Hey, so many questions.
This all started because I wanted some side LEDs in the neck because it was difficult playing in very low light conditions. Having small hands I can't span four frets down near the nut so I have to move them quite a bit so I need to see what I'm doing. I had a look at what Sims offered, having talked to a few people I decided that I didn't want a router run down a perfectly good wooden neck and then back-filled. The answer was to have LEDs put in during manufacture. I asked EB if they could build them into my new Bongo, but sadly no. Not an option so I had to think again.
I knew that Status offered side LEDS as a standard option with their basses and I knew that they did replacement Stingray necks and that the LEDs were put in as the neck was made, not after. I contacted Rob Green and discussed it. I also decided that I wanted him to do the whole job, including adding another battery box, fitting the neck and setting the bass up with a new set of DR strings that I provided. He gave me a price and off we went. It took about 5 weeks to make the neck, then he asked to drop the bass over, about a 2 hours drive from me. A week later I collected it finished. I didn't consider any other neck. I knew that the Status quality was good from their basses and I wanted to be able to go and see them and talk it through.
Other mods. When I bought this bass a year ago on Ebay it had already been fitted with a Bartolini and an Aguiller OBP-3 pre-amp so you see there only the body and the hardware left from the original bass. I will shortly be selling the original (4-22-03) neck. The next step is to source a Bart MM5E so I can restore coil switching.
The hand slides very, very easily. I thought my Bongo had a smooth non-slip finish but this is even better. The neck profile is slightly shallower than the factory standard. For example at the 12th fret the Status is 2cm whereas the original EB is 2.4cm. I've also just measured the string spacing and whereas the stock spacing is 9mm between string centres This gives a different gap between the strings (e.g. B to E is 7mm and D to G is 8mm). The Status has a constant 8mm gap between the strings, all strings.
The neck seems to bring out the higher harmonics. For example the G-string is very crisp and clean. There are no dead spots.
Fingerboard is Carbon-Fibre not Ebony.
Finally this was not a cheap modification. It cost more than I paid for the bass but I now have a truly superb instrument that is still in essence a Stingray 5 with that characteristic growl.
