u/MennedeJong

I bought this cd quite a while ago (second hand store) without knowing much about it. When googling it recently there still wasn’t much to find about it. I suppose it’s just a bootleg. Anyone seen it before or knows more about it?

Here is the current set up of my toys. In the band situation I don’t use that much of most of the pedals (mostly start compression and now and then drive and/or fuzz and/or hotone harmony in detune mode for a nice chorus like sound). Rest is used for small bits and mostly fun when jamming without the complete band. With the power supply it is quite steady without hum etc. so I don’t bother using a smaller board.
Foot switches in the left of the pic or for enabling EQ and drive settings and silence switch on the amp.

This ukelele was lying around with the frets at the wrong places. The right tone was mostly somewhere between the frets. So I did more or less the same I did earlier with a bass: ripped the frets out and treated the neck with (in this case one layer of) epoxy (also lying around) and sanded it. The pick up for amping it was added later. It is now tuned to a G chord and fun to play once in a while.

Because I was curious to play fretless bass for a while without spending too much money I decided to remove the frets on a cheap used one I bought. The bass when bought was a short scale to my surprise, but that didn’t seem an issue to me.
The removal of the frets wasn’t that big an issue witjh the right tool. But the neck was quite soft wood which seemed a problem to me once started. The big work in the end was applying epoxy and sanding it in a couple of repeating rounds. After the first layer I added silver tape (used for styling nails normally) on the place of the old frets.
In the end I was quite pleased with the result. But I learned a few things:

1. I made the strings go through the body in the hope to get better sustain. Especially on the low E that didn’t work. I changed it back.
2. Started with cheap tapewound strings which had a dull sound. Changed those with Fender flatwounds which sound nice and so way better.
3. I changed the pick up to a passive emg, because I liked the sound without amp, but missed dynamics through the amp. The emg sounds better.
4. Fretlines being visible don’t work standing up while playing. I made also markers on the top of the neck. I don’t play enough fretless to go for hearing and muscle memory to rely completely on.
5. I like the pick-up cover visually and for resting your hand on. But because it made bridge muting impossible I removed it again. Because of incomplete left hand fingers I play with a pick or thumb. An old school fingerrest works for me too.
6. On an earlier project I learned I hate paintwork. So I embraced the damage on that part with glitters.

Poster earlier about this. Here is an example of my brother trying it out. Easy bending the strings.
We are both left handed players. In our band he plays guitar and I play bass.

This was a bit inspired by a YouTube video when I got my hands on a real cheap second hand guitar (https://youtu.be/mskDfHjIT\_0?is=FzAvOL0KxtQTwCl0). The difference is that I wanted to keep the tremolo, which was possible by not putting the strings through the body/ tremolo. Intonation on the low E is a bit on the edge, but for the rest it plays and sounds ok. I like especially the combined pick-up sounds. Use lighter strings (042 - 090) so tension is lower than a normal bass with a bit higher action.

Is quite a lot of work in stages during 4 years. Last (4th) stage was getting rid off the neck dive and being able to reach the higher frets. And adding extra pickups for fun. With lots of help from my brother who is better at wood working.