bassituation

UPDATE: The pots came today. I did the sheilding yesterday to both pickup cavities and electronics and ground wires into the electronics. I got everything soldered and back together about an hour ago......and..... silence is golden. It now sounds superb, no hiss, hum or audible irritations. Well happy. Cheers all.

Thanks for your comments, I thought I could slip in some new pickups without problems, but have now decided to go the whole works and do full shielding and new electronics. I will report back, fingers crossed.

Yeah, that's a good shout and what I've seen in diagrams, thanks. Funny how the old pickups were fine without that?

Hi, I've installed a new set of Wilkinson Alnico pickups into an old japanese 70s jazz bass. I've matched how the old ones were wired, but it's not a schematic I've seen on the web and now I've got a faint hum/hiss a bit like static. When I touch any metal part of the bass it goes. The ground to the bridge is fine and connects to the jack. As you will see, with the old pickups both pickup grounds (black) were soldered to the back of the bridge pot, so I just did the same. Any advice appreciated. Cheers Martin

Thanks Gary, that's what I thought, but when I put my ear to the main 12" with the extension connected there's zip coming out of it, then when I disconnect the extension, it's back to it's normal sound. Odd.

Hi, I picked up a decent one of these recently off ebay, thinking I could use it with an extension cab for pubs. But when I plug my extension cab in it seems to disconnect the main 12" speaker in the combo in favour of the extension cab? Bit disappointing really, is this how extension cabs usually work with combos, they cut out the main speaker? I can't find a manual or much info. Thanks.

I think it's the jack connector. I sat behind the cab today and played the bass with one hand while twiddling with the jack plug, and the crackle came and went, so I'll order one and replace it. Cheers.

Cheers chaps, I will defo start with the jack connector and see how I get on.

Hi, I have a Marshall MBC 115 bass cab which his developed a crackle on both the main speaker and the tweeter. When I switch the tweeter off, I still have a crackle, when I switch the tweeter back on I have a clearer crackle! The crackle occurs at low volume as well as high volume, but when I turn the volume right up, it mostly drowns the crackle out. So there is my confusing set of symptoms, could both main speaker and tweeter blow at the same time, and if the speakers have blown wouldn't the crackle get worse with more volume? Btw, I've already connected a different amp, different bass and different leads to isolate the cab and checked all the screws and the circuit board for dry joins - nothing. Your thoughts would be welcome, before I open my wallet? Cheers.

thanks for the replies, the reason I asked the question is because the little rb2 can take an extension cab and I did plug my 300 watt 4ohm 1x15 marshall cab into it and it sounded pretty good and loud, that's why i got thinking about the change in original speaker which is duff.

Thanks guys.

Hi, I have a little Laney RB2 combo amp which is 30 watts with a 10" speaker that needs replacing. If I replace the 10" speaker with a more powerful 10" speaker, say a 60 watt 10" speaker, does the amp then become 60 watts or is it not that simple, and would it damage the amp? Cheers

Well the bit I don't understand, is at the moment I have two white wires coming into the switch in the places where the red and green should go, do I join the red and green to those as the KA diagram suggests? Also the KA diagram points to an output and ground coming out of the switch but those are not coming out of my switch currently? This has left me confused.

Thank you, this is useful and I'd not seen it before, but I don't understand the terminals, I wish there was a diagram that showed me which pots and where to solder the wires?

Hi, I'm trying to replace the single musicman humbucker in a Fernandes Atlas with a Kent Armstrong MM4 I just bought. I'm not finding Kent's schematics very useful: http://www.kentarmstrong.com/schematics/KA_Wiring_Instructions.pdf The bass has a volume, tone and 3 way selector that operates front coil, both, back coil. I've managed to get the thing working by soldering white and bare to ground on the volume pot and the green to one of the selector points - this gives me a working pickup. But the selector is not working for it's usual 3 positions and I've been left with red and black wires with no home? Old fashioned touching the red and black on different terminals to see what happens is doing nothing?? I thought black was 'hot', does this not need to go somewhere? I wish the schematics said what each color represented? Please see attached picture, would be grateful of any help. Ta.