brensabre79

I bought a Squier VM Jazz bass a few years ago, it was a bargain at £200 (ex display). I thought it was amazingly good for the money and raved about it at the time. After a few gigs I decided that although it was great to play, some of the elements were not quite up to scratch... I have a 90s US Jazz too, so it was easy to make a comparison and the hardware generally felt a bit 'weak' and of lower quality. So I decided to invest in a few parts to 'improve' the Squier... • I bought some Gotoh machine heads - which improved the feel of the tuning (not that it went out of tune with the originals, it just felt more solid) • Then I got a Badass bridge - which I really liked. • I decided the pickups were not to my liking, so I got some custom wound wizards. • I put some straplocks on and upgraded the wiring with CTS pots, replaced the plate and screened the innards properly • Then I found a 1974 Fender body on eBay, in olympic white, which I preferred to the black VM - it also had 70s spacing which it turns out I prefer. The Squier scratchplate didn't fit so I got a new one made that did. • One day a 1974 neck came up at a great price, these transition maple ones are particularly rare with 4 bolts and white blocks. I decided to take a punt on it. It was chunkier than the VM but lovely to play, nicer than the Squier neck by far actually. • Finally I replaced the neck plate for one with an 'F' logo on and the black gasket. At this point, having spent about £1,000 on improvements I was really happy with my bargain little Squier... That was the day I realised that I had a box full of enough parts to make an entire Squire VM Jazz bass.

[quote name='Bassdriver' timestamp='1442991393' post='2871109'] Ok, I found one here if anyone else is looking... [url="http://www.britishaudioservice.com/schematics_2009/V-Type/V6.pdf"]http://www.britishau...9/V-Type/V6.pdf[/url] [/quote] Just links to the homepage.

I have two heads, an all-valve one which sounds great, and a Class D one which also sounds great. To me they're just different. But... I went through a number of Class D heads before settling on this one, and they all had that 'something missing' quality to them. I was about ready to give up on Class D altogether, but Mykesbass on here brought his head to a gig and I was sold after 8 bars. I ordered mine the next day.

You probably know more than me, but I would say 600 is quite coarse, it will leave scratch marks so I'd use it to strip back a lot and the smooth with 1200 at least. If you're using Nitro, it's gonna yellow eventually whether you clear coat or not. But the clear coat's protect the finish, the colours not being so hard wearing. SO I would add clear coat. if you want to preserve colour without any yellowing you might be better with Poly all round. Especially as you're going over the poly black. Plus, if you want it glossy, you'll also need a gloss clear coat Personally I like a bit of yellowing, and it takes YEARS for clear nitro to go yellow. A word of warning, it's usually OK, but sometimes, mixing poly and nitro can cause some problems, especially if you don't leave enough time between coats. I Nitro'd a Squier VM neck once over the poly - it instantly aged the neck by about 30 years complete with checking and eveything! Lastly, not stripping down, and going white over black, means you'll need a lot of coats, so you'll end up with a very thickly painted piece of wood. Which will be heavy and (some might say) perhaps not resonate so freely, but also there's a small risk of things not fitting so easily when you're done (pickups, neck etc.) because all the gaps will be a mm or two smaller.

Personally, I would get it seen to before I switched it on again. Excrutiating though it may be to wait a month it doesn't sound like it's in tip-top shape, and it doesn't sound to me like you trust it. It may be absolutely fine, but it may kill you, and if there's any doubt, I'd get it checked out.

This is why I can't get on with VVT, I have a rotary 5 position switch instead with pre-set resistors at each position to give the 5 most useful combinations of the two pickups, I can instantly dial in a pre-set combination of the two pickups and I know exactly what I'm getting! Takes a little fiddling to set it up but once it's done it's done forever.

Get one with a sweepable mid range - it can be extremely useful in some situations to get rid of some nasty feedback (and/or honking on the brass mics especially) - unless you have a big graphic EQ (i.e. 15 - 30, not 6 or 7 bands) and one with built in FX saves you another bit of kit to buy.

Pretty much any recording of a bass guitar will be compressed. You'll also find at big gigs where the bass goes through the PA it is more than likely compressed too. In my opinion it's second only to EQ as to how versatile it can be in terms of setting the sound of the bass (or anything else for that matter). It can be a difficult beast to master, but once you get your head around compression it is an invaluable tool in defining your sound. I use two compressors in my live setup, one with a slow(ish) attack, fast release and a low threshold - so that each note plucked triggers it and then backs off as the note sustains. This helps the bass sound full and consistent - if you dig in a bit, the slow attack still gives you more punch, but it doesn't get out of hand. This one goes first in the chain between the bass and the amp (before any other fx for me). The second compressor has a fast attack, and a high threshold, so this only comes in occasionally but ensures the maximum level is pretty even. too much of this type of compression and it'll just sound squashed! This one goes last, after any effects, and depending on the amp, after the Pre-amp too. I would check out Ovnilabs, as mentioned - try and get something versatile but simple to use - I don't care for the one-knob variety myself. You can get lots of variations in sound if you can play with Gain, Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release and Volume. Then, experiment away!! TIP: Turn the Ratio up high, and the threshold low so you can hear what it's doing, adjust the other settings then back off on the Ratio/Threshold so it's more subtle - once you know what you're listening for! I find ones with LEDs to show gain reduction can be helpful too, but you should also use your ears really.

