Gotta post a picture of that. Mike was the guy that worked on all my guitars up until I left Seattle. I was shocked to recently find out that he died in 2020. He had a lot of famous musicians in and out of his shop all the time but he always spent the same amount of time listening to what I wanted done and afterward making sure, I was happy with the work. Great guy, gone too soon.
Wow, yeah. Bolt neck basses that go for 3-4K on Reverb! I doubt very seriously that I’ll be the one to buy it (I’ve got basses I’ve bought for $700 that I think are better than I ever expected to play), but I’d be interested in seeing a pic.
I don’t recall talking directly with Mike. Paul Schuster handled my questions and order.
I’m shocked that Mike has passed. He had built a solid reputation as a bass and guitar builder.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Your bass is in good company as just about every musician of note from the Seattle area relied on Mike.
I met him when I took a mid-30s Gibson L-37 archtop in for a tune up. It showed up in regular mail to my work one day, poorly packed by my grandfather. I took it to Mike, who then spent the better part of an hour geeking out on it, talking about how he’d never seen one where the celluloid pick guard handed decomposed. He put new strings on it, handed it back to me and said, “Doesn’t need anything. No charge.”
I choose a custom bass because I needed it to be light. Mike used a Ash body, Lindy Fralin P pickup and Lindy Fralin jazz hum canceling.
I choose rosewood fingerboard with aged white pearloid pickguard.
Contego gig bag with Mikes logo.
Final weight 7.4lbs
Woah, yeah, very pretty. I can imagine it will grab a premium price.
Mike’s Plek machine brought him a lot of business.
It can achieve incredible setups with a experienced operator.
I see Mike’s web site is still operating and taking orders. His designs live on in the CNC programming
He and I talked about the Plek when he got it. If I’m representing him correctly, his viewpoint was that the Plek was not superior to his or his employees’ work, but it got about 90% of the way there much faster. Even after he Plek’d my guitars, he still hand-finished the frets.
It’s been an unexpectedly expensive January for me. Otherwise I’d be all over that bass.
His son came back from Florida to take over the operation as I understand it.
Dang, that is a beaut! And only 7.4 lbs!
I need to think about the best time to sell the bass. It needs to be in a players hands.
Hi guys, I’d like your input please: I have an SG that I’m going to black out. I got new black locking tuners, and am going to get a black bridge and tailpiece. Is there any advantage to getting a roller bridge for a hardtail? I also want to get pickup covers. Silly me thought I could get some stick-on covers that just covered the visible part, but covers require a bit more work (for my guitar guy). These changes should make a world of difference as to how it plays. Thanks!
No. I mean, in theory a roller bridge would alleviate the wound strings popping over the saddles and suddenly detuning. In practice that sort of thing happens at the nut, not the bridge. Don’t bother.
Pickup covers are generally attached with some sort of glue or soldered, so you’d need to carefully remove all that, pop on another cover (black in this case) and glue/solder it. It’s not a huge deal to do yourself.
Thanks, Squeegee. I was pretty sure about the bridge. AFA, the pickups go, I think I’m going to try and “fashion” something for the time being.
There’s a bunch of YouTube videos on replacing pickup covers. It’s really not difficult.
I just installed my locking tuners. For neat freaks, these are a must: D’Addario locking tuners with a little blade that snips off the excess string. I was amazed- I pulled the strings through as tight as I could, then tightened the thumbscrew. As the string is tightened, the hole passes by the blade which snips it off flush. Just turning it enough to cut the string had me sharp on a couple of strings. None of the strings have a complete wrap; my headstock is insanely clean looking.
I am going to give covers a try, it does look pretty easy. Today I ordered a black bridge and tail piece. This is the first time I’ve ever customized a guitar in any way, and the nice thing is that everything is cheap and easily reversible.
Those locking tuners sound pretty cool! I guess if you do alternate tunings, you have to plan ahead. If you regularly do a drop D tuning on the low E, can you bypass the blade to make sure you have enough to lower it?
I’ve thought about replacing the tuners on my old Hondo V. About the only alternate tuning I do on it is drop D.
You would just not pull that string taught before tightening. You don’t have to have no turns around the peg, you can leave slack if you need it and run some turns around the peg to tune up. E to D is probably like half a peg turn or less.
Post some pics when you get the axe how you like it!
I think if you just gave yourself some slack when tightening the thumbscrews you’d be alright. It’s just miraculous how it trims! There were reviews how some people had strings not cut all the way through, but all you have to do is back off a little and give it a couple wiggles because it’s mostly cut.
Doh…I guess I was thinking about it wrong. Don’t pull it taught, start tightening, the end gets cut and you still have enough slack to detune once you get to E. I’m going to look into these. A couple of the tuners are getting enough slop in them they are difficult to get accurately tuned.