7string

I started to take the wee bass apart to see what needs to be done. The list has been getting longer and longer! * Electronics are a bit dodgy. The pots are horrible and while I'm there I might as well change the input jack as well. * Most of the pickguard screws are stripped as are a couple of the bridge screws and one of the strap buttons. The pickguard screws are of a few different sizes! * Fingerboard needs a good going over as it's virtually black and it's rosewood. * Frets need leveling. They're low but I think I can get away with just a leveling and not have to re-fret it. * And most importantly the Encore headstock decal has got to go. I knew that there would be some work and most of it isn't too bad. The plugging and re-drilling of the stripped holes will be a challenge as I haven't done that before. Other bits I know how to do. So there's a bit of work to get "Val" (my wife suggested the name) up to scratch but that's fine by me. So far: * I've ordered and received new pickguard screws pots and an input jack from WD Music (quick and efficient as usual!). * Got dowel to plug the holes to re-drill. Later found that I didn't have a 3/16" drill bit so that's on its way. Most importantly, I've sanded the 'E' word off of the headstock. I thought that one of Greenkings basses had a different version of the Fender logog but then I searched the forum and found it was Neepheid instead. A quick PM later and I was pointed in the direction of seller [b]plankspanker101[/b] on eBay (well worth a look when you have a spare 5 minutes). I found a decal which was the kind of thing I was looking for, sent a message to ask if I could alter it a little and got it in the post yesterday. Top man So a few things to do, but it's all good fun

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' post='745663' date='Feb 15 2010, 11:16 AM']Surely a Carvin, not a Conklin? Personally, I seem quite fixated on an 8 string guitar. Can I play it? Barely. Can I justify it? Absolutely not. Can I afford it? Nope. Do I want one anyway? Totally. Disclaimer- I would get a long scale one so its practically a bass [/quote] Yup, a Carvin I must have had a brain to hand malfunction there 8 strings are very cool. I can understand the GAS for that

Try [url="http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk"]Wizard Pickups[/url] They've have a good reputation and they'll custom wind something to suit your needs if necessary. Prices are great as well. Definitely worth a phone call.

I might have a solution for you. I've only watched this being done (I'll check the details if you want) and haven't done it myself! The idea is pop off one of the dots on the front of the bass and then drill down so there's a hole to the truss rod channel (don't go through the rod!). Then, using a syringe, pump glue into the channel. When the glue sets the rattle stops. The best thing is that it costs pennies to do

I've had a bad gear start to 2010. I use a Johnson J-Station for all my guitar sounds and that went kaput after 9 years of solid service Then 2 days later my Tascam BT-01 went up the spout as well. The J-Station's been replaced by a POD XT, but that's put a dent in the finances which will have to be fixed before anything else. Saying that though, my wife did buy me an Encore 30" scale bass for Valenstine's Day so it's not all bad GAS for 2010 would be a Conklin AC50 string, a thing of piezo-only loveliness :brow:

[quote name='arsenic' post='745235' date='Feb 14 2010, 08:29 PM']A couple of ideas here, not exactly plans, but should give a good idea of how to go about it. 1.[url="http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-pvc-multiple-guitar-stand/"]Plastic[/url][/quote] I used those instructions a while back to make a 10 space stand. As the instructions show, you can vary the distance between each segment so you can get acoustic guitars on there as well. Mine has 2 electric guitars, 3 acoustics and 5 basses. I found with a bit of weight on it that the plastic pipes at the bottom needed some reinforcement. So I bought cheapy brooms from Tesco and put the detachable handles inside the pipes. I'm no DIY'er so mine's solid, but a bit rough around the edges!! An enjoyable project though

Lots of Curbow stuff on Talkbass. They're a bit of a rarity on this side of the pond.

How about playing with your thumb. Not the slap style stuff but the original Fender P style with your hand below the strings and moving downward with your thumb.

Blimey! We have chosen our wives well

The Graphtec stuff's really clever. The MIDI module piggybacks the Graphtec one that's already there making things (relatively) simple. Martin just excels at small, superbly details switch installations. Are you preparing yourself for more manual reading

It's like you've just opened a door to reveal the sleeping bass.

Wonderful bass

+1 to wrapping the the runs of wire in copper tape. Works a treat and (because I don't see what harm it can do) do this on other instruments as well. For example the wire from the neck pickup of a Tele to the control cavity.

+1 for the TRB I had a TRB 6 II which was great and (I think) the first 6 string which was affordable. They still come up now and again for under £500, which gives a great excuse to buy 2 (or 3) basses instead of one. Only thing to warn about the TRB 6 II (don't know about the 'proper' TRB) is that it's 35" scale and wide string spacing. Happy shopping

That's very cool Looks like a cross between the upper half of a Parker Fly and the lower half of a BC Rich Mockingbird.

