan Monday evening to get the new nut cut & installed. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing it as an 8-string finally. 

I think we all want to hear it now lol

In reply to Antihero :

That's actually a really awesome idea & it would be cool to be able to listen back & compare 4 vs. 8 strings!

Here’s a quick run through of part of What You're Doing & Frankenstein. Edit: that was recorded straight through my Audiobox usb interface into Logic Pro 9, with only compression on the bass, no EQ.

I got the bass back from the repair guy last night. I'm not exactly happy...of course I didn't notice most of this until I got it home in the light. 
 

First, the body was covered with a general smegma, most of which cleaned up, but some seem to be more like fine scratches on the finish. I'm not really too picky about things like that usually - instruments are meant to be played & wear/tear is just something that happens. However, it wasn't like this when I dropped it off. 

Second, he left my strap at his house. He gave me another black strap with the same type of strap locks, but mine were black & his were chrome. Not a huge deal, but...

When he handed me the bass I could tell the nut slots weren't deep enough & asked him to cut them deeper  he started ranting about how they were cut the correct depth for proper intonation...uh, yeah. If the nut height has that much effect on intonation, either they're not angled correctly or they're WAY too deep. They were way too deep.

So as I'm fixing his E36 M3ty job on the nut, I discover 1.) the nut isn't flush with the slot on one end, 2.) he broke a chunk of the fretboard/headstock off of the other end, 3.) he scratched up the headstock(granted it's just rattle-can Rustoleum flat-black, but...), 4.) he didn't follow my instructions for the string spacing.

Needless to say I won't be back. Which is a shame as the next closest guy is 70-miles away. At least he's an actual pro from Nashville.

Oh, and he told me the neck needed shimmed, so he sent me home with a little piece of plastic for it. I used it for now, but eventually I'll sand down a piece of wood with the proper taper.

So after that, adjusting the truss rod, and filing the nut slots to the correct depth, it doesn't play too bad. Although with the string spacing not correct it's definitely a bit awkward. I'll spend some more time with it & decide if I can adapt to it, or if I need to take it to the other guy to have another nut cut for it.

That didn't work out too well...

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Wow...yeah that A string doesn't look right at all, although I can't tell if it's the octave string off or? I can't believe that guy is a professional

Have you considered posting on the Cvlt and seeing if anyone knows anyone in your area? 

Dude sounds like a hack to me. Used to be a guy in my town that repaired guitars. We'll call him Steve. He ran a shop called Steve's Guitar Repair. Overpriced and under qualified. Another guy here that I quite like and does really good work used to have a sign that read "we repair Steve's repairs". We'll call him Mark. You need a Mark. 

In reply to Antihero :

If I need to take it in again, I'll take it to the guy from Nashville. I've had multiple people say good things about him. Or I'll just order a set of nut files, but damn luthier tools aren't cheap. 

Man, that is a hack job and a half! Sorry that happened to you. This is why I've been slowly learning how to do setups and that kind of thing; I don't trust anybody anymore.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

I played it a while this evening & I think it'll be ok. Though I may go to lighter gauge strings like I had on the Hag. I went with this GHS set because, well, it's a set and I figured they know a thing or two about strings. 

The problem is there's such a difference between string gauges on the E and A pairs that with as narrow as this neck is, it is really difficult to fret both strings of the pair, and not a neighboring string. 

Any updates on the franken-bass?

In reply to Recon1342 :

Sadly no. Honestly I haven't played at all since I brought the DSM home in March. I will again at some point, but with the pandemic I just haven't had much reason or inspiration to do so.