garethfriend

well for the bridge I am thinking I will make something the same sort of style i.e. a folded plate but make it from thicker material and and get some shallow guide slots machined into it to restrain the saddles laterally. For the saddles I am thinking of just beefing them up and making everything just a bit better tolerance than the stock one. That is my first thoughts but I may come up with something a bit more radical once I sit down and do the design work, I want to keep the machining operations to a minimum so it's not going to be something that requires a great deal of CNC or anything like that, just a simple improvement on a basic but effective design.

EDIT: Build pics down page. So a few weeks ago I was looking for a 5 string, was all but ready to buy a squier VM jazz V from the local music shop but stopped into PMT Birmingham on my way home and came across an OLP MM3 in the ranks of their used guitars. On picking it up I realised that the neck was the most amazing 5 string neck I have ever played (for me it felt more comfortable than even the real SR5's I've tried) and so on that basis I thought I'd take a punt - find any bass with a neck that really works and price and prestige be damned, had to have it. So there were a few bad points, frets had seen better days but with any new bass I tend to get the frets levelled regardless as in my experience unless you are spending quite a few thousand £ there is always room for improvement when you get the action low. Other bad point was the lack of a preamp and the useless VVT controls. Pickup sounds OK, nothing amazing but was aware that I wasn't really giving it a fair chance in passive mode. At this point I apologise for the lack of pictures, I pretty much sent it straight off for the fretwork and forgot to take any before hand. Being as how I had three holes for pots in the scratchplate I thought I'd go for a 2eq setup on the preamp, I tend to set everything on the amp and just roll on or off treble as needed live so 2eq should be fine. I came across a veroboard layout for a classic stingray preamp on the net and found that I could get all the parts to make it for less than a tenner including the pots which I had to order from Germany. So breaking out the soldering iron I came up with this: [url="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/p480x480/544788_10151633569175529_855610528_23925162_707154391_n.jpg"]https://fbcdn-sphoto...707154391_n.jpg[/url] [url="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/p480x480/559405_10151711845450529_855610528_24055011_1493951892_n.jpg"]https://fbcdn-sphoto...493951892_n.jpg[/url] Not finished yet but can't finalise the wiring until I get the bass back and figure out where everything is going to go. Eyeballing it I reckon there's enough space under the scratchplate for everything but will make changing the battery awkward, not a big deal but may end up routing a battery box at a later date if it becomes an issue. When I get it back from the fretjob I plan to upload before and after sound samples to see how it compares. Future projects may involve either a new pickup or re-winding the existing or similar cheap one (should be cheapest option although I've not done winding before so is purely a learning experience). Also plan to put in a series/parallel switch if space allows. Not because it is the cheapest way but because it is the most engineeringly interesting way of doing it I am toying with the idea of designing and making my own bridge for it too - I have access to CAD software, a workshop and tame machinists through work so might be an interesting project. Not that I think anyone will miss the point but in case anyone is wondering this isn't about getting a stingray on the cheap it is about getting vaguely the sound for considerably less and more importantly learning a lot along the way.

first bass was a SR300, probably still one of the most ergonomically well designed series of basses money can by.

As per the title, second gig with this band, folky originals and a few folked up covers thrown in for good measure. Last one went down really well so hopefully should be a good one. https://www.facebook.com/harrismacfarlane Gareth

anyone find they can see the strings and dots better against a maple board in low light conditions? if only they genetically engineered glow in the dark tonewoods...

don't know about sounding better but looks and feels better to me.

demoed a few of the SR and SRX series, all wonderful to play and modern sounding to my ears, SRX left me with the impression it would be well suited to rock type sounds.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1333569007' post='1603784'] You're making the mistake of assuming that gear demos on Youtube are primarily about the gear & not in fact largely a dickswinging excercise where the player gets to show what a badass he is. [/quote] yeah, definitely get that impression. It's always the same format: open with gratuitous slapping - point out that this bass has pickups and frets - slapathon with several different EQ settings - "oh by the way you can play this bass finger style if you're not as awesome as me" - begrudging few bars of real world playing - end. It's the bass equivalent of the guitarists fretw**k. Ok if you bring it out every now and again for a bit of showing off fine, I get that, but recording several albums worth of it that makes kittens cry.

is it just something that hasn't aged well? if I'm honest I can't hear someone play a slap line without thinking of the 80's. There does seem to be a bit of a disproportionate amount of time given to "slap sound" in kit demos on youtube too which annoys me, considering 90% of the time most bassists are playing with fingers or pick it seems a bit of a waste of time to watch someone slap away for ten minutes before they go "oh yeah and this is the pick and finger style sound" briefly at the end. Muppets!

Just recently got one of these myself to give me some more versatility than the orange terror I had. Definitely got versatility, the EQ is a far more powerful tool than I am used to. Also found it to be naturally a warm sound even with the tube-tone off which I wasn't expecting. I am yet to find the perfect setting for my bass but have struggled to get anything un-usable out of it which is good I guess.

My SB14 is really nice but I don't like solid colour bodies or rosewood fingerboards so I'm looking for a Ray34 CA. Should have thought about that in the shop but it was just so playable I bought it.

having just let our drummer set the tempo of the click track for our last recording session I'm inclined to think they should keep time but not set tempo, whole thing was waaaaaaaay to slow when we went to track the other instruments. The front man doing the "1 2 3 4" thing is perfectly legit I think.

that's not good for music in Derby at all is it. Bugger.

nice work, bass sounds immense, what did you use?