[Bass of the Week] Sasha

See the business listing for this bass builder here

This week’s BotW that arrived in the featureme@bestbassgear.com inbox comes from CJ Broz in Washington state:

This is Sasha, my first bass that was built from the ground up.  I wanted something that’s comfortable to play, tonally more flexible than most basses out there, unique, and eye-catching.

Body:
Warmoth alder jazz with wenge thumbrests
Gloss black finish

Neck:
Warmoth bubinga jazz with wenge fretboard
Formby’s high gloss tung oil finish on headstock
Medium-jumbo nickle frets
GraphTech black TUSQ nut
Threaded neck inserts and machine screws
D’Addario nickel rounds

Hardware (all black):
Hipshot string retainer
Schaller tuners
Schaller bridge
Schaller strap-locks

Electronics:
Fender Super-55 split-coil humbucking jazz pickups 
CTS 500K/500K concentric pots
Turnstyle Switch

Each pickup has its own V/T control.  The split coils of the pickups are in series, just like a P-pickup, and the three pickups are parallel to each other.  Next in the circuit is the 6-position Turnstyle switch, and finally the master V/T.  The tone controls are no-load, so they take themselves out of the circuit when they’re full-open.  And when they’re being used, they attenuate the high end — they don’t truncate it.  (On a lot of basses, when the tone control is turned more than 1/2 or 2/3, the tone sounds like it dropped off a cliff.  With Sasha, every combination of tone settings is usable.)  Everything is passive, no batteries anywhere on Sasha.

The Turnstyle has six positions, but it’s not a pickup selector switch.  (Well, it could be used that way, but it’s capable of a lot more than that.) The first position of the Turnstyle allows me full manual control of all pickups.  I like controlling which pickups I use via the volume controls rather than a switch.  The rest of the positions are used for tone presets, hardwired in by Michael at Turnstyle Switch (the guy is brilliant).
2. Precision
3. Jazz sweet spot
4. Rickenbacker
5. Thunderbird
6. Overdrive

I used copper tape from ebay (lots of it) and a couple of evenings to shield the bass.  (I even used some 1/4″ copper tubing to shield the wire channels between the pickup routes and the control cavity.)  The final result of the split-coil pickups + 500K pots + Turnstyle Switch + shielding is a bass with a crystal-clear sound that is utterly without noise.  Sasha was set up and PLEK’d by Mike Lull.  And I am a happy camper!  😀

Amazing job, well done!

If you would like to have your bass featured for Bass of the Week, send an email with a short story of the build and some photos to featureme@bestbassgear.com – we look forward to hearing from you!