Max Normal

[quote name='KiOgon' post='1084378' date='Jan 10 2011, 03:47 PM']Answer = 216mm on my Frank Bello sig, P/J configuration.[/quote] Thanks very much for your help! Sounds similar to my Aria, So I'll go with your measurement. : D

Ok, thanks guys. New question then: Can anybody tell me using the distance from the 20th fret centre to the centre of the pickup, what is (in their opinion) the best position for a jazz bridge pickup on a PJ configuration? I'm using the Jazz pickup at the neck to dial in a bit of top-end to my P-bass tone, not necessarily to replicate a classic jazz sound. The crappy Aria Aerodyne PJ copy thing that I use to learn songs at concert pitch (I gig detuned), has it at 8 1/2", does this sound about right? If you have a real PJ or a nice sounding Jazz, I'd love to hear from you!

Hi there, I'm building an E-P-J at the moment (precision body, EB (model one) pickup at the neck, Precision split pickup at the standard position and Jazz pickup on the bridge position). I'm going to rout the cavity for the Jazz bridge pickup next, but I'm not sure of the optimal position for the pickup. Could anybody tell me where I can find out, or measure their Jazz or PJ tell me where i should put it? I'm not using a standard Fender bridge, but I am using standard Fender mounting holes, so I guess a measurement from the centre of the bridge screws to the longditudinal centre of the pickup would be good, or distance from the precision pickup might work if you have a PJ. Thanks!

Would be hard to comment on Allparts "own brand" as I doubt many people have knowingly heard them. I do know that when I buy pickups, I'm mostly interested in their sound, not their looks, so I'll only go for reviewed and well known pickups. It also depends of course on what sort of sound you are looking for. Dimarzio still make "Model one" mudbucker neck pickups if you want a vintage gibson "dark" sound, and they have updated these with revised string spacing for the "Willpower" neck pickups. Kent Armstrong and Seymour Duncan both make a soapbar pickup that wouldn't look out of place on your guitar (a lot of the RD's I have seen have covered pole-pieces anyway). Here's a picture of the RD standard pickup. [url="http://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/parts/pickup/"]http://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/parts/pickup/[/url] and the Kent Armstrong soapbar to compare: [url="http://www.wdmusic.com/kent_armstrong_bass_pickups.html"]http://www.wdmusic.com/kent_armstrong_bass_pickups.html[/url] Note also the similarity in shape of the covered pole-piece Kent Armstrong Musicman pickup with the Gibsom RD Artist pickup. If a budget vintage look is important though, I can't think of anything better than the ones you have found. As to the sound, you'd have to suck it and see. If they sound disappointing, you could always get them rewound: [url="http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk/content.asp?cpage=Repairs"]http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk/content.asp?cpage=Repairs[/url] If price really is a huge issue, then maybe just get the ones you chose for now and start saving.....

[quote name='obbm' post='1075390' date='Jan 2 2011, 03:40 PM']In the words of Captain Mannering "I wondered when you would spot that". Yes pick-up output (audio) is AC so your diodes will provide nice half-wave rectification. Fuzzy. [/quote] Thanks obbm! Saved me some soldering and head scratching. Next time a "Now listen here men!" would be appreciated rather than a "Stupid boy!". I'm here loking for advice from you chaps, don't want my fumblings with a soldering iron to become an amusing sideshow for electronics geeks. Any thoughts on decoupling the tone circuits? I'll reitterate: I want to wire three pickups in parallel, each a P-bass style Volume and tone circuit on a stacked pot, each connected directly to the output jack (or a master volume pot). The pickups will not be switched, volume and control will be operated in a similar way to a '62 Jazz bass, although the wiring is parallel, not series and there will be 3 pickups instead of two. I really don't want to use resistors on the output of each vol/tone circuit to uncouple the tone controls, as this will seriously attenuate the signal. If anyone else can spot any major daftness in my plan, I'd really appreciate the advice before I go ahead an try and do it, which I surely will soon.

Just thought, presumably the output from the pickups will be alternating as the strings pass in and out of the magnetic field of their pole pieces, meaning that I can't use a diode in the circuit. Is this right?

