wingnutkj

If you're a regular record store visitor, Record Store Day is the worst day of the year to visit your local friendly record store. Normally on a nice sunny day like today, I'd quite happily wander round town, popping into my usual haunts for a browse, but today if I want to in, it'll involve a queue and having a list of what I want, to speed things along. This year, I had a look at what was coming out, and pretty much none of it appealed to me, and it's painfully obvious that so much of it is aimed at the "collectors" market, rather than the "I'd actually quite like to listen to the record, and I'm not particularly bothered that doing so will involve opening the cellophane and halving the eBay sale value" market.

If all you're after is the tone, and you don't like the body shape or neck width, there are a number of other basses out there with P pickups in the necessary location. Or, as a stop-gap, you could wire a Jazz up with a series-parallel switch - gives an approximation of the P pickup sound and is easily done if you're able to solder.

Those must have been pretty serious sins...

After years of putting up with a ropey action, muddy humbucker, warped bridge pickup top and unstable tuning due to a badly cut nut, I finally got round to giving my bitsa telecaster a facelift. Shimmed the neck, sorted out the nut, and put new pickups in. The pups are a Tonerider Hot Classic at the bridge, and an Artec P1 Filtertron-style humbucker at the neck. Sounds much better now! The Filtertron is much clearer than the old pickup, and balances much better with the bridge pickup when they're both on. The guitar is a Warmoth body - wild maple top on poplar, with Fender Mexico Telecaster neck with 2 roller string retainers. I put it together about 12 years ago. For such cheap pickups, I'm well impressed by the quality.

[quote name='RickyV' timestamp='1425547212' post='2708351'] Oh dear. Spoke to soon. Plugged in the jazz and getting virtually no noise from it at all! The bridge pick up appears to be dead and I am getting something from the neck pup but that is barely audible and with my amp turned right up. All the wiring appears to be in place but I am no expert on this sort of thing. Sure it is fixable but at the moment it is pretty much deko only. Any advice welcome. [/quote] How's your soldering? Got a multimeter? If you want to diagnose it, you could unsolder the pickups and check their resistance to see whether the problem is the pups or the controls. Alternatively, sounds like an opportunity to get a KiOgon wiring harness and a new set of pups...

The in-store gig "disaster" was pretty obviously staged/selectively edited.

The thing that bugs me about the whole Undercover Boss thing is the way they reward the three people who have appeared - I'm sure the rewards never used to be so generous on the episodes I watched, but now it seems the main focus of the show is "Company X is doing badly, so we've disguised a senior manager in a wig in an attempt to learn the Tragic Life Stories of three employees plucked apparently at random, ultimately rewarding them with [b]gifts of sufficient value to really cheese off their co-workers[/b]. Look how they cry! Post-script: The board rejected all suggested improvements and Company X is no more. "

[quote name='UglyDog' timestamp='1424348892' post='2695374'] So this even affects cottage industry then? Does this mean if you run a business of any sort from home, you've got to live in a business zone in order to get insured for it? That sounds very restrictive. [/quote] Land of the free, innit?

Just noticed Mr Foxen's status update that Steve Wishnevsky of Wishbass fame's workshop has burned down, and figured it needed a thread. Regardless of what you think of his basses*, it's a terrible thing to happen. [url="http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/winston-salem-musician-loses-workshop-to-fire-tuesday-morning/article_211d5018-b6c1-11e4-87ea-17e5efaaa34d.html"]http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/winston-salem-musician-loses-workshop-to-fire-tuesday-morning/article_211d5018-b6c1-11e4-87ea-17e5efaaa34d.html[/url] There's a funding page here: [url="http://www.gofundme.com/mmr1a4"]http://www.gofundme.com/mmr1a4[/url] *There have been many, many discussions across the internet on the quality and aesthetics of Wish basses, and I'd rather that this thread didn't turn into another one.

[quote name='3below' timestamp='1423520196' post='2685961'] I am feeling the need to produce a cost effective EB replacement bridge for the EU / UK. [/quote] I would be interested in such a thing.

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1423131543' post='2681059'] Incidentally, that's my shout for a bigger bass using the same pickup jammed up against the heel of the neck, either a Midtown Standard or a Midtown Signature. Sure, it's chambered, but I doubt it'll make a lot of difference. The bigger body and 34" scale will make it feel a bit more in proportion [/quote] Forgot about the Midtown - good shout!

If it's the neck pickup sound you like, check out other basses with big humbuckers at the neck. I always feel that 34" scale SG-style basses look unbalanced and are very likely to be neck divers, but how about Squier's VM Tele (the one based on the '70s Telecaster II bass, not the one with the telecaster body shape), or the Fender Modern Player equivalent with the extra pickup?

[quote name='Dr H' timestamp='1421239491' post='2658758'] Hmmm...sounds a little like OCD to me. What does the bass actually sound like when you've lined up these knobs...? [/quote] Depends if they're metal or not...

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1421231521' post='2658604'] I'm a bit confused. Pointing vertically when the bass is upright? Pointing vertically when the bass is horizontal? Pointing vertically when you're wearing the bass? The Jazz bass control plate, when the bass is upright, points to the ten o'clock position, so unless you play like Bill Wyman, none of the above options make the marker line up with the control plate. Sorry if I'm being thick [/quote] Point up when the bass is horizontal, so that they line up with the axis of the pickups and bridge.

Oooh that's nice.

It's generally the first thing I do with a new bass - if there's some kind of position indicator on the volume and tone knobs, I'll line them up so that they're pointing vertically when fully on. It's especially important on Jazz basses, because if you like them up to be vertical when fully on, they'll follow the line of the control plate when fully off, and that's nice and neat. It ASTOUNDS me that they don't do this in the factory. Do people just not care? Is it just me?

I once had a bass covered in fuzzy felt. People would flock to see it...

Presumably it's on a five string?

Out: Yamaha BEX4C Squier VM Fretless Jazz In: Charvel Surfcaster bass Gretsch Electromatic guitar IbanezTSA5TVR amp What I've learned: I need to actually play the buggers more!

Then they can offer them at the amazing discount price of 70 quid if they haven't sold, and people will be happy they've got a bargain.

The only thing about this is that given Ticketmaster's history of fair play and decency, all I can see happening is that rather than releasing tickets at, say, 70 quid, and once they've all "sold out", flogging them on GetMeIn for 140 quid, Ticketmaster will just release them at 140 quid.

June Carter Cash really did cart her cash in a cart. In June.