kodiakblair

2 hours ago, jd56hawk said:

It's always been a non-issue for me.

The fishing weight trick is great.

It's quick, cheap, easy to do and reversible  yet every day there's folk on TB proudly announcing they just gave Hipshot $170 😆

@neepheid

If you'd like it just say, I'd be happy to pass it on 👍

@Cheeto726

A lot of the bad press comes from guilt, folk's hearts want an £1800 bass but the wallet only stretches to £80 😕

Instead of just accepting they have a fairly decent bass for little money they go looking for supposed faults. It's almost like blaming the bass will absolve their purchasing power. 

I've owned several Harley Bentons and been happy enough with them stock, actually prefer PB-50 necks to the one on my Paisley Fender. 

27 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

People complain about the neck dive on ordinary 'birds, this one's going to be off the scale!

My mate in Kenya owns the Harley Benton, he's never complained about neck dive but then he always plays sitting down 😀

He did hate the 3 point bridge though, that bad he stuck it in a box and shipped it the 4,000 miles to Scotland where its lived in my spares box ever since.

Claudio also ditched the pickups and preamp, his HB is now passive pots and sports Warman mini humbuckers 👍

3 hours ago, luckman67 said:

Has anyone here tried or owned one and is the body shape the, same as the, Epiphone or Gibson version?

Can't help but that's a pretty sweet looking bass Shawn, no 3 point bridge to contend with either 🙂

Here has the peghead shape swayed you, it's very familiar 😃 

I've had 2 G4M basses in the last couple of years and no complaints. Their LA Select ash body P-bass I got for £20 but it was the denim burst that really impressed me. 

Indulge yourself pal, only live once 👍

1 hour ago, Dazed said:

Excellent info @kodiakblair this could have saved me hundreds

Could have saved myself hundreds but I'm a victim of "shiny/new" 😀

6 minutes ago, bassmaster4000 said:

I'm trying to familiarize myself with the bridge so I can properly intonate and set it up.

You slacken them so you can slide the saddle back/forth for intonation, then tighten them up when done.

To get lower/raise action you slacken these screws then use the two on the top.

If you need to go lower you can file a bit off the bottom.

You can also do the same with the sides to slightly adjust string spacing as the grub screw holds it block in postion.

1 hour ago, Dazed said:

I probably need to troll YouTube to hear examples of cunife magnet versions against all other types to see what difference is. 

I was reading a CuNiFe pickup thread just yesterday, on  Gretsch Talk. 

First post was interesting as the fella pasted an email he'd got from Curtis Novak regarding magnets.

"Hi Don, I use threaded rod magnets and the alloy I use is FeCrCo. The thing is an old pal of mine who was an engineer at Gibson, and was pals with Seth said that Fender had contracted with Seth to design a humbucker, that would compete with Gibson's but still sound like Fender's sound. Their whole goal was to have a humbucker, with adjustable pole pieces that still sounded like a Fender pickup with AlNiCo magnets. They choose CuNiFe, NOT b/c it had any mystical sonic properties, but rather b/c it sounded closest to AlNiCo AND could be machined into a screw.

In my former life I spent 16 years working at one of our National Laboratories, and was pals and worked with a number world renowned metallurgists, and physicists. They all confirmed that in a sensor such as a guitar pickup, there is NO special sonic characteristic that the alloy CuniFe would have over AlNiCo, or FeCrCo other than their grade strength, and their orientation to the coil. All 3 alloys being equal in strength, shape and orientation to the coil would give the same sonic results.

Outside of factual data there is much hype that starts putting this pickup in the same category as the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot designed to create an artificial fervor and demand for it and to attempt justify an astronomical price. In my personal experience working both in high level research science and my many years with pickups, I have seen when people get way too wrapped up in their data, assumptions, goals, desires, and their egos. In the end they are only researching and accepting results that confirm their desires. They tend to lose focus and get way off track of their original goal and with pickups they start listening with their eyes, and stop using their ears.

