NickA

I can't quite see what is wired to what, but it looks like your J pickup may be connected back to front. Ie the black and white wires are going to the wrong holes in the little terminal block. That would cause noise to add and signals to cancel. Try swapping the wires around (no guarantees). If you really want to do it properly, then a) get a stacked coil J pickup, b) twist the pcikup wires together and keep them as short as possible (better still, use co-ax cable from the pickups to the control cavity) c) use screening foil or conducting paint inside the pickup cavities and the control cavity and make sure the surface of the cavities is connected to the bridge / pickup / jack-socket grounds. A lot of people swear by copper foil for screening, but if you look inside a quality factory made bass (certainly, both my Wal and Warwick) you will find they are use conductive paint. My project J-bass has painted cavities and has been totally silent, even with standard J-Bass wiring (as you have) since I got the stacked pickups. The problem is, you NEED the pickups to pickup magnetic fields otherwise they can't see the strings, but really don't want them to pickup anything BUT the strings .. screening the cavities can only do so much as there is always a dirty great hole in the front of the pickup cavity!! If all else fails, I'm only down the road in Derby and happy to take a look for you. You'll probably find another guitar playing electronics engineer closer, but the offer stands.

That J pickup. Is it a single or a stacked coil one? Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious: The way the P pickups work is that they are actually humbuckers with the magnets in different directions and the coils in different directions. The signal from the strings adds but the pickup from nearby electric fields cancels out. A standard J pickup is not humbucking as it only has one coil. With a full Jazz Bass the two pickups are wound and magnetised in oppposite directions so they individually pickup noise from the surroundings but when added together do not. So, if you add a non cancelling J to a cancelling P the noise no longer cancels and you get some hum. The solution is to use a stacked coil J pickup which incorporates its own cancelling. My J bass now has two stacked J pickups and is totally silent whatever balance I use, but previous incarnations were quite buzzy and did stuff lke pick up police radio and local taxis (pre mobile phones!!) If its REALLY noisy you might have some other electrical fault - eg it's accidently wired up back to front so that the earth (strings etc) are accidently connected to the amps input and vice versa.

mine did it on the open E (I think). Then it fell over, the finger board fell off, the bass bar cracked and lots of bits fell off inside. A mender man took it to bits and glued it all back together again - no more buzz. But the mender said the buzz was actually fixed by removing my old shadow pickup from the bridge. The buzz came back recently; turned out to be the outer drum of the pick-up to amp lead was coming un-screwed and its rattling was being picked up by the pickup. Another time I was making a drummer's snare rattle more causes of double bass buzzes than you can shake a stick at. many of them not connected to the bass itself. If anything will make things buzz, it's a double bass. sorry, that wasn't very helpful .... just wanted you to know that many of us have been there!

I'm not convinced that a big music department-store is the best place to buy a double bass - mostly they are getting stuff made down to a price by big factories rather than looking for quality. Maybe try a specialist (Bassbags) or a sensible 2nd hand dealer (the DoubleBassRoom). Something like this for instance : https://thedoublebassroom.com/product/1970s-czech-luby-hybrid-3-4/#.Wu-JnH8h1EY. would probably be hard to beat. I think it was this one https://thedoublebassroom.com/product/hungarian-1965-3-4/#.Wu-K-n8h1EZ that came to a recent bass bash and was really rather good.

Oh tell me about it; I pointed out to him that my 150 yr old db was held together with fish glue and he said "yeah well, it'll fall apart eventually". I then wrecked the neck trying to plane the shards of ebony and glue off the maple. New neck and board required; from now gone guitar maker Alan Marshall at Northworthy - but at least the truss rod works now .. and it's a very nice neck (super slim but still very stable) and back then was only £170. Alan no longer makes guitars let alone basses, but his acoustic guitars cost £1000s if you can find one.

My dad was at one time (amongst other things) responsible for mending the 'cellos of Huntingdonshire schools. There was often a pot of something smelly on the kitchen stove consisting of little grey pellets simmering in slimy juice; I always thought it was boiled down fish bones or something; certainly smelt that way! It was probably this -> https://www.axminster.co.uk/liberon-pearl-glue-ax22992 . The idea is that it comes un-stuck under the influence of steam. Bloke at Andy's Guitar shop put an ebony board on my first electric bass - when I tried to remove the board to get at the truss rod, the board broke. I asked what he'd used and he said Araldite, cause it won't come unstuck. The good man spoke the truth .. it f*&ing didn't!

