JPJ

This all started with a daft bid on eBay that resulted in me being the owner of a brand new Mighty Mite five string precision bass neck for £40. I later bought a set of those P'bass plans also off eBay. After thinking about it for around a year, I finally purchased a slab of swamp ash from www.craft-supplies.co.uk and set about making a sort of five string precision with the Fender Stu Hamm pickup arrangement (2xJ + 1xP in close formation). When finished, she will be vintage white ('cream') with a tort board. These are pictures of the body and neck, plus the first string-up to check alignment. [attachment=3:P_Hamm_V___Full.jpg] [attachment=4:P_Hamm_V___Body.jpg] I also wanted traditional elephant ear tuners, so its a bit crowded round the back, and I had to route the 'G' tuner into the headstock and slot the baseplate of the 'E' tuner to allow access to the 'G' tuner mounting screw. Well worth the effort in my opinion for the look of the elephant ears. [attachment=5:P_Hamm_V___MCs.jpg] Tools-wise, I have used a router, a belt sander, hand drill, bench pillar drill, B&Q own make dremel thingy, power file, and an assortment of hand tools. I am currently cutting the pickup slots in the tortoise shell plastic and will post some pictures of this when its done. Electronics-wise, I have bought a John East circuit comprising of his BTB stack & MID SWEEP stack along with a volume, jack socket and battery clip (all pre-wired because I am an electronics numpty) which will be coupled to a pair of Bart J's and a Bart P all via a stock Fender five-way switch. I'll post some more pic's at the weekend when I hope to finish the scratchplate and start on the body finishing.

Recently, on my weekly drive to/from the south west, I have been working my way through a box of old cd's that were lying in our loft. This week, it was the turn of the Jam (greatest hits) and it struck me what a great overdrive/distortion tone Bruce foxton had. I know his weapons of choice was a Rick 4001 through a Marshall amp head, but does anyone know of a reasonably priced pedal that can achieve the same effect? Sorry if this has already been covered on here but I am just too lazy to search! My SWR has an inbuilt distortion circuit but that is far fizzier than the Foxton sound. IN RESPONSE TO THIS THREAD ON BASSTALK, Acidbass suggested the DHA pedal line, but does this give the warm power amp type distortion a la Foxton or more fizz. BTW my SWR (750x) has a valve in the front end which is the source of the overdrive circuit!

Ok, I am currently building this [attachment=1:P_Hamm_V___Full.jpg] [attachment=2:P_Hamm_V___Body.jpg] a five string precision (mighty mite neck, custom body) which is going to be equipped with 2 x Bartolini 'J' pickups + 1x Bartolini 'P' pickups all going via a stock Fender five way switch to a custom East circuit (basically a BTB + MID Sweep pre-wired with vol, output socket and battery clip). The switching options I want are; 1) Both J p'ups with a slight bias towards the bridge p'up for a jazz bass style finger style setting 2) Bass J p'up with P p'up 3) P pickup on its own 4) P p'up with Bridge J p'up 5) Both J p'ups full on I can work out how to wire positions 2 to 5 but I am struggling with position 1. I was thinking of measuring the resistance of the pan pot in my J-Retro equipped Jazz bass at my 'stock' mix and bridging the No1 and No5 tabs on the switch with a resistor of equivalent value but then I thought that this will effect the number 5 position, as I was just going to put a jumper wire between 1 & 5 for the both pickups full on option. So now the exam questions; a) is it possible to do what I want to do? the five way switch appears to have two independent switch matrix's (ie either side). Should I wire all the signals to one side and the grounds to the other or do I just wire the signals and collect the grounds together (John E has helpfully attached two short wires to show me where the signal and grounds connect to his circuit)? c) if its not possible to do what I want, any ideas what I can do with position 1? All advice gratefully received!

JPJ signing in for duty. Huge shout of thanks to CK, Ped and all the mods. If I can help you guys in return (i.e. you ever have any problems with your large luxury yachts) just give me a shout, OK? Let's make this our permanent home peeps,