Glad you like them. Curtis"

After my experiences with different single coils I'm of much the same mind as Mr Novak 👍

When the OP posed his question I searched through what Sweetwiter and Guitar Center were offering in the $1k to $4k range.

Only thing which remotely interested me was an original 60's Mosrite but there's no way they get $1.6k from me for it so  I'd thank the wife for the kind thought and indulgence then tell her to look at holidays instead 🙂

The GAS is weak in this one 😃

It must be 30 years since I read a magazine on any subject, never gave taking out a subscription a thought either.

Never bothered with Reddit but I do check in here/TalkBass/Bassic.de/OnlyBass on a daily basis. 

Nor am I one for bass gear videos.

21 hours ago, Springywheel said:

The stock pickup on my classic vibe p bass is nice but I was wondering if anyone can recommend a different single coil that has a bit more bite in the upper mids and that that growls nice, not unlike the Geezer pup, but in single coil format?

Have you access to a graphic or para EQ gizmo ?  That'll get you much closer to what you want than swapping a pickup.

Doing a quick count, I've had quite a few 51 single coils, 3 from Duncan, 3 from Herrick, 3 from Bloodstone, 3 from Martin Harmer, Wilkinson, Roswell, no-name from China, Jess Loueiro and a couple of others. Had them in single, split and stacked 51 footprint. Magnets ranged from Alnico 2 & 5, ceramic, neodymium and alnico5/neodymium mix. Wire counts going from 6.7k ohm to 29.9k ohm.

Tested in the same bass, none of them have made earth shattering differences from each other. Some are a wee bit louder, split/stacked are a bit polite, big slugs a wee bit slow on attack (bloody hard to describe.); all very subtle and the character of your bass will remain the same.

Before plugging in a soldering iron, play around with pickup height, play around with you amp settings and borrow an EQ pedal 👍

1 hour ago, neepheid said:

And I'm living for how grudgingly it has been offered!

Inside he's doing cartwheels thinking about all the repeat business he'll see.

CuNiFe might be hard enough to make threaded machine screws from but it's crap at holding a charge, every 10 year or so they'll want zapped back up to full strength.

10 minutes ago, neepheid said:

if they haven't made an ar$e of it cosmetically or broken it.

That's asking too much 😀

Just now, neepheid said:

 

Wannabe modders - where there's a will (and a Dremel) there's a way.  Amateur hour!

Aye, there's always a way though it's not always a great idea .

One laddie's experience sticks in my memory.

Buys his ( buzzword brand name, please click 'like' ) Duncan QP. Finds it doesn't fit so trims the flatwork rather than risk messing up the body. Installs it then realises it sounds crap 🤣

Never did hear if he found a buyer for his modded Quarter Pounder.

4 hours ago, Jono Bolton said:

but I find myself playing a Squier CV 50s Precision more at the moment.

If I didn't already own several 51 type basses I'd snag one of those myself.

There's a fair few folk in various TalkBass "51/Tele bass" threads have the Squiers  and none of them were complaining 😎 A couple of the "buy to mod" crowd ventured in to say they'd bought Duncan QPs, only to discover they don't fit.

Serves them right for having such poor taste in pickups 🤣

4 hours ago, Jono Bolton said:

is it the Fender MIJ RI?

Certainly is 🙂

3 hours ago, itu said:

I am slightly amazed that everybody should play a £80 bass.

This is a lovely bass and I'm thrilled to own it 🙂

While nowhere near as pretty it's this £80 Harley Benton which gets played. The Benton neck is far more comfortable than the Fender's and it sounds better too, thanks to that brilliant (discontinued) Wilkinson single coil 🙂 Apart from changing the strings for TI flats this PB-50 remains as it was when Thomann shipped it, April 2014 😎

'Frost Blue' dates it between 1982 and 1985.

