Jimmy "Flim" Johnson

[rustyg61]

Hey Jimmy, I recently came across a picture of you playing & it looked like the neck on your bass is not as wide as most 5 strings. Do you know what your neck width is at the 24th fret? I just put a deposit down to have a Series II Europa 5 string built & want the neck as narrow as possible. I currently play a short scale Stanley so I'm used to a tiny neck!
 
Thanks!
Rusty

[JimmyJ]

Congratulations on the new bass build Rusty, that's exciting!
 
Yes, the necks on my basses are narrower than most.  Something like 2-3/16 at the 24th fret.  I think the first 5-string I got (when Mica was 6, do the math) was actually 5 strings on a 4-string neck.  In any case, that's what I'm used to and anything else feels odd to me now.
 
Good luck with the new axe!
Jimmy J

[bigredbass]

Rusty you could have Alembic 'Stanley' a five string spacing, they call that the 'Narrow' spacing in specs for the 'Brown Basses'.  
 
My Elan Five is their 'Classic' taper (2 nut by 2.5 24th fret) which was my preference (the same, incidentally as the BigRedBass) as the strings almost feel parallel up the fingerboard.  These new-fangled five-strings, some of them feel like diving boards they're so wide (. . . . Yamaha . . . . ).  The flare is so pronounced that for me, it feels like a different neck up high, and if the neck profile isn't a very-flattened 'c' profile (think of a big classical guitar neck feel), it's a real pain.
 
Classic taper essentially feels like a Jazz Bass spacing across five strings.
 
Like Jimmy, I got used to narrow ones:  The BB Yamahas I used to play (like Nathan East popularized) were also Precision Bass width fingerboards (from the BB2000 Yamahas) subdivided for five strings.  Your fingering at the nut can seem a little crowded until you get used to it.
 
+++++++++
 
BTW, Jimmy I meant to ask:  Did you ever get to cut some sides with Jeff Porcaro?
 
J o e y

[rustyg61]

Thanks Jimmy & J o e y! I had told Susan to make mine 2.694 at the 24th to match my Schecter 5 string, but I would prefer it a little narrower, so I'm going to talk to her about going 2.5 or 2 3/16 after I look on my Schecter to see what that would look like compared to the existing neck. My nut is 1.77 & I like that. 2 might be too wide for me. J o e y, what is your string spacing at the bridge measuring from the bottom of the string slot on the B string to the top of the string slot on the E string as you hold the bass in playing position? My finger are fairly big so I don't want my strings too close together, but a little narrower than my Schecter would be good.

[JimmyJ]

Rusty,
 
Try not to drive yourself (or Susan) crazy with this detail.  Although it's certainly going to impact how the neck feels when you first play it, your hands will get used to whichever spacing you choose.  The most important thing would be to not crowd your right hand by going too tight.  Your left hand will adjust.
 
It's been ages since I've measured mine and I always say I've got 5 Alembics that are all the same.  Well, the 3 fretted model's neck dimensions are pretty close: 1-13/16 nut, 2-1/8 at 24th fret and 2-1/8 from b-string center to g-string center at the bridge.  But my oddball graphite fretless basses are only similar at the 24th fret.  The nuts are only 1-5/8 and the bridge spacing is about 1/8 wider.  So again, as long as it's not a drastic departure from what you've been playing you'll get used to it quickly.
 
J o e y,  
 
Yes I did have the pleasure of working with Jeff Porcaro a few times, a real treat.  Everything laid right where you would want it.  The great drummers make us bass players sound better than we actually are.  Ha!  There's a Sergio Mendes track called Some Morning that we played together way back whenever (if you hear it please excuse the overly busy bass playing)...  I also played live with Jeff a couple times in a band called Los Lobotomys.  Ha!!  Carlos Vega was a few years younger than Jeff but carried the same groove forward for many years.  We all really miss those two guys!
 
Cheers!
Jimmy J

[rustyg61]

Thanks so much for the info & advice Jimmy! It's a big adjustment just jumping from my short scale SCSD 4 string to a 34 scale 5 string, so I think a narrower neck on the 5 will make it easier to go from one to the other. I will still play my SCSD so I need to feel comfortable on both. Susan had first suggested the standard Europa 5 string width of 2.93 at the 24th, but I have played an Epic with that width & it felt like a Chapman Stick to me! So I asked her if she could match my Schecter neck & she said she could. At the time I thought that would be the limit for a 5 string neck width until I saw the picture of yours. So now I know they can make them even smaller than my Schecter & I think I would like that. The Schecter feels a tad wide to me. I agree with you that I will adjust to whatever I get, I'm just trying to minimize the jump from a 4 string 30.75 neck to a 5 string 34 neck.  
 
