Jean-Luc Pickguard

I attended Laurence's bass class on Saturdays at Goldsmiths around 1979 when I was an eager 16 year old metalhead with a cheap jazz bass copy. I used to look forward to the class all week. I still have my copy of "Electric bass Guitar - A complete guide" in which Laurence corrected an incorrectly printed diagram in biro. So sorry to hear about his current health issues.

Life's too short to think about what you don't like. I don't mind Conway Twitty - after all he did co-write and record the original version of 'It's Only Make Believe'

I have a couple of inexpensive PJ basses with upgraded electronics. One has the Fender Yosemite set with greasebucket circuit and the other has EMG-X PJs & BTC system. Both basses sound great and have a good range of tones available.

If you view the bids on the listing you will see that the buyer paid an additional £70 for expedited delivery to the USA. Ouch! No way to give the buyer a heads-up though: private listing - bidder identity protected

I used copper slug tape from amazon.co.uk to shield my squier jaguar shortscale and can confirm that no slugs have been found in or near the bass since.

This is a definite case of ripoffery. The hofner case was there to reinforce the lie that it was a hofner. The person who bought it could have done a bit of due dillegence and compared the headstock shape with a real one, but you can't blame someone for not knowing what they don't know. I did report this as a counterfeit instrument as it has a fake logo which it shouldn't be sold with, but as usually happens, ebay seemingly chose not to do the research to confirm what I told them - which could be done in less than a minute on google.

I've been using flats for over 20 years. I love the feel of (light) flats and the tone. For the last 10 years my main go-to flats were TI JF-344 on long sclaes and JF-324 on short/medium scales but more recently I've been trying various sets of strings to see what works best on newly acquired basses. I feel that my thunderbirds sound best with a bit more top and Ernie Ball Cobalt flats (the lightest set) are pretty much perfect.

I agree, it is certainly worth seeing whether it is improved by rubbing your nuts on it.

This is a cheap and easy fix. Replacement black socket plate: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254904703742 £2.49 delivered Switchcraft socket: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224080289916 £3.90 delivered - don't be tempted to get a cheaper one Snip off the old one and solder in the new one. If you don't have a soldering iron it is worth investing on one but if you ask around someone you know is likely to have one, or if you post where you are located, a fellow basschatter might be able to help. By the way it is an output socket — not an input.

Unless you are planning to do a DIY job with rattle cans it would probably be more cost effective to sell the sunburst highway 1 body and buy a black one from somewhere like Northwest guitars where a body already finished in black should be cheaper than a pro refinish: https://www.northwestguitars.co.uk/precision-bass-electric-guitar-body-2-piece-usa-alder-black-gloss/

I don't even like this kind of bass but even I know I ringer when I see one. I reckon its a harley benton beat bass with the headstock reshaped, an ebay fake decal applied & teacup knobs added. Putting it in a hofner case is a nice touch.

There's a good write up about this track on Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/john-paul-jones-re-record-when-the-levee-breaks-1278309/

This one illustrates why you have top be careful when putting together a bitzer to ensure it doesn't end up looking like it has been designed by committee.

I managed to resolve this without buying new pickups. The route was only a tiny amount too small for the EMG-JX so I carefully used a very small flat file to remove a fraction of a mm from each end and tidied up the corners with a small round file, and the EMG I originally wanted to use now fits - Woo-hoo! I also have an EMG BTC system eq/preamp which I previously used with these pickups so I have fitted this as well, however the bass has holes for four pots and the BTC has volume, balance and a stacked bass/treble pot so there's an empty hole. I considered fitting a DFA or producer knob here - ie a spare pot not connected to any thing, but instead I have ordered an EMG kill switch as it looks like a lot of fun for £20 I tested the pickups and BTC with the EMG-supplied switchcraft stereo socket wired in but hanging precariously out of the control cavity, so I still have to solder in the original barrel socket to make it neat. I've lost my box of heat shrink tubing so I can't complete the job yet. I'm hoping that I'll find where I put it before the kill switch arrives.

I love the sound of vinyl, but as I haven't owned a turntable since the 80s I have to make do with listening to MP3s while the missus is fryng some bacon to get the same effect.

A neck pickup would the right length. The different spacing between the pole pieces isn't too much of an issue, but the distance between the mounting holes is also different so I'm wondering whether it will fit in the route.

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.