spacecowboy

Brand new in pack unopened genuine Ernie Ball Chrome Knobs Pack of 2. 

I just want a fiver for these, but I also need some postage on top, these will have to be sent as a packet and I think that's around £2.

Cheers

Absolutely mint, brand new and unused. 

3 band active Bartolini EQ with 5 pots, vol, blend, bass, mid, treble. Just wire in your pups and the battery and away you go. 9v or 18v.

Includes postage. These are £145 at Bass Direct! https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Bartolini_Preamps.html

Thanks, 

Tan line! She's flashing her white bits!

Decided against a refin build diary, a good diary stripping lacquer does not make, so here's a couple of photos from the basses first reveal coat of oil, this is applied with sandpaper and should reveal any lumps and bumps I've missed, after 4 hours or so I can lightly sand it again and then start getting the oil on it properly, feels so much better than the heavy lacquer before it. Can't whack stroking a good bit of wood!  

The neck woods are also a lot clearer now, definitely Walnut sides, wenge stringers, but, the jury is still out on the center wood though... could be an Ash or Oak... the neck and body look alot more balanced tonally, should be a stunning looking bass when done. 

12 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

What's particularly cool about this story is that this bass has ended up in the hands of someone who both really appreciates it and can give it the TLC that it deserves. I bet it's going to be stunning when you have completed your refi!

Thank you Al, It'll certainly be getting some love and care, I have one of those electro cleaner things at work so I can chuck all the metal in that and it should come out all sparkly... hopefully, the wood just needs a lovely feed of oil and then a wax sealer, the poor timber has been well preserved in a sea of lacquer! good news there is that hopefully alot of these scratches are just lacquer deep and I don't need to sand too much. 

13 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

I was bidding on it too. Gutted that I didn't win, but if wasn't me who won I'm glad it was another BCer...

I'm sorry mate! I had a feeling there would be a few people from here looking at it, If things don't work out with it I'll be happy to give you first refusal!

48 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Very good catch @spacecowboy, these early Zak-Mayones basses were, for sure, Warwick copies, but at the time, they were better than the original.

 

As @LukeFRC noticed, the structure of the neck wood looks like walnut (bete) indeed.

 

The stripes are certainly wenge just like the fretboard.

 

If you look here, it seems right except for the fingerboard mentioned as palisander which means rosewood, but is clearly not. And bodo, which other name is boire (another wood close to the afzelia) is maybe the headstock veneer...

 

 

For the record, loads of Jerzy Drozd basses have an etimoe, close to afzelia (Warwick filiation again) without being one, bodies.

Yes, interestingly I was wondering if the body wood was Afzelia as it is incredibly similar to an old Streamer Stage 2 of mine, same figuring and density, the only difference is this looks slightly more dark red and my Stage 2 was for want of a better word Orange! 

So... this was a bass I was watching with a very keen eye on eBay last week. 

It's a ZAK bass, which, from some of Mayones history information, seems to be an export brand name used by Mayones in the mid nineties... check out this old catalog page for instance... vintage! The ZAK branding appearing in the upper right of the page.

And here's Mayones founder at a trade expo showcasing the basses in the early nineties...

So for the moderately small sum of £215 I got; 

• The Zak BeJJ BO4 bass £?
• A new Warwick Rockbag worth £70
• A brand new unused 5 Pot pre wired Bartolini preamp HR5.2AP/918 worth £145
• Ernie Ball replacement knobs worth £13

So already a bit of a good deal all things considered...BUT... this just isn't a cheap bass... it can't be, the quality for a start is superb, for a bass that must be 25 - 28 years old it's oozing quality parts and timbers. 

The body wood is Etimoe, which is highly curved and shaped, very much like the early Warwick Basses, note the matching control cavity cover and look at this cuuuurve! 

The timber also has lovely figuring and good matching, and is solid, very solid. 

Speaking of Warwick Basses... I was pleasantly surprised to see this... I thought, a ha! a fake Warwick Bridge... but no, a Schaller Bridge manufactured to Warwicks Design! Again really solid, nice and heavy, very classy. 

The neck is a 5 piece, if it's maple it's very dark, possibly cherry / mahogany but I can't see it being much else, stringers are either Wenge or Ebony, but again under the lacquer they're very dark, stamped number 54. Japanese Gotoh tuners. 

Matching headstock veener cap and truss rod cover. Plastic nut, Wenge fingerboard and mother of pearl inlays. 

I'm currently stripping the lacquer off the bass as it's very very thick and glossy which I can't stand and I'll be giving this a brief sand before oiling and waxing the finish, but from the parts shown above the bass has the following hardware; 

• Japanese Gotoh Tuners
• Schaller / Warwick Bridge & Tailpiece
• MEC active 2 band EQ
• MEC active jazz pickups 

it's a super looking and feeling bass, with a little TLC i'll get it looking a little fresher and hopefully for £215 have myself a bloody bargain at long last!