Ah, the smell of romance is in the air. I was doing a trawl of Gumtree yesterday and came upon a bass. I mentioned to my wife that I remember playing that type and model of bass years ago and it was great fun. I thought it might be good for friends of ours, but their children aren’t quite big enough yet. My wife said that if it was really fun to play that I should get it for my Valentine’s Day pressie. So I drove over there tonight while my wife was in her calligraphy class and picked it up. Here it is: Ish an ickle baba bass. All together now…. Aaaahhhh I really like these little things. A studio I used to go to had one of these with an EMG in it. They used it all the times for on-the-spot basslines as (even!) guitarists could use it as it's only a 30" scale. Plans are to get a suitable replacement sticker with Little in front of the adult version of Fender (GreeneKing has one I think *EDIT* I just searched the forum and Neepheid's the bassist in question just sent him a PM. Sorry for confusion GK), take the pick holder off, give it a setup and a fret-dress (if it needs one) and pimp it over time. May even do it a different colour or see if there’s a DIY version of vinyl wrap. Our friend’s kids may (or may not) take a shine to it in a few years time, but it’ll be getting a fair amount of use in the meantime (I’ll tape over the sticker when they visit). I’ll start getting Valentine’s Day stuff together tomorrow to avoid the rush on Sunday morning.

I've always loved my Jackson 'Kip Winger' bass. It's as unfashionable anything can be, but it plays great and I think it looks great too. This bass really set the stall out for every bass I got after it. Basses have come and gone since the early 90's, but the Jackson's always stayed. It has a weird mix of active pickups and passive tone controls and it's started to sound a bit spluttery and sick, so a replacement pickup might be in order at some point. It'll be good to get rid of the maze of wires and the battery, but I hope it'll keep the old magic.

[quote name='ped' post='676997' date='Dec 7 2009, 06:52 PM']Here are my planks on the sofa... I have neatly cropped the wine stain out of the picture (with the other stains) ped[/quote] Is that pic in the background Ayrton Senna driving a JPS Lotus?

[quote name='budget bassist' post='728327' date='Jan 29 2010, 01:35 AM']well duh! all DI boxes should do this, the xlr out carries the signal with the fx on it, "parallel out" is just a copy of the input, should you wish to send a dry signal to another fx unit, it's a pretty common feature on most studio electrickery.[/quote] I was trying ( and failing to make the point that this is XLR only and the 1/4" output does carry the good stuff I'll see what I can do about sc's.

Oooo, Custard Cream. My favourite biccy There's no way the Americans would understand "Cover Drive".......

This is slightly unusual Gear Porn, but I'm really excited to have this little box so it's Porn to me After finally getting my recording gear back up and running, I was really disappointed with the sounds I was getting. The DI sound was flat and lifeless and the sound from the cheap-and-cheerful Behringer BDI21, which sounded fine with a practice amp, was only a small improvement. I resigned myself to having to buy some kind of hardware to help. I tried an Aguilar Tone Hammer at the last Moffat bass-bash which was great but it comes with a hefty price tag. Anything similar (EBS, Sansamp) was well over £100. I had an eBow that I didn’t use anymore (because on of my guitars has that built in to it) so I sold that on Gumtree for a swift £40 and started to check both eBay and Gumtree to see if anything turned up. I found myself looking through eBay after midnight on Saturday and found a Sansamp Bass DI which had only been listed about half an hour before. I immediately clicked “Buy It Now” and got it for £55. This little box is pretty uninspiring to look at and only has an input jack, an XLR out and a parallel out. There are two small buttons as well; one for a Ground Connect and one to send an effected signal through the XLR. All the tasty controls, and the 9v batteries, are inside the box. [b]Presence[/b] [i]“brings out the upper harmonic content and attack”[/i] [b]Drive[/b] [i] “adjusts the overall amount of gain and overdrive”[/i] [b]Blend[/b] controls the wet/dry mix with [b]Level[/b], well, adjusting the overall level. The difference this little box makes is unreal! It really does do away with the need for a mic’d cab or anything else for that matter. I’ve only really scratched the surface of the thing really but it’s an amazing piece of kit. Unusually, only the XLR out carries the wet signal, the Parallel Out sends a dry version. I now have to make up little labels for it as it’ll be upside down on my desk so I can tweak things as I go. After reading the sheet which came with the unit, I had problems trying to get it to work with Phantom Power so I e-mailed Tech 21. It turned out that my box turns out to be the original Sansamp even before they added Phantom Power (the supplied sheet was a red herring). They introduced the Bass DI in 1992, introduced Phantom power at some point and changed the name to Bass Driver in 1994. So this little box is about 17-odd years old (is that vintage?). Tech 21 also say that the newer versions, with their added functionality, are slightly different to the old ones but they offer a wet signal through a ¼” jack and some tone shaping. Looks like I’ll be buying 9v batteries whenever there’s an offer on.

Carvin never sold their products outside of the USA until recently. The site is [url="http://www.carvinworld.com"]Carvin World[/url] and prices are keen to say the least. They also quote for shipping and taxes. You can also go through the options and see how much your exact bass would cost. All good fun

The piezo bridge in my bass tends to really fatten out the sound. Definitely a worthwhile mod even if you never want to get near a db sound.

Wow. Just wow

[quote name='budget bassist' post='721366' date='Jan 22 2010, 04:16 PM'] liking how i can see my picture on your monitor [/quote] I thought I'd strike while the iron was hot !! I think that you can play MIDI info using Roland TD3 drums. I had a TD6 kit and it was fantastic. I sold that to get a double bass, then sold that (my wife still hasn't forgiven me for) to fund the mighty 9.