Maude

Thanks @adamg67, I'm no electrician but that makes sense to me, it's sort of the conclusion I came to because of the casing effectively switching my series circuit on and off when earthed to the bridge or the other pickup casing. I've sent an email to House of Tone who wound the pickups to see what they say/confirm our thoughts. I'll take the casing off the pickup tomorrow and see if there's an obvious link between the casing and the earth wire. Thanks again 👍

Just to add, if I wire the pickups in reverse then the really loud noise occurs when I touch the treble pickup so it's not a pickup fault.

Thanks @adamg67and sorry for the late reply, I couldn't be arsed to look at this until now as, one I've been busy, and two it's peeing me off. 🙂 The wiring is as the diagram above and is functioning correctly, I've tried all sorts of different ways in case something was wrong out of desperation but as per the diagram gives me the correct series/parallel circuit and everything works as it should, apart from the horrific noise. I am testing earthing the pickup housings by using an old string on the casings (I haven't got a proper earth connection on them yet), earthing them to the bridge. The pickups in a 4005 are guitar toaster style with metal casings. With no casings earthed the guitar makes a lot of noise when nothing is touched, is quiet when the strings are touched but deafeningly loud when the bass pickup is touched. If I earth both pickups to the bridge the bass is noise free, but the series switch is bypassed, it goes back to the parallel sound. If I just earth just the treble pickup then the background noise goes away but it's still horrific when I touch the bass pickup. If I earth just the bass pickup then it goes back to parallel. If the pickups had an internal connection from the casing to the earth wire would that cause this problem when trying to earth the casing? Also, I may be over thinking this but if the casings need to be earthed seperate from the signal circuit, where would I earth them? Wouldn't all the earths be ultimately linked to the jack socket? It has to be something really simple but I'm losing the will to live. Sorry for all the questions 🙂

Right, all these money saving tips are all well and good but shall we cut to the chase? It's a sad fact and 'The Management' ain't gonna like it, but just delete your Basschat account and never visit the site again. You all know deep down that before you joined here you got by in life with one, or possibly two if you were feeling particularly extravagant, basses and an amp, and maybe a multi or a handful of individual pedals. Now you're not really sure where to put all the basses you've bought, let alone all the other 'essential' gear. Justify it all you want but you don't need all that gear and nobody else can hear, or care about the subtle differences. Now be gone with you you money saving, little bass soldier, play that one bass and play it proudly 😂.

As everyone has said, they chose you and I'm sure they will be happy with what you play until you're fully up to speed, so don't worry. I was in a similar position with one of my current bands, they'd been asking me to join for a couple of years until I gave in after another band folded. I had around fifty songs to learn in a month, about ten of them being originals which they wanted me to write new/better basslines for. Quite intense but I got there, with some of them not being bang on but good enough to gig. A little story, if I may, about that situation which has always bugged me. The band is a Mod/Ska/Northern Soul band with a reasonable following and we suddenly had a request to support Neville Staple in Brixton in two weeks time, a proper result for a little band from Cornwall and Devon. Our singer turned it down as he didn't think I'd be up to speed with the original material despite me assuring him it wouldn't be a problem. I'd never supported a known artist at the time so was really quite miffed. Anyway good luck with learning the material and don't let it get to, it's supposed to be fun 👍

I'd also say a larger tablet or even laptop is easier to use than a phone or 7" tablet. Some of the buttons can be quite small and the sliders easy to over adjust if the screen is small.

We use the XR18. We run a wired laptop on stage and our soundman use a wireless tablet (android) outfront, so we're covered if one way or the other packs up. We do our own individual mixes with our own wireless tablets, if you wanted (soundman doesn't need to get involved in that). I just use a wedge monitor now, no amp. One thing that is really handy which I don't think has been mentioned yet, apologies if it has, is the ability to save venue settings. If you play a fairly regular rotation of venues you can save a venue once your happy with the sound and recall it next time you're there, particularly useful with problem venues where it's a pain getting a good sound. It's as complex or simple as you want it to be and probably does far more than any pub/club would ever need it to.

There has to be a joke about cereal numbers in there somewhere 🤔😁

I have absolutely no idea what question you were thinking would be asked. 🤘METAAAAAL!! 🤘

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.