Jean-Luc Pickguard

pic updated

I'm fixing up a bass with PJ pickups that has a dead J pickup (the bit the windings are connected to is actually snapped off so probably not worth trying to repair). The plan was to drop in a set of EMG-X PJs I have that were recently removed from another bass, but but the EMG J pickup is too long. The original bridge pickup is only 92mm long rather than the standard 95mm and there's not a lot of wiggle room in the pickup route so anything about 94mm or more won't fit. I don't want to take a dremel to the the EMG pickup or try to widen the route as I know it won't look good, so I'm going to look for a passive pickup instead. Does anyone know of a Jazz bass bridge pickup (up to about the cost of a tonerider) that has the same pole spacing and mounting nubs spacing as a standard bridge pickup, but is only as long as a neck pickup. This pic shows the dimensions of the desceased pickup which needs to be replaced. Its the same as a standard bridge pickup except shorter.

I can’t see from the pic, but if the screws are even slightly proud of the wood, screw removal pliers might work to get those out. I had a broken off tuner screw in the headstock of a bitzer and had tried everything to get it out. Ordered mini screw removal pliers from amazon and managed to get it out in about a minute.

Does it come with a quiver full of arrows?

PM'd!

As you can fix it yourself, its worth doing that in my opinion. I bought a new squier bullet mustang guitar last year, and the first thing I did when I received it was to shield the cavity with copper tape and replace the stock jack socket with a pure tone one. The stock one was working fine, but in my experience the flimsy ones used in squiers are likely to be the first thing to fail.

JMJ Mustang with Fender flats straight into a focusrite interface then into Logic pro X with this:

I wouldn't call them lightweight, but they don't feel excessively heavy to me either. My tobacco sunburst one comes in at around 9lb using the bathroom scales method, and although I've not weighed it, I'm pretty certain that my alpine white one will be about the same, but it's asleep in its case at the moment. One caveat is that I replaced the tuners with a set of Gotoh res-o-lite GB640 on each, which may have reduced the weight by a fraction. There's nothing wrong with the stock wilkinsons; the Gotohs look ultra cool and complete the 60s vibe for me. They are great basses and sound as good as they look.

I prefer flats and choose the lightest guage of whatever brand I buy. I try to play with a light touch and let the amp do the work as much as possible and find the reduced tension helps get the string moving easier. I have various different different sets on various basses. EB cobalt flats 040-95 on the thunderbirds, thomastik JF344 on the precisions, Fender 9050L 045-100 on the mustangs, status hotwire flats 040-100 on the Guild starfire, The danelectro-specific LaBella 760 FD flats on the longhorn (.042 - 083) and an ancient set of picato double ball flats on the Hohner B2A. I tried a few sets of old strings on my Squier SS jag to see what worked best after I changed the pickups and the ones that came out on top were an ancient set of TI-JF324 that were previously on one of my mustangs.

I'm not sure what you mean by the current neck being warped and the truss rod not being what it used to be. Have you had the neck checked out by anyone? - How is the neck warped? – is it Back bow, forward bow or twisted? - How is the truss rod different to how is was previously?

Or dear it looks like some fool has bought it

At least there's no danger of it having tuners set at a jaunty angle.

It really needed illustrating as well as confirming

Guild starfire I

No this is for my guitar pedalboard. There's no space left on my bass pedalboard.

Is the Gear abstinance challange for bass gear only? So far this year I've bought a multifx pedal (Zoom MS-50G £50) and an acoustic guitar (Vintage Statesboro parlour - a blummin' bargain at £30) so if it isn't bass-only I guess I've failed the G.A.C.

If its not good enough for Alan Davey its not good enough for me. He's good on QI though.

My MS-50G was finally delivered this morning. No box, manual or USB cable, but it looks like its in near perfect condition and it was only £50 so I'm happy. I'm only going to use the pedal with guitar as I have a zoom B3 for bass so I won't bother with 'jailbreaking' the MS-50G to load MS-60B fx on. It had the v3.0 firmware when it came so I've flashed it to v3.1 and used the effect manager software to add some additional fx. I just had a noodle with my banana yellow bullet mustang into my vox valvetronic amp via the MS-50G and some of the effects sound very impressive. The reverbs in particular are great How to use the knobs and buttons is still a bit of a mystery to me so I've put the manual and effects list pdfs on my iPad so I can learn how to use it.

What a crook

It looks like the holes are for the volume & tone pots. I doubt its for a bass, maybe its meant for a lap steel?

I prefer the buster gonad signature model: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/-/255332117622

I have a secondhand zoom MS-50G incoming as I'm putting together a guitar pedalboard and wanted something small to add some delay/reverb, and play with modulation fx. I don't know whether the firmware has been updated but if not that's the first thing I'll do when it arrives. I have downloaded the tonelib-zoom software - is that the best thing for setting it up? What's it like to use?

The description reads like a confession

I could be tempted by a hagstrom eight string. A certain Mr Hendrix played one of the original Hagstrom 8 strings on 'Burning of the Midnight Lamp' from electric ladyland.