The folk in Peavey's spray shop had little experience so finish options came in baby steps, most of the first year natural matt was it 😃 Gradually they worked up to gloss with  solid colours like black and red coming online around the 18 month mark. By 82 they got a handle on spraying, bodies were dunked in a vat of electrostatic liquid so the paint would stick easier . Peavey decided to discontinue the T-40 in 85, took them almost 2 years to reduce the stockpile of surplus bodies. All of those were sprayed black as it hid a multitude of sins 🤣

19 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Thankfully I don’t watch YouTube

Sensible chap.

18 minutes ago, Cato said:

I have noticed especially on US guitar forums that there seems to be an expectation from a suprising number of people buying brand new guitars that they'll want to modify it in someway

There's a whole industry supporting it.

15 minutes ago, neepheid said:

I think that's a foolhardy waste of time

I've done all sorts of mods and wholeheartedly agree 🙂 

As @Cato said, it's not uncommon to see posts on US sites where folks have a shopping list of aftermarket parts before they buy the actual bass. There's little thought given, just a bunch of buzzword brand names they hope will gain them 'likes'. As an example of how little thought is given there's light weight tuning pegs, Hipshot Ultralites are popular. Now we've all heard of or experienced 'dead spots'. One cause is the mass of the peghead yet nobody seems to give a monkey's, it's shave 200g off and damn the results.

1 hour ago, Burns-bass said:

One of the benefits of someone like Ed Friedland doing a review compared to the Lobster guy is that Ed takes stuff on the road and really puts stuff to the test.

Two totally different things.

Ed is well known and respected as a player, author and bass guru. He does straight up honest reviews.

Lobster fella is selling folk on mods. He does his initial video then does another after he's had someone swap the pickups, whether they actually need swapping or not. He's looking for YT checks for video, kickbacks from his embedded links and lastly cash in his back pocket when he punts the bass on the QT. 

18 hours ago, ossyrocks said:

Who plays a heavier bass? How do you deal with it? Do you even notice/care?

Own several at 12lb and up.

I'm much the same as @Reggaebass and @neepheid in preferring a heavier bass, also agree it's not a competition. 

Countless hours were spent as a laddie trudging to the hut with 50Kg cement bags on my left shoulder. That really messed up some folk but I was one of the lucky ones. Knees are shot these days, back and shoulders still in tip top condition.

3 hours ago, Huge Hands said:

 

Woof!  That overwound split coil pickup looks immense!  did it fit under the strings, or did you have to rout the cavity deeper?

 

I would be interested to know what difference it made - all ideas for my recent Harley Benton PB-50 purchase!

No problem under the strings, dropped right in.

If memory is correct David used 25mm slugs, that's the same as Entwistle machine screw poles. Plenty of firms aim for 19mm deep with pickup cavities, foam or springs do the lifting.  I copied "plenty of" when making the pine slab body so sunk to the floor; 6mm proud. Still had to use foam to lift it as you've generally got 12mm from the body to the underside of strings.

"Difference" was more lesson learned. I'd hoped the massive overwind would get me a 'mudbucker' but pickup placement is king there 🙂 

I've never used Toltec but had David at Bloodstone build me a few. One was a massively overwound (29.9k ohm) split coil in a 51 single footprint, price was so reasonable I'll never consider buying pickups from outside the UK again. This is it next to his normal 51 single.

More 51 singles and 51 hum cancelling have come from Martin Herrick in Wales. Recently I have pickups from another Martin, surname Harmer.  He's involved with the Durham folk runningguitar building/luthier courses along with his White Label Pickups brand. Had ALNICO 2 split coil and 51 single from this Martin. He also made me a pair of 51 singles for a jazz bass arrangement. Needed a wider pole spacing for that so Martin cut me custom flatwork and the bridge  went RWRP. Again very reasonable, about 60% the price of Fralins.

I'd like one of those Italia basses with the 4 lipstick pickups.

Boy in Stirling has one for sale, been asking £600 for it most of last year. That's twice what I'm prepared to pay 😀