Thanks again for your help! I have gotten advice from several people here in the club & it is an honor to add your name to the list! We are not to the Factory To Customer stage of the build yet, but I started a thread announcing all the details of the bass with some crude Photoshopped pictures of what it will look like by piecing together parts of 4 different basses. If you would like to check it out it is here -  
 
 
 
Rusty

[edwin]

My experience with string spacing is that if I don't need to slap, they can be pretty close, especially if I'm playing with a pick. But, I've discovered that I do like a certain amount of taper to the width. I found I much prefer the way my Starfire is set up than the way my cocobolo shorty (now in the capable hands of Pierre-Yves) was. I was planning to get a new nut for that to bring the strings closer together.
 
Jimmy, you are so right about drummers. The converse of that is that playing with a not so good drummer can make you feel like you don't know what you are doing. In fact, I think that Einstein's theory of relativity is at play. If the tempo of the tune is a constant (within reason of course, no need to be an automaton, music likes to breath), then the size and position of the notes make sense. If the time is off, then there's no sense of how big anything is or where it actually is. Space and time all of a sudden become unhinged and little things can be huge and a note you thought was over here is actually over there. It's a shambles!
 
Also, a great drummer, and really any great musician, can make a recording engineer's life easier. Last night I recorded a gig for my friend Erik Deutsch and the band he brought included Tony Mason. I was experimenting with some ribbon mics for overheads, with basically just a kick to complete the sound and the fact that he could tune the drums and play them with proper dynamics and cymbal to drum balance made for a great sounding recording. I just love great drummers!
 
Sadly no Alembics last night, but the bass player did have a very nice '61 P bass.

[rustyg61]

Thanks for the advice Edwin! I don't play any slap bass, I'm just a straight ahead finger player, so I can get away with somewhat tighter spacing. I saw Victor Wooten & Steve Bailey last night, & they were AMAZING! I admire slap players like Victor, but I don't have that gene! I posted a video of Jimmy playing Rio Funk with Lee Ritenour on Facebook 2 days ago. Jimmy does a killer solo & on the posting I wrote that Jimmy proved that you don't have to beat on a bass to get funky! No offense to those who slap, it's just not my style. Here's the Facebook posting -
 
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/2350059330/

[edwin]

No need to slap, in my opinion. I got into it in the early 80s and by the mid 90s was pretty much over it. It has its place every now and then, although those chops are pretty weak these days.
 
At this point, it seems like it's something that every bass player coming up does. I have a student who has all the Victor Wooten stuff down. If he had been around when I was learning it, well, let's just say that he makes me feel pretty primitive. It used to be something I taught, but now I just teach strategies to find the right notes.
 
(Message edited by edwin on October 22, 2013)

[jazzyvee]

I have slightly different neck widths dimensions on all my basses, from a narrow almost parallel neck on my 5 string black Europa to a short scale 4 string bass with standard neck taper.Apart from the narrow neck the rest feel like they have the same string spacing.  
In my experience jimmy's advice and Edwin's ring true. I can move between any of the basses without having a problem. After a while your fingers just seem to know which bass you are playing and calibrate themselves to suit. Moving from a short scale to a long scale 5 string isn't a problem. I think the narrow string spacing takes more of an adjustment than the shorter scale length for the right hand but in no time the difference is unnoticeable unless you try some victor wooten style slapping on the narrow 5 string then the close strings get in the way. Regular slapping is fine for me.  
 
Jazzyvee

[bigredbass]

I'd agree with Jimmy:  You don't want to crowd your right hand, it's a lot busier than your left.  
 
I'm confused:  WHAT do you want me to measure?
 
J o e y

[rustyg61]

J o e y, I was asking about your string spacing at the bridge. Each string slot has 2 sides to it with the width of the string separating the sides, so I was wanting the measurement from the side of the B string slot closest to the E string over to the side of the E string slot closest to the B string.
 
Jazzyvee, how wide is your neck on your black Europa at the 24th fret?
 
Edwin, I agree, there IS a place for slap, but these days many up & coming players play it on everything & have no clue what a solid foundational bass line is!

[rustyg61]

J o e y, I was basically asking for the measurement between the adjacent edges of the strings. The string centers will vary due to the width of the strings, but the space between the strings should be the same across the bridge.

[rustyg61]

Jimmy, I spoke to Susan last night & she going to give me your string spacing after Mica looks it up today. She told me the story of when you made the 5 pin cable for Stanley & made an extra 1 foot long one as a joke! I bet the look on his face was priceless when you gave it to him! What kind of wire do you use to make your cables? Where do you get the connectors from? I would like to make me a spare for my new bass when I get it.

[rustyg61]

I just realized the perils of posting too early in the morning when I'm half asleep, I have now passed 1000 posts & didn't even notice! I can't think of a better place to celebrate my 1000th post than on Jimmy's thread! Jimmy, your tone is the standard I use when I set my amp up! Thank you for being such an inspiration!