I'll be doing a refin build diary over in the build diaries forum for anyone who wants to track that. 

Cheers! 

Looking great!!

For what it's worth I have had the whole "you don't need a Marshall 4x10 and JCM 800 head for this tiny practice room" argument too many times, they also don't usually understand that the drummer plays loud, cause they play loud, and as someone else mentioned get the guitarists bass / low knob cut to zero.

The best solution for me has always been let the drummer just play and everyone volume up to them. If the drummer smashes the hell out of his drums at practice... leave the band.

Really cool! Nice and clean! Great job! 

1 hour ago, greyparrot said:

I think there is a bit of a shortage of these in shops right now ..well this one is new really never been used more than two hours in total..

 

Yeah there is! I was in talks with Thomann and they can't get a hold of their new shipment of them, it was supposed to be last month, then next week and now it's been moved to the end of September so I cancelled my order for the 6 string version, don't know if the UK will face similar shipment issues from Ibanez, but I can imagine they will. 

Absolutely love these new EHB Ibby basses, I'm still waiting for a 6er to become available! tempted to get this and forget the high c and just shift my lazy hand!

I like these ideas! super glue to the rescue?! 

Let me try that tomorrow!! 

Sad update! 

The bridge in this guise just doesn't work, I've let the bass settle and set it up, I can get a great action and the level of adjust ability is perfect, but the problem is the saddles and them locking in to the side walls of the timber, over time they are slipping causing unreliable intonation, worse still if the grub screw has bitten in to the timber and then slipped it becomes slightly loose and then you get an awful buzz ringing from the loose component while the string moves, so a bit of a disaster. 

To get a metal bridge milled to my design  is too much money and there's no guarantee of success and an off the shelf bridge doesn't work due to how my strings are loaded through the body so I'm a little  bit stuck. 

The only thing to really do here is to accept that this build wasn't successful, but was a hell of a lot of fun and I've learned so much. 

I'm going to start a new build of this design soon with a bought bridge and nut and less of the conceptual elements. 

This one is done, but expect a new diary soon, I'm off to shop woods! 

EMGJ5 Active Jazz pickups and VVT solderless loom, you will need pickup screws and a stereo output jack of your choice about £5 on ebay / pickups are used and have a few scratches and dents, but work exactly as they should with that trademark awesome EMG sound

Newtone Custom Medium Scale strings 32" 5 string bass x2 - 1 set cut for a 3 over 2, 1 set uncut and unused, these are £49 a pack with a 2 week leadtime so this is a bargain, .045 / .065 / .085 / .105 / .125, Stainless steel, Hex core

Goldo 5 string 3D bridge - Good condition, 19mm string spacing, lockable and adjustable saddles- £10

For sale Schaller Brass Tuners, boxed in great condition, includes all screws - £45

For sale Schaller 3D5 Brass Roller Bridge, boxed in great condition, includes all screws - £30

Yeah a little bit more context is he'll play his acoustic kit by himself in the room and that's what the sound proofing is for, for me and him we're combining some learning we're both doing and sometimes that'll be done later at night and we're both happier saving our ears at that point as well as staying on our neighbours good sides as @ped says the sound quality through the headphones is brilliant and it's not going to leave me with any ringing in the ears! 

Wow yeah that L-8 looks fantastic! Need more funds! 

21 minutes ago, ped said:

Yep that would be perfect. 

 

I also jam with my band though headphones and have tried loads of bodges to get it to work. Last time we used a Jamhub which was great, but I’m replacing that with a Zoom L8 which will do everything in one, including recording. 

Oh now that sounds very interesting! Another thing to look up! 

Guys, 

Thank you all so much for your advice, thanks for taking me through it. 

The Focusrite 8i6  sounds like it would tick all boxes here? I'll have a good dive in to that as I also wanted an audio interface in my house for my bass too. 

Thanks! 

Hi guys, 

Slight technical question ahead... my drummer has built an incredible sound proof drum room in his back garden pretty much a studio it's huge, we want to put his Roland TDK kit in there and my bass amp and then we want to jam with headphones using loops and samples on his Macbook pro; before I go spending money, does this look right to everyone here? 

If my bass and his drums went to a stereo mixer and then the output from the mixer went in to a DAW on the mac (so we can record too should a good idea land) then have an output channel on the DAW which feeds from the mac in to a stereo headphone amplifier then I and he have a pair of headphones each from that amp, can we can play with no latency and hear the whole mix, live drums, bass and samples from the DAW? 

Would this in theory work? Or have I completely made that more hassle than it needs to be? Opinions, experience and advice greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,