Rocinante

I love Dusty Hills reverse P bass and wanted to cop a similar look except 5 string and fretless. I also love Zebrawood. I want to put a semi-translucent smoked pickguard on it so the zebrawood shows through. Or maybe no pick guard at all.

Here is the Zebrawood that I have for the top.

I plan to build the body myself and want to chamber it for weight savings. I plan to use Zebrawood top, Ebony middle, and Maple back. The forearm relief and the belly cut will likely cut through and show some of the ebony. I used orange for the back, blue for the middle and black for the top on my drawings.

Here is a drawing with the electronics. Will need to redesign the electronic compartment for the back plate.

Here is the Warmoth neck that I ordered for it.

I decided to name the new bass Rocinante after the ship on the sci-fi series "The Expanse." It is also the name of Don Quixote horse, and a bonus that I just discovered is that The Rocinante was the name of the ship in Rush's tale of a trip to the black hole in Cygnus ("Cygnus X-1" on A Farewell to Kings, and continued on Hemispheres).

I ordered a name plate for it, but unfortunately, I misspelled it and have to order a different one, or live with the mispelling.

I wanted to go with the Graphtech ratio tuners, but they are not offered in the configuration that I wanted. I ended up ordering Gotoh Carbon-O-lites for the tuners.Well, $242.32 is a lot for a set of tuners. Just the tuners cost more than some basses that I own.

https://g-gotoh.com/product/cbt-01/?lang=en

Gotoh Carbon-o-lite 5x 35 grams = 175 grams (6 oz) (28:1 ratio)
Hipshot Ultralites 5x 51 grams = 255 grams (9 oz) (20:1 ratio)
Gotoh Res-o-lite GB 528 5x = 309 grams (10.0 oz) (26:1 ratio)
The Gotoh Res-o-light compacts are only 31.3 grams they would be the lightest option, but I really don't like them as much as the open gear. 156.5 grams (5.5 oz) (20:1 ratio)

I have a Graphtech Ghost preamp and saddles to fit a custom Hipshot bridge.

And an Audere ProZ 3 knob + switch setup. https://www.audereaudio.com/pro-z-vb-4b-4h-none.html

Here is my tentative plan for electronics. This is neither a schematic nor a wiring diagram, more like a flow chart.

About pickup/pickup configuration. I still don't have a clear vision in my mind but I currently have an Ibanez SRF706 (Portamento) with their Aerosilk system + two Bartollini magnetic pickups. I really like the option of turning off the magnetics and using the Piezo pickups for a more acoustic bass sound on certain songs. I thought that using a similar pickup configuration would give me more tonal options. Haven't settled fully on the Nordstrand pickups yet. The barts in my Portamento are nice too.

Pickup Placement