Soulmate 51

Controls

Volume and Tone. We have tested many different pots and caps. We were surprised that there’s a real audible difference between brands of pots. We have selected a pot for punch and clarity. Tone caps is a world on it’s own. We have tested many caps and in the end we found a NOS ceramic disc cap that sounded best to our ears.

Hidden fretslots

I use a fairly unique method for creating fretslots. You can learn more in this video. In short: I found a way to make use of the inner strenght of the wood instead of cutting it away. That enhances stability, it also prevents fretends from sticking out over time. It’s also quite elegant.

Tuners & Headstock

Headstock vibration is something we don’t talk about much, but it’s an important factor for the overall timbre of an instrument. A vibrating string will cause the headstock to vibrate. The headstock vibrations then interfere with string vibrations. This is the cause of the infamous dead spots on the G string. But it’s also the thing that gives basses their particular timbre, since there’s cancellation and amplification of frequencies happening. In order to get a most vintage tone, we decided to use classic heavy steel tuners. We think they help create that authentic vintage tone. It also makes the neck a bit top heavy. If this is an issue for you, then you could opt for a light weight tuner.

One piece neck

Standard for Soulmate 51 is a one piece flat sawn maple neck. Optional is a quarter sawn neck or a neck with a veneer fingerboard. 

Soulmate 51 features a compound radius ‘fingerboard’ surface. The radius goes from 7.25″ to 12″, which allows for precise adjustments and setup.

Neck design

On Soulmate 51 we don’t use carbon rods to reinforce the neck. Although it’s hard to determine the direct impact of carbon rods on the tone, we feel that in order to get a vintage tone we shouldn’t use them. There’s a dual action truss rod, for precise neck adjustments.

The back profile of the neck was shaped after a real 52 neck, although we made it a little thinner at the first fret.

The cool thing however is that the string spacing in the nut is rather narrow. This gives the neck a fast feel, even though it’s not that thin.

Small frets

Many vintage basses have small frets. They play so easy, it’s almost as if you play better. But if they wear down, you can’t level them anymore, you need a refret. On Bebop I use small vintage frets, but made from a harder nickel silver alloy. They last.

Noise

The pickups are single coils and therefore a bit noisy. In order to eliminate this as much as possible we shield the pickup routing cavities with nickel paint.  The control cavity is shielded with thick copperfoil. The pickguard is grounded as well, to eliminate electrostatic noise. 

What’s even cooler, we have a dummy coil underneath the pickguard, to cancel single coil hum. You get pure single coil tone, without the hum.

Bridge

We use a classic steel string through bridge on Soulmate 51, with real phenolic bakelite saddles. These saddles are angled, so that you can get good intonation.

Finish

We use only nitro cellulose lacquer on Soulmate 51. We apply it very thin, to create an appealing vintage look. All Classic models have an aged look and feel, a mild relic, subtle, in order to add to the vintage vibes.