kodiakblair

Alpha RV16AF are mini pots, 16mm diameter. Normally around the £3 mark. Available for solid or spline knobs, with solder lugs, pins or PCB mount. Alpha RV24AF are the full size version. Around £3. NW Guitars sell them, along with plenty others. Products all have the tech drawing so you can pick the correct size. https://northwestguitars.co.uk/collections/potentiometers?sort_by=best-selling Bourns PDB241-GTR https://www.bourns.com/docs/product-datasheets/PDB241-GTR.pdf £4 from Farnell or RS Components but £4 delivery. Banzai Music in Germany carry all the MEC potentiometers; not cheap. https://www.banzaimusic.com/MEC-c-176/ Musikding, also in Germany sell Alpha, Bourns and CTS. Great company, no VAT worries, fast shipping, fantastic prices. https://www.musikding.de/Potentiometer_1

Bought a 51 P-bass neck to check the quality. At £50 delivered it came in £20 more than I'd be for the parts/materials. Neck passed muster with flying colours so ordered up another 4 🙂 Way I normally buy from Ali-Ex is by prices, if the product is say £200 from Europe and there's an Ali-Ex seller asking £70 and another wants £35; buy the one at £70 👍

Me, Finnish rockers 69 Eyes and a squad of lassies all got turfed out of a party in the Cathouse. Felt sorry for the lads, it was their party 😆

There's no law set in stone for fanned frets. Dingwall use the 7th fret as the neutral one, with Ibanez it's 10th; G4M opt for the 8th and on the OP's bass it's the 5th. Right or wrong doesn't come into it, there's only personal preference. Same holds true for the span of the scale length, the radius or how the back of the neck is shaped.

Does it have the Ferrari engine? My suggestion used all of the same parts found on the Dingwall. If going for a custom build you could spec for same body materials and still save £700.

@NikNik Buy the Firebird blueprint from Guitars & Wood, €13. Send it to the Ali-Ex merchant with instructions to follow it to the letter. https://guitarsandwoods.com/guitar-and-bass-plans-firebird-2048190856.html CNC files might also be available. Get as many Firebird photos as you can of things like the transition of neck to body. The more info and details you provide the better chance of success.

You bet it is 🙂 Cheapest Combustion 4 string at Bass Direct is £1850, OP's bass was £280. You could go daft and fit 4 Hipshot tuners/Mono saddles for £200. 3 Dingwall FD3N pickups, another £240. The Dingwall selector switch is £50 and its £160 for an EMG 3 band EQ. Even after a PLEK session you'd have £700 more in your pocket than buying Dingwall. Might have to re-think the logo, £1100 is hardly "Tesco Value" 😁

Both basses used guitar bodies so I went with baritone paddle necks. All maple one from Yinfente, rosewood board from Seimonic/Guitar-Shopping. Cost about £60 - £65.

My old Mam gave me this , bought from Guitar Miniatures' stall at Cleveleys' Market 🙂 OK the colour is wrong but she's 88 so gets 10 out 10 for not only remembering I play bass but that I own a Tele bass 👏

A decent set up + strings. Get the nut slots checked then have the neck adjusted. Get the action and intonation bang on. Have the pickup heights set properly. It's all well and good bolting bits on but unless the bass is set to it's best potential are the bolted on bits an upgrade ? Also helps if you know why you want certain bolt on bits, what they do and will there be an impact. Light weight tuning pegs are a favourite, folk routinely throw them on to counter 'neck dive'. Thing is 4 in line pegheads are prone to dead spots which are related to peghead mass; light weight tuners change the mass and you might find the dead spot has moved to someplace more noticeable. Trying another strap or adjusting the length can fixed 'neck dive', will be cheaper and have no effect on peghead mass. Before looking at new pickups, borrow an EQ (graphic or para). Play with the frequencies, boost some/cut others; it'll make more of a difference than any pickup swap.

Having not played my old Wilson Saffire for years I now feel quite guilty 😄

Do you remember what you were running them through ?

Couple of weeks back I sacked my 4 lipstick P-bass idea for a 51 slab body piezo build. Both had been kicking around my head for years so I'd been grabbing potential bits as/when I saw them 🙂 Those 4 & 5 string bridges you mentioned are still being made, WSC offshoot 'Partsland' distribute them. Trouble is they are bloody expensive now. B&Ch over in Czech Rep have then for €116 or €130 for 5 string 🙁 USA eBay seller "Guitar Madness" have 2 versions for a more sensible £68 and £78 but there's £17 delivery, search for "Chrome Bass Piezo Bridge Made in Korea". I was lucky enough to buy the 4 string version from BassChat's ads section so it might be an idea to run a 'wanted' ad. Will be keeping my fingers crossed you get sorted as it'll be nice having somebody to bounce experiences off. I've the bridge hooked up to a Shadow preamp ATM but it's not working out too well, roll on Monday when the Artec MT-2 gets delivered.

No idea what is in my Modern Player but I'm well chuffed with them 🙂 Might go as far as replace the Lakland Chi-Sonic in the TeleBass with the spare Wide Range in the pickup drawer, after all that was the reason for buying it 😄

Doubt these are the correct terms. I refer to the black block for string height as the 'saddle block', the housing it sits in as the 'slide' and the whole thing as a 'mono saddle' 👍

We are 🙂 New science still has to deal with all the myths, legends and old wives' tales folk cling to regards pickups; new/old Science has a hard task 😃

Bloody hell, where did the photos spring from ;was just text when I replied Monday night 😁

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.

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 👍

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 👍

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

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.

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 👍