Now with added East-ification. Sounds great; better than my Wal in some respects! 8 knobs, no less (the switches only fill some holes) and all of them useful.

£1100 for all that! Good deal. Is that bridge really not at right angles to the strings? Could be the photo, but it might be squiff or it might have been set up "clever". This is something I thought about a while back having realised that on my electric bases the strings are all different lengths as the bridge is adjusted to keep the strings in tune across the frets (or lack of frets, though that's less of an issue) despite different pressures being needed to hold the different thickness strings down. The bridges of classical guitars have a very complicated slant carved into them. So why not do that on violins, 'cellos and basses? Well apparently one reason is that its really hard to seat a bridge on the belly of the bass if it has to be at an angle and the other is that we all learn to compensate for the lack of super accurate tuning (without frets it's less of an issue etc). anyway every double bass I've seen has its bridge at right angles to the strings. But maybe your setup is done like a fretted instrument, in which case it's clever but different. Might play more easily in tune across the strings. .. or it's the photo .. or someone knocked it!

What John East says! Set the top pickup to deep and bassy and the bridge pickup to bright - then blend away. The big thing over the Wal tronics is the adjustability of the treble pass through and the filter resonance. Playing the Wal this evening and wished I could pull the resonance knobs out .. sort of half way. Makes my Warwick's EQ based knobs (treble and bass, cut and boost) seem positively stoneage.

... and you don't want a distorted bottom. :¬)

Bought the acg-eq-01. Spent an evening fiddling around trying to fit it inside the bass; completely changed my mind the next day and in a couple of hours, with a little bass surgery (dremel, sanding disk, lots of Padouk dust) IT'S IN!! Now have a bass with EIGHT KNOBS (and three switches which do nothing but fill holes). The suprising thing is the bass frequencies - I'd expected clearer high frequencies (passive setups load the pickups' inductance and lose high frequency content) but what really stands out is the extra and clearer bass, and the control of it via the filter gain adjustment. Also, even if you go for a lot of bass and high frequency cut, then high frequency pass-through allows harmonics and "pick attack" to come through. I honestly reckon that the acg-eq-01 is better than the much fabled electronics in my Wal .. and would love to hear what a Wal would sound like with East tronics in it ... not that I'm about to vandalise my own one to find out!

Yes INDEED, thank you folks for a great day out. Such a lovely day we could have held it outside! But the Baronial Barn and roaring log tree fire were fun and the barn had a great acoustic too. Enjoyed playing other people's basses, finding out what these much praised Silver Slaps and Spirocore Weichs actually play like .. and a go on Owen's Steinburg EUB too (lovely thing, well made and nice to play, even if not a real DB). And yes, a very nice sounding laminate bass .. my prejudices challenged yet again. Good to hear other people playing my old bass too - as someone said, "doesn't really need an amplifier". .. and no, the old SAAB did not make it home; alternator failure at M1 Jct 16, recovery to Derby on a truck. Sadly now waiting for the scrap man to come; but at least I was with her when she died. :¬( :¬(

That is one HUGE armchair you have.

In fact it's spelt: 上原 ひろみ and you can transliterate as you please :¬) :¬) :-) But yes indeed, that one; small Japanese women with big hair and ridiculously nimble hands. But anyway WHAT AN INSTRUMENT. Not sure I'd want one myself as 35k would buy a VERY nice double bass indeed and you do get more wood for your money. I'm guessing 5k for the bass, 15k for the AJ endorsement and 15k for the Fodera badge. Does seem a little pricey. However, it does sound like nothing else and does things neither an electric or a double bass would do; and I love the way Jackson sits there with his gob open, eyes half shut and his head lolling about like he's about to pass out .. whilst sublime liquid bass-lines flow out of his fingers. She could dump Simon Phillips for Chad Wackerman or Vinnie Colaiuta tho IMHO - he does drown out the bass playing somewhat!

I was listening to Anthony Jackson with Haroumi Uehara on the "Alive" album .. playingthe 6 string version of this; sounds like no kind of electric bass I've every heard. Strange beast indeed. Seriously tho!!!! Specs for the Anthony Jackson Presentation: Alder Body Alder Tone Block Quilted Mahogany Topwood 3pc Hard Rock Maple Neck Brazilian Rosewood Fingerboard Fodera / Duncan Dual Coil Pickup 36″ inch scale, 28 large frets, 6-strings 19.0mm String Spacing Passive Electronics Price – USD $20,250 Possibly there is a big discount for having one less string!?

