I’ve wanted to get another acoustic bass guitar for a while. Back in the day I had a cheapie Dean EAB and later a Spector Timbre. The Dean was okay, but gigantic and not practical to gig with I didn’t think and the Spector was okay, not a great playing experience. While my Variax bass does a fantastic upright bass sound emulation, I wouldn’t mind having some kind of electric acoustic bass (that’s not a banjo bass) again and I know a guy with some leftover parts (me). I’ve got a 30″ lined, fretless neck, tuners, a tele body, active pickup, pots, knobs and piezo pickups.
I may just do something similar to this photo and have some kind of thin top/veneer cap to put over it with an access panel or two on the back. Or carve out the back and put a back cap on. Like I mentioned, I already have a body to use so I just need to route out the middle and find a cap of wood to use. I also want to break the hard edges and make it comfortable, maybe a Strat-like carve on the front and route out the back and put the cap on the back. I wonder if I can carve a subtle arch into the top and route it out from the back as well as do some kind of F-hole thing.
As for electronics, I’d like to do something similar to what Godin does with their acoustic bass guitars, have a magnetic pickup in the neck position and a piezo and the ability to blend the two sources for output, maybe a slider or knobs for volume control. A tailpiece would be nice to give it that arch top/acoustic touch.
Update March 22, 2026:
Update March 31, 2026:
Got the bridge measured and installed and the strings through the body drilled and ferrules installed, I decided not to do a tailpiece after all. I’ll be moving onto the wiring next. Also did some Rickebaker-style forsner bit routing for the piezo wire. Gotta plug up the hole where the Precision pickup was. The routed holes will be covered by the oak top.
Update 4-3-26
I was looking at the wiring harness I’m going to use and didn’t like the idea of using 4 separate pots, so I ordered some stacked pots. Since it’s an active circuit, the pots are 25k instead of 250k or 500k. Two pots will look better I think. I’ll get those wired up and hopefully a sound sample this week.
To do list:
- Sort out and temporarily install electronics: Pre-wired saddle piezo, figure out a neck pickup, can I also use a piezo disc too? The knobs will be Volume, Balance, Treble, Mid, Bass. Do I want/need all that? Battery placement.
- Remove center board and hardware from oak cabinet door
- Trace bass body onto aforementioned board (guitar top) and cut out on band saw
- Route out/hollow out body, figure out access panel on back.
- Reshape body for ergo cutouts–arm and tum tum.
- Plug headstock holes, cut headstock and glue piece of maple to headstock before reshaping to reverse headstock design
- Fit and drill holes for controls, saddle mounts and f-hole, glue top to body.
- Make new nut