LukeFRC

[quote name='rmcki' timestamp='1441376924' post='2858458'] Anyone out there put an East preamp in a thumb bass? 
 I have a UNI-PRE and was considering swapping the out MEC. I was hoping for some advice on the results, pointers and any gotchas before commencing the operation.
 
 your thoughts please? [/quote] how do you find the unipre?

Passive can only cut, active can boost. You can get not so good things happening if you boost- but having said that a well designed active EQ can sound nicer than a badly designed passive Eq. Moral of the story is don't worry about it - if it sounds good and you like it - use it.

Retrovibe stingray type bridges.... not bad but the screwsare made of cheese...

look here I could pay £80 for a deko! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Harley-Benton-Jazz-Bass-In-Natural-Ash-Left-Handed-/262064299493?hash=item3d043fdde5

From my understanding the physical cost of transformers and bits of a 200w valve amp is higher than a 5w guitar valve amp - plus where's the demand? The way the bass amp "sounds" isn't quite as crucial to tone as it is in guitars - plus I could buy a solid state amp that fits in my gig bag...

[quote name='chardbass' timestamp='1442878973' post='2870269'] I honestly think it's the way things work around here. There was a lot of noise about Vanderkley a while back- usually around 12 months later the For Sale pages start to feature things that have had people talking. I've seen it with Epifani and TC Electronic. The latest seems to be Barefaced cabs and maybe Maruszczyk basses. No question of the quality of any of the gear whatsoever- it's just word-of-mouth thing kicking in and people trying gear out. It's great because then a secondary wave of people come and try the s/h stuff out and so on. For instance, I use the aforementioned Epifani cab with a TC Head!! [/quote] The funny thing I find is that we get the basschat hype echo chamber where lots of cool stuff gets slightly over hyped - followed by echoes of talkbass-hype echo chamber - meaning we end up with a bunch of european stuff we hype (or slag off the handles) and then a wave of more expensive imported american stuff... which doesn't get slagged off so much cos it cost more to import it (so it's gotta be better right?) I find the mismatch mildly amusing.

conversely I've just listened on my macbook speakers (ill come back with some headphones ) and was surprised I could hear such differences! The Neve di box (unsurprisingly) reminded me of the warwick hellborg preamp I had.

No, they are probably really really really good - but not quite as good as the hype there was about them when they came out.

great post. Positivity about our home grown (i.e. european too) makers is good too.

Yep the legend that is uncle fluffy Hes a good man for making them available.

On the subject of the finish... 3 layers of pink went on, then sand back and went up through the grades and polished it to have a bit of a shine to it. The last bass I tried to finish in this paint I didn't sand the colour coat enough thinking it wouldn't matter cos of the top coat - what happened is that you could see the sanding marks on the colour coat though the top coat. not this time. I got a couple of tiny patches of rub through on the bottom cut and one on one of the horns. and just below the pickup. I'm going to leave it as... it's good enough.... I've finished the can of paint... and if I really didn't want I would have bought two cans of colour and gone on thicker! I was pretty pleased how the colour coat polished up, the top clear coat adds that extra level of shine. Just need to leave it a couple of weeks to harden fully now!

and the caps... now a note - I can throw together a circuit board but don't know all the ins and outs of electronics... If you look at Passinwind's version of the stingray preamp it's stuffed full of the nice wima metal film caps - the ones that look like little boxes - the current mm preamp and things like the stinger copy you can buy use electrolytic caps - the ones that look like gasometers. I've uses tantalum in the polarised ones as thats what the original early preamp used - on paper they're not as "good" - but I think when we're talking about circuits in music in a bass preamp "good" isn't always the thing to aim for. I had a hellborg preamp into a power amp into a ACME B2 - possibly one of the most clean and accurate rigs ever! So little compression of anything, big signal and such a crazily well engineered cab. (comparing it with barefaced big baby for example and one comes out as a great bass cab and one as a great hifi speaker! there are downsides to acme stuff though and for bass duties if I were buying again at full price the barefaced BB2 is where the money might go... but ACME stuff is stunningly good) anyway I digress - clean is good - but I've now got a Mesa Walkabout - and all that warmth and fatness is great and sounds right for bass. So I'm trying to recreate the sound and feel of the 1977 ray I played... and I love the way this circuit is designed too - pickup straight into the preamp and the volume on the output amp stage of the chip. very good. here it is fully stuffed. It needs the wires and things added to the pot but I'm going to wait till the body is dry to do that so I can position everything properly inside the control cavity with minimal wiring runs. One thing that I did realise is though my Bart pup is awesome... it's not going to sound vintage stingray... anyone wanna swap for something more vintage sounding? I can add money. (or anyone wanna buy mine so I can buy old horse murphy's stingray pup?) * * advert is placed in sales forum and dues were paid

So lets start with a pile of stuff.... Resistance is futile! Note the supplier labled the 2.2m resistors wrong - still it's pretty impressive that you order individual resistors at 3p each or something and someone labels them for you! I like this supplier! chip and resistors....