Still planning to come along. I'll bring my 1884 German DB, a Realist sound clamp and a PJB flightcase (for comparison with that AI Combo... which I so nearly bought instead). Got a nice carbon bow to show off too. ... just have to hope the wife's ancient and disreputable 18yr old SAAB can make the journey from Derby without something else falling off it :-)

There is no FRETLESS like a Wal FRETLESS :¬) Oddly, the price of 2nd hand fretlesses has always been better than that of the fretted siblings and prices are coming down again at the moment. Come on in and join the club! Still, £3500 would buy a very nice (new) ACG or Overwater.

I may rename it triggers broom! New East electronics on order, then maybe some hipshot tuners with a D drop. All that will remain of the original jazz bass will be the neck plate saying "made in Japan" which NONE of it is .. except the neck plate😂

Laminate basses won't hold value too well as a new one will sound as good. Solid / Carved ones will do better as they generally improve with age .. or at least, people think they do.

This bass is mostly a noodling at home bass so lots of knobs to twiddle is a bonus! Once it has the full JE monty inside it tho, it may get out more. I find that with both the other basses, I have just a couple of favourite settings; an interesting one for playing at home and a more ordinary one for playing out. We shall see. Gone too far down the line now and have serious Electronics Acquisition Syndrome; I'll report back in a few weeks. And thanks folks for the info and encouragement.

Almost instant response from John (don't you love these small can-do craftsman based companies!) ... 9V rail to rail, no voltage step up, standard op-amps; should handle peak voltages + - 3.5V; if that's not enough I'll have to get someone to rout out space for an extra battery or one of these (9V in <=35V out). Now then, where's my oscilloscope! I have some memory that I did this before and the delanos peaked at + - 3V (big thumb slap on the E string ... though why I'd be slapping a fretless, not sure - bad habits).

I don't know much about ACG except that people rate them (him) ..and having just browsed their site, they look fantastic value compared to .. erm, say ... a modern Wal! I was suprised to see the ACG-EQ-01-4 for sale on John East's site as someone told me you could only get them with ACG basses. however, I see AC has moved on to a "DFM" pre-amp and that the EQ-01 is old hat in ACG terms. Still, to me it looks like the bee's knee's ... kind of Wal electronics with a Turbo. I've mailed Mr East to check that my Delano pickups won't over-load his 9V electronics tho. Pickups intended for electronics usually have a low output - and this was a limitation of my own designs; when fed by my previous single coil Kent Armstrong pickups, the pickup output voltage was higher than the little +4.5V op amps could manage. You can get around it (as Percy Jones did) by sticking a step-up circuit in line with the battery to make a local 12V or 18V off the 9V supply voltage - wouldn't put it past John East's designs to include that ... as they include everything else. Finger trembling over the "buy now" button whilst I wait for John's reply! (the seller of that 2nd hand one seems to have gone silent on us .. but thanks for the link)

For many years I've been fiddling about with some home made active electronics to create separate filters for each of two pickups, plus blend and volume. It's been fun, but the results were never reliable (crackle, pop, dead, buzz etc); whilst deciding what to build next, I ran across John East 's electronics and read several recommendations. This one http://www.east-uk.com/index.php/acg-eq01-4k.html is pretty much what I have been aiming at all these years. It seems to be a modernised version of what my Wal has inside it - ie filter per pickup, with a "Q-factor" control (the Wal has just a switch) and a variable high frequency pass through (again, the Wal has a "pick attack" switch which does the same thing). Has anyone got or tried this circuitry? Does anyone know of anyone else making similar? I'm on the verge of pushing the "buy" button, but all told with a set of nice knobs, VAT and delivery it's £241.. which is sort of the price of a whole bass! So need a bit of a push ;¬)

Here are my two. The brown one is my first bass, bought in 1981.....although everything except the tuners has now been replaced in a 35 year attempt to create a Wal/Warwick/Fender hybrid!! Currently passive (JB standard wiring, with an additional series / parallel switch) as when the latest pickups arrived I was too impatient to solder up the electronics. It's had a new lease of life since I fitted a set of EB cobalt flats and will probably be going active again soon. The Wal is ... well, a Wal, just like all the other Wal Customs in the world.

I have that bass's twin! W2716 July 86 singed by the man Wal himself. Facings could be from the same tree. Yours is in better nick tho, so I don't need to post mine. I have two small string trees tho and you have one big one. Maybe mine's a girl.