[quote name='Fat Rich' post='1073486' date='Dec 31 2010, 10:02 AM']Whenever I've "upgraded" bass bridges I've always been disappointed, I've used all kinds of bridge and while they're more adjustable and less rattly than the stock Fender items they make very little change to the tone. Maybe a little more sustain but also a little less of that classic Fender tone, recently I've gone back to stock Fender bridges and I prefer the sound on everything except my Marcus Miller jazz. On the other hand my Status S2 came with monorail bridges pieces and sounded a bit floaty so I swapped them for a single piece ABM bridge and it focussed the sound and gave it much more punch which suits that bass much better. That's the one time changing a bridge has made a big difference to the sound. But as has been said before, the audience isn't going to notice the difference so maybe it's all a bit pointless![/quote] Considering some of the terribly fancy basses listed by users on here, a lot of it IS pointless isn't it? I have had Warwicks, G&L's, custom luthier made 5 strings, Guilds, Tokai's, Haymans etc etc, none of them sounded better than my cheapo rusty dented 1980's Japanese Fender E series. Warwick would have made a nice bit of furniture, but not the best sounding instrument i ever owned. To be honest, as i got older, I found that much of the tone was in my fingers and a damn good amplifier. Should I just put a rusty old Squier bridge on my new home made pride and joy just because the audience won't care? I gig in an Eb tuning so I have to have a concert pitch bass to learn songs with. I use an old plywood Aria ProII with about 2 winds on each of the cheapo mass produced pickups for this. Still sounds like a rock monster through my SVT though, and plays like a Warwick after much truss and bridge tweakage.

[quote name='Muzz' post='1073496' date='Dec 31 2010, 10:10 AM']+1 for the Schaller 3D; for two 'solid' reasons (other than hard-to-define-am-I-imagining-it? things like tone and sustain) - I like the lateral adjustment available, plus if you're a player who, like me, rests the heel of their hand on the bridge, it's a smoothly-contoured and therefore comfy profile.[/quote] Good call on the Schaller, looks nice, might go on my new build after all, I'll check them out. While we are on the subject, anyone used those hugely expensive individual string hipshot through bridges?

[quote name='lozbass' post='1062690' date='Dec 18 2010, 05:52 PM']If this is what I think it is, I saw them a few years ago and was mighty impressed. You're right though, very little in the way of further detail on the web. I'm not sure that they're still in production - great idea though[/quote] They are still in production. You can get them on Amazon or via the Bass centre. I emailed the UK distributer because I wanted a black one, and you can only get them in chrome over here at the moment (weirdly, they seem cheaper over here than the 'States, which makes a change, this might be a discounted price to get them established). I have read a few forums on these, including a thread I started here before I realised you'd already posted on them, and the consensus seems to be, if you have a guitar with a good resonant body, these won't dampen it and tighten up the top end like a badass might, while still transferring plenty of vibration from the strings. Lokks the mutt's nuts too. This is the bridge that I will definately be fitting on my current custom build.

[quote name='garethfriend' post='1053542' date='Dec 9 2010, 11:46 PM']Ok I tried a local luthier who was less than optimistic about the job and hasn't gotten back to me, I have also considered doing it myself but have neither the tools nor the recent experience with a router to feel confident doing this (I used one to build a bedside table in school but that was a good few years ago now). Basically my pickup routings are about the right thickness but about 6mm too short to take the pickups I want to put in, they need extending by a few mm at either end. Pretty small ammount of wood to remove really but because the bass has a solid finish (not sure if it is paint and lacquer or some type of poly finish) rather than natural I have been told it is going to be difficult to avoid chipping the finish. After a bit of research I'm fairly sure that this is possible to do and to make look right, now I need someone lined up to do the work once the pickups arrive. Does anyone know anyone within about an hour of Derby who has the tools and skill to do such a job? Failing that I'm off to buy/borrow a router and look for some junk bass bodies to practice on (would rather not go down this road for so many reasons it's untrue but if push comes to shove...). Tips for getting a clean cut through the finish? Note to self: either buy a bass that has standard size pickups in it to start with or ones that I am happy with.[/quote] To get a clean cut, I would mark out the new cuts and then score them deeply with a chisel before you rout then. This should stop the finish chipping and flaking beyond the cut line. If you are going to do the routing yourself, if you want an accurate and controlled job, I'd recommend getting a profile following router bit and making/buying a pickup routing template (you can buy these from the states on ebay for a very good price, can forward you details if you need them). The profile follower bit has a collar that freely rotates on a bearing and is the same width as the cutting blades of the router bit and sits on above the blades below the collet. You stick the routing template onto the guitar body with double sided carpet tape and insert the routing bit into the existing routing at a depth that will allow the rotating collar to follow the profile of the routing template. Remember to get a router bit with the collar on top of the blades and not below, and bear in mind that the minimum radius of the cut will be the same as that of the router bit, so if you need fairly square corners, you might need to drill the corners out first (forstner bit is good for this), and if they are very square, you'll have to use a chisel. I would seriously advise against trying to rout this freehand, Youd probably be better off using chisels and doing it by hand.

