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Great looking bass. I especially like, as on my custom P/J, that the V-V-T-Jack arrangement is all on the scratchplate instead of a jack being drilled in the side of the body.

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My personal preference is to bridge the wiper and output of a 500 kohm audio taper (aka logarithmic or log taper) pot with ether: a 1 megohm resistor to get effectively a 333 kohm hybrid taper sweep; or a 500 kohm resistor to get effectively a 250 kohm hybrid taper sweep; all to take into account what is set forth above, and to fine-tune the loading for the desired resonant peak of the particular pickup and the desired tone.

Keep in mind the noise floor. One reason delays and choruses are towards the end of the chain is because they inherently have more noise than buffers, preamps, some overdrives, and other eq oriented rather than character changing effects. If you put a rather noisy box more towards the front of the chain, you are going to end up amplifying that noise as subsequent effects see it as signal.

Is it a Jazz bass style instrument? The impedance drop from both pickups on may cause a little bit of volume drop off.

For a 5-string bass, I would put the active element of the "neck" soapbar pickup where the D-G segment of a traditional P-bass pickup is. You will have do to the math to get the proportionate distance from nut and bridge going from 34 to 35 inch scale, but of all the 5-string basses I have played, to me this gives the best compromise between depth and clarity. I would put the active element of the "bridge" soapbar pickup no closer to the bridge than the "70's" Jazz Bass bridge pickup position so that the tone retains body and is not brittle or thin sounding. That is where I have my pickups: an EMG 40CS humbucker soapbar centered as described for the neck position since it is a dual coil humbucker; and an EMG 40JX flipped around so the stacked coil is upstream for the proper placement (The bridge pickup rout is too close to the bridge to mount it conventionally. I tried that first, and oh, was it thin sounding. I flipped it and got all my tone back.)

A few years ago, I finally took the plunge and got a 5-string, after playing decades on just 4-string basses, for several reasons: 1) the band I rejoined twenty years later has the original members, and they are starting to take songs down a step or two. So to retain integrity of the bass lines, I need the extra low notes; 2) they play some covers that have 5-string bass lines; and 3) patterns are much easier and more precise in both intonation and rhythm going string-to-string instead of up and down the neck.

I did not read all the posts, so if this has been mentioned, sorry. Ibanez makes a great SR series fretless bass with a rather narrow string spacing, good actives, and well built and balanced, that is value-for-money. I don't think having to go custom is necessary. I play an older SRA305 for the same reasons the OP posted. Link: [url="http://www.ibanez.co.jp/products/u_eb_page15.php?year=2015&cat_id=2&series_id=51&data_id=51&color=CL01"]http://www.ibanez.co...d=51&color=CL01[/url] In the USA, it has a "street price" of less than $1000.

Very nice! Your bass incorporates all the design features I deem important in a 5-string bass compared to a 4-string bass: 1) the body ergonomics are rebalanced, including an extended upper horn for balance, to prevent neck dive 2) laminated neck to manage unwanted resonances or dead spots (including my favorite, purpleheart) 3) the "neck" pickup a little closer to the bridge for clarity on the B string 4) noise-reducing pickups wound for clarity instead of P-thump or J-growl 5) offset tuners to give as much leader to the B string as possible to help smooth, stable tuning and avoid binding 6) light weight tuners Thanks for sharing!

I have different instruments for different bands, due to different repertoire. So at home, depending on which gig is upcoming, I could have any or all of them out at the same time.

I have the "JX" in a soapbar version. It is a bright, dynamic pickup. I also had the P-5 in a soapbar housing. It was very middy. The standard active P-J setup will be just as middy on the P and only slightly less bright on the J. If you want thump, consider one of the "CS" pickups, which I changed to for a neck pickup, or go back to passives with the EMG Geezer P/J set, which is reputed to have more low end, or "meat."

