dajaphonics

Hello everybody again! I want to make some final steps on improving the bass. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to fill the gaps around the pickguard. @Downunderwonder you mentioned something previously that perhaps someone on this forum could make a new pickguard for me. Is there anywhere on this forum you'd recommend reaching out on for this? Alternatively, would a 3d printed pickguard or just like plastic fills be an option? I'd guess a challenge would be to get the color to match. A local library has a 3d printer that I'd have access to. It always sounded fun to try to get a 3d printer project but perhaps this would be a little ambitious for a first project.

I have a Squier Jaugar short scale bass that I've had only briefly as I recently repaired a Epiphone ET-280 short scale. I figured I don't need two and I much prefer the pickups and general sound from the Epi. So I'm guessing I could make the Jaguar sound better with different pickups, but I've never had a regular full scale (or whatever you call it) bass. I like to record and I guess if I'm playing maybe I can't really tell the tone apart too much from different pickups but when I listen to a recording, I can definitely discern the difference. I was thinking like a Fender P bass is a classic but the price disparity is all over the place with Fenders. I'm almost wondering is it worth it to get a Squier P bass and just swapping the pups? Just to add an element to the conversation - is it worth having both a short scale and regular bass guitar? Maybe it's completely unnecessary and I should just sell the Jaguar and be done with it. I know this is a personal decision.

So I'm feeling good today. I bought this bass in 2013. It had the original parts and I had a "professional" replace the pickups do the setup. I get it back and the e string barely made sound. The intonation was off and the strings were fretting out. Frustrating and still largely unusable I decide to find a second person to fix it in 2018. He tells me to buy the wrong bridge. Installs it incorrectly. Still have the same problems. 2022 I go to basschat and a group of very friendly and helpful people encourage me to do the work myself. You all helped me figure out my bridge position, find the right bridge for this short scale, encourage me that drilling a few holes isn't so tough. I also took it upon myself to install a new pickup. Let me say, I feel very proud of myself for being able to do this but I wouldn't have even tried if it wasn't for you guy. A very special thank you goes to @Downunderwonder for all the encouragement and advice and being there throughout the process. Also @Woodinblack for encouraging me to rip out the wiring and start from scratch. You helped me figure out how to use my multimeter and I learned how to solder as well. Not to mention how to fill holes with toothpicks. The bass is working now about as perfectly as I could possibly ask for. Intonation is great. I'm not sure about the string height yet but it plays well. The G string is a little offset on the bridge pickup but it picks up the sound pretty decently. If I really wanted to I could maybe move that pickup I little toward that direction. The only thing I want to consider in the future is mainly aesthetic. I was hoping to find some paint to match to do some touchups. I was also looking to get something to do about the exposed cavities. Maybe I'll take a 3d printing class in the future and design something to fit over it. I don't consider myself a handy person but right now I'm trying to learn. So thank you to everyone who participated in making my bass what I wanted it to be in 2013. For something a luthier wanted to charge over $300 I did for myself with a soldering iron and a new bridge and a lot of support. The old wiring The new wiring It goes to 11 now 🤘🤘 I had Harry Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire" bass line in my head all day so it had to be the first thing I played when I finished. Here's a sample of what the bass sounds on the different settings. The first three are demos of just the bass straight into ableton. The last three I'm running the bass through a Rusty Box pre-amp before sending it to ableton.

I found a few sources actually. The original grounded volume terminal wasn't working anymore for some reason. I did this again. That got rid of some noise. However, there's another source I found in the tone knob. When tone is at the lowest setting there's no noise. At the highest there is noise. When I touch the tone pot it quiets the noise. I tried to buzz the middle terminal on the tone pot going to the capacitor but I couldn't get anything. Could it be the cap that's bad or do I need shielding?

Ok, thanks. I dobbed a little bit of solder there so it's now connected to the tone. I'm not sure if you saw my last post since I posted it pretty quickly after my previous one. The bass is working but with a ground hum. I'm still unsure of where the grounding issue is coming from though. Any way to troubleshoot this other than just eyeball it? I tried to pull the ground wire out from under the bridge (it's not taped down) and it doesn't budge. So I'm thinking the bridge ground is ok.

Disregard the last post! User error. It helps when the pre amp cable is plugged into your sound card input 🤭 So it works!! The only thing is it sounds like a grounding issue. If I touch a string, pickup, volume or tone knob, bridge or input jack the hum goes away. If it touch the switch the hum gets worse. Think this is an issue with grounding the bridge? I think the switch got a little bent and I just need to bend it back the other way to get it to stay without popping to the middle position.

Here is a closeup of the tone control. I don't think so. I hooked up the middle terminal of the switch to the outside (left) which I believe is the input terminal of the volume. I plugged it in and get no sound at all. Here's what it looks like. Additionally the switch now won't stay on one side but will on the other. It keeps popping back to the middle position.

I took your advice. I ripped it all out and started again. I watched a step by step video but he didn't show how to do the switch. It looks like the middle terminal is grounded.is that right? It looked like both black wires of the pickups were connected to this previously. Here's some photos of progress.

So I'm trying to understand the wiring. Does anyone know a good site or a diagram of the wiring schematic for this? I guess it would be considered a Master Volume-Master Tone-3 Way Switch setup. I saw a German site but didn't see the Epiphone ET-280 on there: http://www.ak-line.com/medium/Bassschaltungen.pdf

So I replaced the white cable which is now the green cable. It's routed to the tone pot. Still no volume out of the bass. It looks like the soldering iron touched the it a little. I think I can just put some electrical tape on it. I was able to lift some solder off so I guess I'm slowly improving my skills with this project. I however dropped a dollop of solder on the back of the pickguard. whoops 🤭

Ok I did this and it buzzed. Additionally you may be right, I need to replace some of this cabling. The black casing part of this top wire here just started crumbling when I started pulling away the shielding.