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1442472218' post='2867134'] Watching with interest and waiting impatiently for next great shots By the way - just re read the whole thread and....stripping it over the gas stove! There's an innovative man after my own heart Great Victorian floor too.... [/quote] cheers man! Next update coming.... Everyone thinks I was a bit mad to use the gas hob - in my mind it's not the most stupid idea!

[quote name='Andytre' timestamp='1442580505' post='2867965'] iv already got spare pickups of all types, just need to do some routing practice! [/quote] build thread buildthread!

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1442440611' post='2867067'] Not sure there is such a thing left really. I can only think of Backtracks Records Tollcross and Chariot Express in Newington. Neither seems to be a source of rough diamonds, sadly. [/quote] I would avoid le chariot express at all costs. Would rather throw my money in the sea than give it to him.... anyway... [quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1442445152' post='2867098'] Mev Taylors was a cracking shop when it was on Morrison St, turned to crap when they moved in with Sound Control. Rikki's was usually over-priced, one of them with about 20 guitars all the same apart from colour. [/quote] Mev's a lovely fella but I from talking to him I think he got royally screwed with the sound control shambles.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1441894600' post='2862733'] I went for the standard Jake design with a number of variations: Passive electronics - volume/tone Ash body Maple neck/fingerboard, vintage tint glossy lacquer 3mm diameter side dots 43mm spacing at the nut and 21mm deep at 1st fret (wide and wide spacing, but not chunky in cross-section) Hipshot ultralite tuners ETS bridge (20mm spacing, top-loading) Delano PMVC 4 AL-H pickup The pickup is in reverse orientation and slightly closer to the bridge than normal. Essentially, the DG coil is about 5mm closer to the neck than the standard Precision DG, and the EA coil just below it. I was playing with pickup placements a while ago on an old OLP, and that was roughly one of the positions I liked a lot. It was fat, but a bit more defined than a Precision, yet it still share a lot with the Precision. If I moved it closer towards the bridge then it started getting too much into Stingray territory, even using P type pickups, so that looked like a good place for a "hybrid". I love the Precision, but I miss the extra definition I get on a Stingray. This is my attempt to get something that would sit in between. Oh, it also has my band's logo on the headstock [/quote]Interestingly that pickup placement is pretty much bang on where a Warwick Streamer (stage 1) has it. Love the bass- and not wanting to distract you from playing it, but reading the thread and seeing what you're going for tonally - if you've not tried one add a G&L L1000 onto the GAS list...

Update.... Sanded back the pink, rub through on several places so second coat on. May need to get second can of clear coat.

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1442092543' post='2864436'] There are one or two in the wild in the US so there are real world opinions floating around TB. [/quote] ....to save me reading 500 talkbass posts what's the general gist? You still loving that ip310?

[quote name='allighatt0r' timestamp='1440680769' post='2852913'] Whoa! Super jealous of your floor. I thought for a moment you were going to copy the floor pattern onto the bass... Making some awesome progress, I'm enjoying this build a lot [/quote] Just got back from my my holidays.... yeah the floor is awesome - fantastic surprise find in the house - intreaged what else we're going to find down the years! [quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1440847197' post='2854287'] I quite liked the rubbed blue/pink look! Like Herbie Flowers' bass! [/quote] yeah it looked quite nice - unfortunately the blue is the nastiest colour known to man! [quote name='alyctes' timestamp='1440850956' post='2854334'] Looks good so far. I love the neck dots Also, please tell more about your Vox Standard fretless. I've been wondering about doing something similar for a bit. [/quote] Really or sticky out tongue you don't love them? they are the oddest thing ever visually. I dunno they might look ok. Otherwise stick on blocks? hmmm The vox standard body was a pile of poo butchers block hard maple thing that weighed a ton. Some cheap peavey neck took the frets out (easy) glued in laminated maple into the slots - easy. Read about Jaco epoxy on his neck - I used Ronseal diamond hard floor varnish - it was diamond hard like it said and wouldn't sand back to put the radius back in .... so the thing was ugly, heavy and more or less unplayable. Fun project I think I gave it away after a year of gathering dust.