[quote name='munkonthehill' post='1073203' date='Dec 30 2010, 10:01 PM']sustain on a bass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!if you need sustain then your just being lazy and not playing all the tune hahahaha.[/quote] Yup the whole bass sustain thing, that's another kettle of fish isn't it? Some people play really spacious basslines where good sustain is essential, while others hate it and rush out to buy flatwound strings. The rest of us learn to control the length of the note with our hands It's very subjective, but TBH how often do you normally hear sustain craving 6-string players holding a note for compared with say the bass at the beginning of Peruvian Skies or Wherever I May Roam? I like to think of it as evidence of transfer from the strings if the whole bass is resonating enough to create sustain i.e. probably resulting in a more "alive" tone. Other than that, if I wanted infinite sustain, I'd buy a sustain pedal.

I saw these Babicz full contact bass bridges while shopping around for a bridge for my current custom build project. [url="http://www.fullcontacthardware.com/4-bass-bridge.htm"]http://www.fullcontacthardware.com/4-bass-bridge.htm[/url] I have always advocated the use of heavy bridges and have had a few Badass bridges in the past, and the idea behind them is that a large block of metal gives a good interface between the stings and the wood of the body, thereby bringing the natural resonance of the wood into the tone of the bass. The Babicz bridge is about something altogether different. In fact they are deliberately fairly lightweight, and string vibration is transferred to the body by the use of bridge saddles that contact the bridge plate along their entire weight. Some people who compared these bridges made the reasonable point that many vintage basses have very minimalist "bent plate" style bridges while still managing to sound amazing. The theory was that higher quality, more resonant wood was more available for early, quality, bass guitars, and therefore the wood had no problem displaying it's natural tone and character. Perhaps cheaper, less discriminated woods used in high-output guitar manufacture means that woods are, on average, less resonant nowadays, so a heavy metal bridge is necessary to transfer string vibration. Conversely, if you have a particulaly resonant bass (my new project bass body is lightweight ash. it rings when you tap it), attaching a huge block of metal to it is likely to actually dampen the resonance of the natural wood, and therefore impair the tone of your guitar, so a more gentle method of resonance transfer (like the Babicz bridge), may well be the better option (and you have to admit it's pretty). This is bourne out by reviews you can easlity find on line where they have compared badass bridges with other bridges and found that in many cases the bass becomes tighter and more treble sounding. So in conclusion, in my new opinion, if you have a dense heavy bass guitar, a Badass bridge might help you get some tone out of the wood, but if you have a light and/or resonant body, stick with a lightweight bridge or a design like the Babicz. The sticky on Badass bridges here is huge and compelling, and to a large degree correct, but lets not get caught up in conventional dogma. Your thoughts?

Yes, From the Australian black comedy "Bad Boy Bubby". Clingwrapped his cat and then his drunk/sleeping parents having never left his flat until the age of 30. Then goes on to join a rock band as a ranting lead vocalist dressed as a priest. Possibly the best film ever, very anti-religious and punk to the movie industry. Highly recommend it.

By the way, sorry that our sigs look like before and after photo's. I am actually a cat lover.

