Alembic Guitars Club

Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: blazer on January 12, 2008, 04:01:45 PM

Title: Well I bought myself an Ibanez GAXB and made it into an eight string bass.
Post by: blazer on January 12, 2008, 04:01:45 PM

A few weeks ago I made myself the owner of the Carcass of an Ibanez GAXB medium scale bass which came without pickups and any kind of hardware and it has a chip of finish missing at the lower bout of the body. In short I had bought myself THE perfect mod platform. And it only set me back 50 Bucks.
 
http://www.ibanez.com/guitars/GAXB150BK.png (http://www.ibanez.com/guitars/GAXB150BK.png)
A GAXB as the model should look when in perfect shape which mine OBVIOUSLY wasn't.
 
To get this Ibby playable again I routed the pickup cavity so it would accept a P-Bass pickup but not just any P-Bass pickup: a Magnetics P-Bass pickup. Which I wired to EMG electronics. I then installed the Bridge of a Guild Starfire which I had lying around and put on a mis-match of tuners to make it a playable bass.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0409.jpg (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0409.jpg)
 
And with the bass in this state I actually used it in the studio. This clip is one of the songs I used it on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3KNL_GlOG0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3KNL_GlOG0)
 
But because I'm the kind of guy who wants his instruments to be dependable, I couldn't live with the none adjustable bridge so it just had to go. And while I was at it I also substituted the mish-mash of tuners for a matched set of Gotoh's which improved the bass greatly.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0417.jpg (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0417.jpg)
 
And just the other day I stumbled across a Schaller Bridge for an Eight string bass and being a big fan of Doug Pinnick I figure that I would convert my Ibby into an Eight string bass. So I drilled the headstock for four guitar tuners and fitted the bridge and this is the result.
 
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0429.jpg (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0429.jpg)
 
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0428.jpg
 
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0426.jpg (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/100_0426.jpg)
As you can tell there's a little Whoops at the tuner of the octave G-string.
 
And here's a soundfile on which I played it. I played a little Kings-X style rock based on It's love the guitar is my SG/Telecaster Hybrid which is my main guitar for recording since it's so versitile. The Drums are MIDI.
 
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pbsm3a (http://www.sendspace.com/file/pbsm3a)

Title: Well I bought myself an Ibanez GAXB and made it into an eight string bass.
Post by: alembic_doctor on January 14, 2008, 11:06:18 AM

Being a big fan and a good friend of Doug Pinnick, I finally broke down and traded a strat for a Dean 8-string a couple of weeks ago.  
 
I only did this because I have been wanting an 8-string for years and have not been able to affor an Alembic 8 yet.  This is my first non-Alembic Bass.  
 
It does not suck.  It'll be better when I put the Alembic electronics in it.  But it is a lot of fun.  I've used it at Church for the last couple of Sunday's on the songs that it was appropriate for and it's a lot of fun.
 
One of the guitarists at Church is also a big King's X fan.  So we jammed a little on Summerland, It's Love and my personal favorite, We Were Born to Be Loved.
 
I'm running it through a Sansamp Bass Driver DI.  It has a King's X setting that really sounds good.  
 
So I'm having fun.

Title: Well I bought myself an Ibanez GAXB and made it into an eight string bass.
Post by: inthelows on January 14, 2008, 03:44:11 PM

That sounds cool, over-drives my little monitor speakers like crazy. How's the playing on the neck?  NLP