Great video!

The only thing I'd do is maybe take some of the parts where you play the same chords and put them back to back in the way this video does:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4KmNS8436M

Its an amp tone video for heavy metal guitar tones, but you'll notice after a few repeats of the same guitar riff, it'll change to a different amp. That way, the you can see a quick A/B of the tones and each tone is still fresh in your head after it shifts to the new sound.

Once again, really cool video.

Great thorough video indeed - thanks for taking the time!

That got me thinking - has anybody ever experimented with their own custom "Block", either with some available stock pickups or self-wound ones?

As the design is very clever, I tried today what would happen if the Block is turned upside down (pickups closer to the bridge) - I didn't like the sound, could be described as "honky", but it was a fun no-cost experiment.

I did quite some experiments with pickups, in the beginning simply because I didn't have the money to buy a Stick. The owner of the music store that I visited often as a student knew that I built my own basses. At a certain moment, when he had a used Stick in the store, he allowed me to measure it... he knew I couldn't afford it (this was around 1984). So, I built me a Stick-copy, albeit a low quality version. I made a couple of pickups through the years, some sounding better than others, but none nearly as good as the real thing.
Last year I wanted to try the sound of the ACTV-2. I could get my hand on the pickups (EMG FT) for a nice price, so I made a Block housing of wenge wood. The filter section is probably different from the ACTV-2, but since the pickups are the same, it sounds very close to, say, Bob Culbertsons Stick.
A couple of months ago I decided to make a different housing, so that the bass pickup is more angled, and closer to the bridge for a tighter sound on the thickest bass strings. But since I got my Stickup-equiped Stick back (it was borrowed by a friend for a long time) I went back to the housing with the standard ACTV-2 pickup position. I prefer the Stickup when playing bass parts in a band setting, and for solo playing, I like the normal ACTV-2 pickup position.
You can actually hear the 2 housings here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDYdxawpmcs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNrrnaP6Ia4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwzTPBq1A7U
Jaap

Thanks Greg for this excellent video!

When choosing a pickup several years ago, I kinda synthesized this set of comparisons, listening closely to recordings of the Stickup and PASV-4 (I found some very helpful recordings done by Jaap, among others), switching from bar to bar between recordings of similar material.

In the end I chose the PASV-4, because it had a beautiful tone, and sounded like the sort of thing where the more one plays, the more the sound reveals hidden depths. I was not wrong. Also, the different locations of the neck and bridge pickups offer some perspective on the natural character of the instrument itself. And these elements are likely, for most musicians, to be of great practical, as well as aesthetic, value.

The Stickup, however, is a tour-de-force, and someday I would really like to play an instrument based on that. I think there is something in it of the energy close to the start of the story of this incredible instrument.

Tony

Do you mean the bass sound of the intro, for example? I think that that's a slapped bass guitar. Nick is an awesome slapper. "Too Shy" is a good example of his original slap style.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHRk7i_Ge_Y
Jaap

~ at 1:30 and at ~ 2:30.
definitely not a bass.

another example of this tone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21nM9jFNONY

Yes, you're right, that's quite different. To my ears it's a fretless bass, with the highs rolled off. With a Stick you can get close that sound with some creative EQing and compression, but the attack and vibrato makes me think it's fretless bass in this case. By the way, Nick seems to be one of the few bass players who often uses multiple bass instruments in one song. One other example of him doing this is this one: http://youtu.be/uD7vQvUxDBc . Great Stick bass riff, and later on it's beefed up with slap bass.
Jaap