Thanks for the input. Perhaps but I'm struggling with this bit. Will there be sound quality differences with new cabling compared to the original? Also any advice for desoldering? Should I get a sucker pump? I see some people use flux. Would I be able to get away with just using flux and some exposed speaker wire to extract the solder? Thanks

So I buzzed the pots with the cable plugged in. Multimeter beeped. Just seeing if this is what you meant. So before I change the white wire I wanted to confirm where I should solder it. Should it go on the back of this terminal where my screwdriver is pointing? I also noticed this wire looks like it had something connected to it at one point in the photo below.

I went to Home Depot (US) and found some wire. I realized I don't have anything to desolder but tried to do this anyways. So did I mess this one up? I was thinking the hot and the ground may be soldered together. Oh boy. If I have to redo it, where should I solder the white cable? I also noticed another crack in the casing of the cable going to the middle terminal. Do you think I should redo this wire as well?

Ok, so I got the multimeter. Lead into the jack. I put the multimeter on the other end. I understand buzz out means use the "sound wave" setting so it beeps? If so I did that and put the multimeter on the other end of the cable. It beeped reptitively. Next, I set my multimeter to 2000 ohms and got a read of zero when putting the multimeter on the side of the cable not connected to the jack. Hope this is right. If so, then I guess just replace the wire you mentioned? Also, I put the end of the cable up to each of the pickups with it plugged in and got some noise out of them so that tells me the pickups are installed correctly I believe. Now that I think of it I remember playing the bass and sometimes getting a spotty connection from the output jack at times. I'd have to wiggle the cable sometimes to get a decent connection. If so I'll go off and look to see where I can find a cable.

I actually just got a meter. I get it, I did a similar thing with a synth not that long ago where the output jack got disconnected. I guess those things are generally pretty fragile.

Is this what you're referring to @Woodinblack ? If so, I also didn't do this soldering job and didn't change it recently.

Thank you for looking at this @Woodinblack I'll check out the wiring in the jack socket. I soldered the earth of the pickup to that metal cable going through. That's where the previous pickup was soldered so I thought that would be fine (I didn't do the previous job).

I exchanged my mudbucker in the neck position for a Gibson style bridge pickup installed in the neck position in a Epiphone ET-280. Here's a photo of the way the working mudbucker was installed before I disconnected it. I screwed down the bridge pickup and wound the e string to see if it still works. There is some sound coming out of the output when I insert up to the first ring of the lead but can't get the pickups to output. (FYI before the installation the bridge pickup worked perfectly fine). I tried playing with the switches/volume/tone and still nothing. There was a little bass sound coming out when I first wiggled around the jack but I haven't got any sound out of it since. I haven't screwed down the new pickup yet since I'm still working out where it should be placed exactly and there's no screw holes where it will fit. I'm assuming this pickup won't work yet because it's not grounded, but from what I understand the other pickup should still work as it was before. I'm just going tot include as many angles of the soldering job I did so you can possibly see what's potentially wrong. Is there anything obviously wrong or a place I can troubleshoot my connections?

Ok update. The big project (at least big for me) worked out! The new bridge is installed and I think it looks better and will probably line up over the pickups much much better. I screwed down the bridge pickup and wound the e string to see if it still works. For some reason, there is some sound coming out of the output when I insert up to the first ring of the lead but after that there's nothing. I tried playing with the switches/volume/tone and still nothing. There was a little bass sound coming out when I first wiggled around the jack but I haven't got any sound out of it since. I can show you what I did when installing the second pickup. This is how the previous pickup was installed before I removed it about a month ago. Now here is what it looks like today: I know it looks like such a mess. Can anyone tell if there's something obviously wrong from the photos? Lastly, how close to the strings should I mount the neck pickup? Should it be about the same level as the bridge pickup?

I think I successfully soldered the new pickup. It's much easier when you have a decent soldering iron. Before I just had the iron without a stand, cleaner, little holders. I feel much more confident doing it than I ever had before. I got all the screw holes filled as well.

Interesting that company makes a pickguard for the ET-280. As a side note, I recently checked out a dremel tool from a tool lending library and have an orbital sander. I'm just getting familiar with these tools and maybe I'm just eager on trying it out. Perhaps I can try it on some other plastic first before I go straight to the pickguard.

I was busy doing some other projects but I'm back on the bass project! Ok so I actually got a cheap bridge with the right spacing finally that I can adjust the individual height spacing. I also got another pickup which is the same as my other one. So, this is all new to me. First things first, I filled the front holes in with some epoxy. I'll probably do the toothpick trick next for the other five holes closer to where the new bridge screws will go. Next, I think I will install the pickup. I can do some additional research but I think this is where the two wires should be soldered. The white one on the first terminal and the black wire where the solder is near the grey wire. After that, it looks like the pickup cover is too big to be placed on top of the pickguard. If I installed the pickup and the cover inside the cavity, I would have to file away the pickguard because it's not wide enough to fit through. So I think I'm just going to install it where it was before. I have the bridge placed about where I think I'm going to install it. Next, I think I'll mount the new neck pickup. I'm not sure how this is going to happen but I'll make it work. I have some epoxy if I need to create a little elevation and so I can drill into it. After this I think I can install the bridge. I'd like to find a way to cover the neck pickup eventually. Does this seem to be a reasonable approach?

Thanks @lemmywinks From what I can tell my bridge is around 57mm.