Since my last post, a lot has happened. I didn't play the bass much - for some reason, I was really bummed out about the selector switch tip & truss rod cover - shallow, I know. So I put it away. At one point, an earlier owner of the bass contacted me - he thinks he owned it back in the '70s! He recognized some of the wear marks. If I ever decide to sell it, he gets first dibs.
I finally did get a cheap replacement for the selector switch - a Gibson Les Paul tip fits. I sent an email to someone who makes custom wooden knobs and parts, hoping to get a switch tip and truss rod cover in a dark rosewood, though he hasn't gotten back to me (I figure because of the holidays).
And finally, most importantly, I've been playing it again. In fact, I went so far as to make a sound clip - I call it:
the sapphire stomp
The only effect I used was a Demeter Opto-Compulator for a little bit of compression on both bass tracks. The regular bass that starts off the piece is the neck pickup alone - the lead bass part is the bridge pickup, with some delay courtesy of a moogerfooger analog delay. Both tracks played with fingers. There are multiple takes, especially of the lead bass - I can still hear parts that I would fix, but my fingers were getting tired! Anyway, this track is just to give an idea of the sound of the bass. The drums were played by Greg DeGuglielmo and recorded at Robot Envy studios in Berkeley.
Named after one of two new cats I have taken guardianship of - here's a shot of him with the M-85 II in the background:
I am having some grounding/buzzing problems with the bass - going to have to have a friend look at it. Also still considering replacing the humbuckers (or sludgebuckers as they're being called at the
Last Bass Outpost - do a search for some interesting reading) with Dark Stars, if I can find some. But I do kind of like how they sound here - this is without any EQ, my next experiment might be to run the bass through my Alembic F-2B preamp & SF-2 Superfilter to see what kind of variations I can get. Also want to try recording both pickups together. I also plan on writing a review for the reviews section.