Maude

I work with my hands anyway so they are fairly tough. I haven't ever had calluses as such but the ends of my fingers are quite thick. I play electric hands with a heavy touch and play doublebass, although this uses different parts of the plucking fingers. I do get sore fingers from time to time but it feels more like bruising. I never get blisters but if I get particularly enthusiastic the whole thickened pad on a plucking finger can kind of let go deep down in the finger, it the takes three or four weeks to grow out.

Right, I've had enough of this now! Last night I wired in the series switch, one silly mistake aside it works, and the pickups in series sound great, getting that mid push I was after. The problem is I have a massive earthing issue, huge noise when touching anything and an actual 'crack' sound when I touch the neck pickup. I spent hours checking, double checking, desoldering, resoldering, adding extra earth's between everything in desperation, even took the bass apart again and soldered the earth to the bridge instead of it just being trapped underneath. Nothing would sort it. Had another look this morning with a fresh brain, tried some different things but nothing will fix it. In the end I have clamped a wire on the outside of the pickup housings linking them together (metal toaster style) and the noise vanished, but so has the series switching. When put in series mode I get the added mids, but with noise if I touch the bass pickup, until I link the two pickup housings when the noise goes but it goes back to parallel sound. What's going on? I really like the series sound, it's exactly what I was after so don't want to give up but I'm at a loss as to what to do. Help! 😟 Edit. I'm also guessing that if I did away with all the wiring needed for switching between parallel and series and just wiring it in series I'd still get the same problem if it's something inherent in the design of the pickups?

I think Happy Jack was being a touch callus with his post 😉

Aren't they the 'Lightshow' ones or something like that? If so I'm sure young Mr. Entwistle owned one.

Just ordered one then have you? 🤣

🥧

You can't beat a nicely yellowed vintage white 😎

Totally what @BassBus said. If you have a decent spare bass then spend your budget on a really good neck rather than a reasonably good complete bass. A quick set up, probably need to lower your action as the height of the frets has gone, and get sliding.

I know what you mean, the chorus part felt very unnatural to me and took a bit of getting committed to muscle memory. A great bassline though.

That sounds like it'll be a tone monster 😎

Thanks @ikay. 👍

Thanks @ikay, I had a Google but couldn't find anything. I assume the switch I need is a DPDT on/on jobby? Thanks again 😊

Looks cool but a bit over the top for what I need 🙂

There was enough lacquer on this to flat and polish so that's what I've done. It's all shiny now without the annoying orange peel finish. I'll post some pictures once rebuilt as we all love a picture 😎 I'm onto wiring now and have put a post in the 'Repairs' section, if you know your electrics then please take a look and help me out if you can, thanks.

Right, finally got around to rebuilding this bass and it's wiring time. This is a diagram, crudely drawn I'll grant you but hopefully adequate, of how the bass is wired at the moment, two volumes, two tones, a three way selector and a blend. I would like to just add a series switch if its possible, if not then just wiring the two pickups in series through one tone and one volume would have to do. Are there any electrical geniuses out there that could guide me through this please? I added a series switch to my Jazz with no trouble but they are simpler and the diagrams are online, I can't find anything for adding one to a Rickenbacker. If someone could help I'd be extremely grateful 😊

My Bex4 is one of my 'never selling' basses. It's just far too good an instrument for the prices they make. Not entirely sure I'd want the extra PU and electronics in the BS, the standard ones are simple and extremely versatile tone wise. Good luck with search though.

The Killers took their name from a fictional band in a New Order video...... I think.

Also, while we're talking about Sting and his lies about being in the police, I bet the fooker's never been to the moon either.

Ooh conspiracy eh? 🤣

The Romans?

Slightly different but I see your point.

I took the OP as tongue in cheek but maybe I was wrong. I do it as I'm a particularly showy tw@t, our audiences are there for the whole show, not just the music.

Oh my, have you been saving that post in your handbag for the right time? 😂

From memory black Pahohoe strings are available from Road Toad Music in a few different lengths. I much prefer them to the white Thunderguts. Less 'grippy' and a more focused tone.

Well he shouldn't 😉