What is the factory spec for the P-pickup? If it is only reading 4.7 kohms at the jack, it might have a windings problem. Traditional P-bass pickups usually have about 10,000 winds of 42 gauge wire on them, and end up reading about 10 to 11.5 kohms on a meter at the hot lead, not through the jack. Measuring through the jack with both volume and tone dimed would lower that reading due to the interaction of the circuit, but only by about 500 ohms. The impedance drop with the selector switch in the middle is normal. But if the bridge pickup reads @ 12.5 kohms, then if the P pickup should read about 10.5 kohms, and with the switch in the center should read about 5.5 kohms at the jack. I respectfully disagree about the nature of the output. If the P-pickup reads that low on a meter, then it probably has an open coil, which means the pickup is only functioning on inductance, not conductance through the circuit, and will have a substantial fall off in signal output. Recommendation: unsolder the "hot" lead of the pickup from the selector switch and measure the pickup. If it doesn't read in the traditional range, or the reading is not stable, it may have to be rewound or replaced.

[quote name='LayDownThaFunk' timestamp='1431896533' post='2776065'] Do you mean Cobalt flats? The normal EB flats are just repackaged Chromes. [/quote] NO, THEY ARE NOT. They used to be a generation ago. Then EB had someone else make the strings. I don't know if they are made in-house, or by a third party vendor, but the normal EB flats are definitely NOT the same as Chromes. I have played and studied both. They have different wraps and silks. The tone of Chromes is zing fading to thump over time. The EB's are a subdued growl.

The variants have been posted - but don't forget the standard Telecaster.

D'Addario XL's in a 50's set should do fine to retain clarity.

Velvet Blues have about 25 kg tension per string. Bel Cantos only have about 28 to 29 kg tension per string. With a good setup, that should not be noticeable, or just barely noticeable.

Yes, the La Bella 43-104 set are a superior set of strings, and should last a long, long time, as in years, not just months.

Yes, those look like DiMarzios - it is not uncommon for a mid-'70's J-bass pickup to fail. In the '80's you could not get replacement parts from Fender, so many of us, including me, changed them out for a pair of then-new DiMarzio Model J pickups. Great, ballsy, growly, rockin' pickups. I had to do this with the '75 J-bass I used to own. If you like the way the bass sounds, there is nothing wrong with keeping it in its current state.

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1426696801' post='2720950'] You can set the tone for each pickup yes, but if you have both pickups on and one is rolled off, then they will both be rolled off. Same thing as with Gibson style guitars and basses with passive 2 vol 2 tone configuration - they just have a switch to make pre-setting easier, but in middle position (both pickups full on) any tone rolloff will apply to both. The only exception I think, is if you have an output for each pickup going into a mixer of some kind (e.g. micro mixer), or indeed two separate amps - but we're way out of stacknob territory here.[/quote] It can be done. If you don't mind having the stacks closer together, use a standard 4-hole control plate and wire it with two stacks and two jacks, a stereo and a mono, Rickenbacker style.

Any good little clean amp will do. I'm not saying this is the one, but something like an Ashdown 15-watt, 8-inch speaker amp, or a similar small acoustic guitar amp, or a small keyboard amp will be great.

You can use a traditional J-bass wiring diagram. The white is the hot lead. Solder the shield with the red wire to the back of the pot for the grounding as in the diagram.

And the screw is adjustable if there is any wear. Curious - why is playing the songs on 5-string awkward? It should be easier. Is it the desire for the C# to be an open string?

Does it have to be a short scale? For [color=#282828][font=tahoma, geneva, sans-serif]£300 there are many basses out there, including Fender and Ibanez.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=tahoma, geneva, sans-serif]The two Fenders you mentioned are essentially the same instrument, differing only in body shape. Which shape do you prefer - the traditional Jazz Bass profile, or the slightly more esoteric Jag shape? The P/J pickup configuration is the same, so they will sound the same, and they both have a nut width of 1.5 inches, or 38mm.[/font][/color]

Unfortunately, most manufacturers have not published their tension specs. The notable exception is Thomastik-Infeld, which have become the standard by which all manufacturers should publish their specs. Yes, if you know the tension of each string, you just add them together for the tension for the set. The T-I string catalog is online as a downloadable pdf.