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That's a wonderful bass!

Very cool bass 😊

It's a very interesting contrast with the ones I have from the '70s.

That quilt is really dramatic.
I guess the side and front LEDs come on when you plug in the 5 pin as i can't see an extra switch for the front LEDs.

Quote from: jazzyvee on July 15, 2026, 12:32:53 AMThat quilt is really dramatic.
I guess the side and front LEDs come on when you plug in the 5 pin as i can't see an extra switch for the front LEDs.

There's no switch, and I haven't tried to figure out whether there's anything inside to turn off the lights while it's plugged in to the power supply.

They are over the top.

I wouldn't be put off buying a bass if it already had them but i doubt if i would order them on a custom.

One assignment I had several years ago at a very old treatment plant... built in the 1940's, a huge public service project, all concrete and tiles, echoes for days. The Control Room was directly across the hall from a Conference Room. In that Control Room was a steel panel full of all the old analog programmable logic, just miles of wire and relays and switches and little lights, and one hellacious [[[LOUD]]] alarm for anything and everything. Any alarm condition anywhere onsite would trigger that thing. If it was my shift to be on-duty, I'd just unplug one wire from the sumbitch, and pay attention to the screens. Trick was, you had to be darn-sure to plug it back up when you swapped seats. Because some people... you know... need loud noises.

Anyway, one of my fellow Operators was one of those people. That klaxon went off during a Senior Staff meeting full of muckety-mucks across the hall while Zoowicky was in the john. I came through the doors of the Filter House just in time to hear him bellow from the stall;  JUST CUT THUH WIIIIRE!!!

(don't do that... there's an easier way)

It's a pretty easy mod to add either a dimmer for brightness or a switch to control focus (off-side-both), or even both if you can find places you don't mind the additional controls. Can also add dimmers inside and only have the switch external. I personally like the 3-way toggle for side/front LEDs

I'd probably just do a dimmer and three way toggle inside if that's possible — I can't imagine too many situations where I'd need to decide how to use the LEDs on the fly.

I have the dimmer on mine, the last knob on the right.
It's set at a comfortable brightness an rarely need to change the setting, unless demonstrating it to someone. :-)
Surprisingly the side LEDs are quite warm to the touch on full brightness.

Did you use the hole for your 1/4" jack, or was it already on the side?

Both the jack and 5 pin were on the side when the bass was made. I believe the dimmer knob was installed at a later date. Having had the bass as a used instrument, if I was ever to have a custom series bass I would not choose to have the 5 pin there. The jack is ok there as I use right angled jacks but I find the 5 pin is quite tight and awkward to remove. But aesthetically having it there makes the front of the bass works better with the quilt maple.

I've wondered about 5 pins mounted that way — they looked a little awkward to me. If I ever have something built, I guess it'll stay on the front.

I have the 4-string Twin of Jazzy's 5-string, with the same knobs, controls (including led dimmer) and positioning of the 1/4 and 5-pin output jacks. I use right angle cables so, for me, the edge mounted jacks work great. I liked them enough to have Alembic place the 5-pin and 1/4 jacks in the same location on my 2nd Dragon Wing bass. They  are out of the way and don't intrude on the front wood appearance, plus Alembic's have quite a few knobs on the front already!   YMMV.