Yes a blend pot is just two stacked volume pots, one working in reverse. The problem may be that the taper on the pots isn't right for a blend control. You can get pots that don't start to resist until past the centre position specifically for this job. But if it's not one of those, chances are you're getting about 50 - 60% volume from each pickup. Combined with the comb filtering effect you get from blending pickups this would give a significant drop in volume. One thing you can try is not shunting the pot to earth, just leave the third lug of the pot unconnected (but shield the casing still) - this can help, but I'd recommend getting a suitable pot. e.g. [url="http://www.cdguitars.co.uk/bourns-dual-500k-mn-blend--balance-pot--ep-5386-000-1027-p.asp"]this one (assuming you're running passive humbuckers)[/url] If the pickups were out of phase you would lose all of the bottom frequencies too, so that can be ruled out pretty quickly if it just goes quieter.

Mighty Mite necks are very good IMO.

It could be a humbucker, sometimes the 2 coils are wired internally. Musicman pickups used to be the same. It just means you can't coil tap with a switch.

[quote name='Iain' timestamp='1435936205' post='2813817'] Quite a few different Jazz neck profiles over the years and even on the current models. What is it that's so different about the Jazz versus P neck? [/quote] Width of the nut. I'm the opposite, I prefer the Jazz neck. I have a P-body with a Squier VM Jazz neck already though

Much depends on what clear coat is on it - likely to be poly - and how that reacts to the vintage tint - which are usually nitro. In many cases its fine to go over, although I'd sand back a bit to give the tint coat something to hold on to. BUT if it reacts you'll have to sand it right back and start over. Also, unless it's a combined tint & laquer you'll probably need a clear coat of laquer over the top of the tint - again there may be a reaction depending on what you use and what's on it. Finally I can't stress enough the importance of curing/drying time between coats of nitro. There is no quick shortcut!

I had a Hartke kickback that started oscillating a while back (whistling noise), took it to my tech and he couldn't fix it. I spent about the secondhand value on trying but to no avail. The tech said that these amps were not really designed to be repaired, making it quite tricky to work on. So I took out the amp section and I just use it as a practice speaker. I just found a cheap amp to plug the speaker into instead. I wouldn't want to carry it around in this form but it does the job in the practice room.

http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/MoMark_AMPS.html

You can also use the baking soda / super-glue tip for body/neck repairs. If you have a bit of wood dust from sanding you can add this to the baking soda for a pretty close colour match too. It works great on pickup screw holes that have blown out.

You could try [url="http://www.roqsolid.co.uk"]roqsolid[/url]. You might also have more replies in the Amps & Cabs section rather than bass guitars.

Sometimes they slip, my 70s Jazz used to. I was a bit more drastic though, I put a Badass bridge on instead

I'd look around for some hex core rounds, there are other makes available. Plus you could try the DR DDT strings, they are designed to be tuned down so at regular EADG, they will probably feel like your Dunlops tuned up a semitone... I don't think flats will give you the sound you like.

My dad used to pay on cruise ships many years ago, going over to the US a couple of times a year. He'd leave the UK with a Burns or a Hofner guitar and a Marshall amp and come back with Gibson / Fender. Then he'd sell them over here, and do the same again. As he was always boarding with 1 amp & 1 guitar customs never bothered to check the brand

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1434539451' post='2800523'] When I get some free time I intend to upgrade the pots in my Warwick Rockbass Streamer, which oddly comes with 25K pots wired up to 2 humbuckers, all passive. No wonder it sounds crap when plugged straight in (but awesome when boosted/EQed with various pedals). [/quote] Some passive pickups do require 25k pots due to high impedence. I had a passive Ibanez bass with 25k pots and when i replaced the pots with 250k it sounded very thin and clanky. But generally 25k pots are used on instruments with active pickups.

Higher value pots (500k) traditionally were used on guitars like Gibsons that have Humbuckers because they allowed more treble through - the humbuckers being naturally darker sounding, 500k being brighter sounding than 250k, balanced out well. Fender guitars (and basses) with single coils used 250k because they are naturally much brighter pickups anyway. Rickenbacker used 330k (or something like) as somewhere in between. Back in the days these things were first invented amps did not have a very wide range of EQ capabilities, so it was important to unify the sound from the instrument a little. Although to my ears a Strat through a Marshall amp still sounds like breaking glass. Anyway, same principles apply with bass pickups. Now, you've gone and got yourself some brighter sounding pickups, the recommended 250k pots will take away a little bit of the harshness you're experiencing. This is probably the reason they recommend them. In reality though, as long as you know that it may be sounding a little harsh you can use EQ on your amp / desk to do the same job as changing the pots.

The Fender Custom Shop ones are actually pretty average quality cables underneath the tweed wrap. I had to repair mine as the right angled end just popped off one night (mid set ). What's underneath is a pretty meagre amount of copper wrapped in a lot of plastic. I usually just make my own, but i liked the look of the tweed. If you don't make 'em I'd recommend OBBM's cables http://bassic-bits.co.uk/

No problem in theory, however... As Bill has hinted at above, I also don't recommend mixing cabs up lke this these days. Aside from the obvious problem of the two cabs sounding different (how do you eq both with one amp?), the amount of work/load per driver is not evenly balanced. each 10" driver doing 1/4 of the work and the 15" driver doing 1/2 all on its own. I'd also recommend 2 of the 2x10" - which should be more than enough power handling for the Ashdown, plus, on smaller gigs you'll only need the one.

It may just be the difference between GAIN and VOLUME you're experiencing here. Push the gain up but turn the volume down and you should get your growl and punch but at a lower volume. Also, if its the low end that's getting out of hand, try just turning down the low mid & bass eq rather than volume.