Ok, I'll go for the 3 parallel P-bass style vol/tone circuits with a diode inline then. If anyone knows something I don't (and that'll be most of you!) let me know in the meantime, as it might me some time and effort! Can't really build it outside the bass though as I don't have any way of measuring tone except with my a vibrating string and my ears!

Got a Gotoh on ebay (or ebay knockoff, looks the same as that one though) on my 1984 MIJ E-series precision. Straight swapout at 70mm.

Or Here: [url="http://cpc.farnell.com/"]http://cpc.farnell.com/[/url]

I know that this is perhaps a daft design, you can tell me it is, but I'm doing it for fun and experimentation as much as anything, so i'll probably try and avoid any reasonable but boring suggestions like VVVT circuits or switched pickups for as long as possible. Here's what I'm building, I have a nice natural swamp ash P-bass body with standard single pickup routing I'm going to rout for 2 more pickups, a WD Jazz bass neck with a rosewood fretboard, a Dimarzio Model One mudbucker (to fit a Gibson EB3) for the neck position, a Seymour Duncan quarterpounder P-bass pickup for the normal P-bass position, and a Dimarzio Ultra-J pickup for the bridge (Thanks Santa!). I chose the pickups based on advice from some of the guys on here a few months back, and I have checked that they all have very similar resistance (as advised), so should not have a huge imbalance in output. I want to wire each pickup to have it's own volume control like a Jazz, but also to have it's own tone control in a stacked knob configuration. This way I use the sound characteristics and string position of each pickup to develop the tone (i.e. a dark powerful bottom end from the Model One, with a glassy cut-through from the Ultra-J, and then mix in middle and P-bass growl with the Quarterpounder) Looking at other forums, I have discovered that the '62 Jazz has individual volume/tone for each of it's 2 pickups, so there is a circuit diagram that is easily developed for 3 pickups. Problems are, most forums suggest that people forget this setup and go for VVT (or VVVT in my case) as when the volume pots are set to equal values, either of the tone controls becomes a master tone - i.e. tones effect each other - you have no true control over the tone of each individual pickup. Tone control interference can be uncoupled by adding a resistor (200-300k) on the output of each individual volume/tone circuit, but this cuts the overall output of the bass by ~50% leading to an underpowered instrument (particularly in light of the high gain pickups involved), which is presumably going to also cause a terrible signal/noise ratio if there is any hum. Questions are: *If the tone controls effect each other in this kind of setup, did it work ok for the '62 Jazz, and if so, why, and how was it to use? *Is this setup too complicated to have series/parallel switching? I don't want my P-bass pickup to sound thin like a Jazz. *Is it best to wire the whole thing in parallel or series? *Why can't I just make 3 standard P-bass volume/tone circuits (one for each pickup), and then wire them all straight to the jack so everything is in parallel (and I keep pickup power and grunt). will tone controls still interfere with each other? This is probaby the daftest question of all, but my electronics is quite basic: *why can't I put a diode in line with the output of each pickups volume/tone circuit to prevent the tone controls from interfering with each other, instead of a power-sapping resistor, and wire each vol/tone circuit separately to the jack as described above? Any help greatly appreciated, thanks guys!

Warwick Streamer Stage II. Nice looking bloody expensive piece of wood and incredibly fast and easy neck, but flat and lifeless and too woody sounding despite the active circuitry. OK if you just want to play minty jazz, apart from that, overhyped crap.

OK, according the the website, Ultra J has 12.3K while Model One has 11.31K is this close enough? (sorry if I sound stoopid, new area for me).

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='950149' date='Sep 9 2010, 01:46 AM']One of the pitfalls of bunging unmatched pups into the same project is when one overpowers the other to such an extent that you get no smooth balance adjustment between them - they are effectively either on or off. Measure the Ohms of your Model One and use that as a starting point to find a suitable mate for it. I'm guessing an Ultra J might cop it... just guessing like.[/quote] Thanks Ou7shined and Colledge! This is exactly the sort of advice i need, I have some small electronics experience, but it seems that guitar electronics is a dark art. I do have an avometer so I'll start with that and then look at the two pickups you have suggested. One point though, if the imbalance is due to resistance, can I correct it by using different value pots?

[quote name='Colledge' post='950146' date='Sep 9 2010, 01:40 AM']as far as i know, theres nothing to stop you from using an MM style pickup, active and passive pickups work just the same, its just the circuits they're attached to that makes a difference. infact for my a-level project i made a bass with an mm pickup but p-bass passive tone circuit.[/quote] Cool! how did it sound?

I was going to buy this epiphone EB-3 to play in my oldschool metal band, but I heard the pickups were bad, so I found this brand new Dimarzio Model One gathering dust on a shelf in America via the net for only £30.00 so I bought it. Having looked on youtube and read some forums, Epi does not look like a good choice for me, but I still have the pickup. I need a bass permanently set up 1/2 tone detuned. I don't want to change my P-bass as it changes the intonation and i need a guitar in concert pitch too. So I decided to do a custom build. I have found a nice 1 piece swamp ash P-bass body and I'm going to put a Jazz neck with a rosewood fingerboard on it. I'm then going to put the Dimarzio Model one mudbucker replacement in the neck position for extreme trouser flap, and a treble pickup in the bridge position for definition a'la Billy sheehan, but without the whole stereo setup. I'm going to wire it with a separate tone and volume for each pickup a'la Gibson, (but no pickup switch a'la Jazz Bass) and coiltaps. problems are, what is the best pickup to put in the bridge treble position? I thought initially a J-bass pickup, but I prefer a humbucker I can tap like a Stingray pickup. Stingray is active though, so no good as the bass will be passive (also I like the look of the stingray pickup). Should I just get a single coil pickup for definition and forget about the coil-tap option? If I get a Jazz pickup, what brand should I buy? I think I'm going to need something with nice crystal clear toneful trebles and enough power to compete with the fat Dimarzio model One. Also, I have to rout the body for both pickups, how do I know the best spot for each? I should Imagine I can put the Dimarzio Model One hard against the neck, but I am worried about putting the treble pickup [i] too[/i] close to the bridge and getting a twangy tone from it. Any ideas/expertise? Ta!!! Mark

I saw this neck mounting kit, where basically you install externally self-tapping brass ferrules that also have a normal threat down the centre hole. This means that when you install the neck, the screw holes are more or less impossible to strip and you can take the neck on and off as often as you like, and you get a better contact between neck and body = more sustain and tone. I thought something like this would be ideal for the bridge as well, as you really get a good chunk of metal right down in the wood of the body, and you can get a good tight fit of the bridge onto it and really get those strings resonating the wood. I'm going to try this method with the custom build I'm working on (probably with a BadassIII or Hipshot through body mount for even more string/body contact). I'll post the results in a few weeks.

I'm Mark (Max Normal after the 2000AD character to hide ones real identity). I have been playing for 24 years on and off I think. Originally from Dover, Started playing 6-string and had some lessons when I was a teen, I was very into Pink Floyd and the like at the time. Late teens, my mate Stewie from Aberdeen was a Paul Kossof clone and fanatic (down to both the vibrato and the alcoholism). We were sitting round the table in my Dad's alehouse and he said if I got a bass I could join his band. One of the blokes around the table said "I'm selling one!" so I bought it for 50 quid and instantly became a bass player. It was a turquoise Tokai Jazz Bass with a tortie pickguard and it looked hideous. so I cut my teeth playing the likes of Andy Frazer (Free), early ZZ-top, Rory Gallagher, Humble Pie, Lynryd Skynrd etc. My first gig was a couple of months after that pint... Since then I have played in metal bands, function bands, blues bands on and off. I have done a bit of singing but I prefer to play bass. I moved to Brighton and everything kicked off again even though I'm 42! (still a very hairy looking bastard though), did an album release for a recording artist/songwriter called Mickey Wynne (ex Entwhistle), and now I'm playing some classic rock of the Dio and Deep Purple pursuasion with a band called the Monsters. I have an E-series 1980's MIJ Fender P-bass that is incredibly battered but I really really like the sound, I think it's the best bass I have owned, and I have an Ampeg SVT3Pro on a 4x12 and a 1x15. I'm a bit of a geek and I like a beer and computers and science and bikes and trouser flappage and I am mostly harmless. Really look forward to talking to some of you guys!