adamg67

TI Flats, Distortion (MarkBass Multiamp) and a pick.

Did it all work fine in the past and now it doesn't? That would suggest it's all wired up right, but some component (probably in the tone circuit) is not working right, and there are some strange ways that things fail. The most reliable way to diagnose that kind of thing is just to have some good bits to swap in. Does the tone control still control the tone?

Yeah, it's the fact that the casing is earthed through one of the wires from the pickup. For series wiring of pickups with metal casings, for one of the pickups (the bass in your case) you have to break that connection, because that wire isn't going straight to earth any more, it's going through the other pickup first, if that makes sense. I can't guarantee that's what your problem is, but that is what you need to do, I've done this just recently on a Telecaster and all the info I read, including from pickup manufacturers, said the same thing about having to modify the pickup if it didn't already have a separate earth from the casing - I wouldn't have thought of it, but once I'd read about it, it made sense. Lots of aftermarket guitar pickups come like that with 3 wires. Hope you manage to get it sorted, I know how frustrating it can be.

For series wiring, you have one pickup that's permanently to ground as normal (treble pickup in the diagram above) and one that only gets grounded by the switch in parallel mode, and in series mode it's ground wire goes to the other pickup (bass pickup in the diagram above). As well as adding the switch you have to make sure that the bass pickup isn't still permanently grounded somewhere. Also, make sure any shielding (like metal pickup covers) goes to ground separately from the signal circuit - a common problem with guitars is metal pickup covers, if you do the series thing and leave them connected to the earth wire from the pickup, they send the hum you want them to shield to your second pickup instead of to ground (I think - in any case, they need a second separate ground or you get problems).

Ok, very quick spec run down to avoid hijacking the gear thread: 1380cc, balanced crank, Swiftune SW5 cam, stage 4+ head, HIF44 carb, matched manifold & exhaust, race flywheel, Quaife ATB diff, straight cut drop gears, 3.9 FD ratio, rally clutch, full cage, race seats on rails bolted to strengthened floor, proper 4 point harnesses, adjustable tie rods & bottom arms and rear camber brackets, alloy 4 pot caliper front brakes with vented discs & braided hoses, solid subframe mounts, race "springs", adjustable shocks... there's lots more little details like oil breathers and catch tank and stuff. It's done for MSA sprint & hillclimb regs, and it works very nicely

Well, I'm still in, and it's definitely important that I don't spend anything on gear, because I've just made a mockery of the whole thing by buying this: and also booking it in to have all the race parts swapped over from my other mini. So it seems like if I save money on one thing, that just creates a kind of pressure that makes me spend it on something different. If I'd have sworn not to spend any money on cars presumably I would now be negotiating the purchase of a nice Gyrocopter or something similarly daft.

I'm still up for it. And the gear abstinence challenge as well, so that's 6.

I'm still in, I really have no excuse for buying anything else (other than plain old GAS) so I'm going to stick at it. Been a tough couple of weeks though, because I'm apparently not bright enough to stop looking at stuff even though I can't buy it.

That's why I have one of these: A lot of my mates are geeks anyway so they can fix their own.

Yeah, it did occur to me that the coloured pencil centre bits wouldn't be very hard. The main thing it did was make me wonder what else you could make a body out of, skateboards sounds cool.

Check the video, he really made it out of pencils.

I know it's not a bass, but it could be: Video:

I wear this fair bit. Shame the speakers aren't quite right, let's pretend they're some studio monitors.

So, hopefully it's not too late to sign up for this, but I am definitely IN. I've got a custom body for my Baritone ordered and deposit paid last year, so that will be a nice thing when it arrives and it looks like that is within the rules, but I am not buying anything new in 2019. I've got more than enough gear, and really I need to sell of some bits and pieces that I'm not using as well.

Best purchase was the Elwood 5a from here, as photographed for it's Basschat ad, now wearing flats and I love it to bits. Only got two basses, the other is a blue Jake 5a+, must take some photos of them together sometime. Not really sure I've got a worst this year, done pretty well. Got a nice MIM Tele as well, that was about it.

I’m planning to have a go at some next year, and for me you can be as a apocalyptic as you like, I don't really do subtle (another reason i’ve only ever managed one entry). Go for something we can rock to!

I haven’t looked for a while so that’ll be right, also more options if you go for a Mac (which I didn’t, but I seem to have got away with it so far). The USB-C thing does my head in slightly, it’s the same connector but not all the hardware with it does both protocols? Not sure how that makes sense. If you get a laptop with USB-C only, you can plug a Thunderbolt 3 device in, but it won’t work.

With newer machines with Thunderbolt 3 you need 2 adapters to use Firewire, FW -> TB2 and TB2 -> TB3. There aren't a huge number of Thunderbolt interfaces yet though, and they are usually the high end ones.

Thunderbolt for me, the latency is great and I'll never get near the bandwidth limit. I think as @BigRedX said, that's sort of the real successor to Firewire if you want something that's solid and (probably, depends on your hardware) not affected by all the other stuff we plug in.

I'm from West Yorkshire and I lived in Leeds for 15+ years, and yes it's a lot cheaper, but if you are studying music and can afford London there is sooo much more going on. I still wouldn't live there for any money, but I get why people do.

Minibar

Just seen your ad for an older in items wanted... good plan.

I make them all, because I need the soldering practice, and also I bought a Hakko FX888D soldering station because I like nice toys, and now I have to justify the cost. It is a very nice toy though.

If it helps, I think in order of number of instruments from least to most, it goes Komplete Select, Komplete, Komplete Ultimate. I have the middle one, just "Komplete", plus a couple of extra instruments, but it's worth checking excatly what's in each to make sure you're not paying for stuff you won't use: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/ - you can check in each one exactly what's included. Ultimate is massive, I'd need to upgrade my hard drive to fit it on. I think if you get Select and upgrade it will still cost the same, they are pretty good at getting their hands on your cash, but if anyone knows a way to save some money I'm sure they'll post. IIRC you can buy & sell licenses for NI products (there's a transfer thing) so you might be able to get an older version "second hand" if you're not bothered about 12 - I'm on 11 and sometimes you can save money by skipping a version, so if I hold out for 13 my upgrade probably won't cost more than the upgrade to 12 does now.

Windows is not great, but the rest of that statement is just not true any more, in fact it's probably 10 years out of date. I run a windows + linux laptop, used to run a couple of windows + linux desktops before that. First one, it was a bit like you say, second one pretty good, new one everything is USB 3 & Thunderbolt 3 and just works. Got a Quantum interface, faderport 8, NI Komplete Kontrol keyboard, Kenton Killamix, have had other midi stuff as well. I only have windows for the music stuff really, #1 purpose of my machine is linux based software development (well, linux is the OS I choose for software development anyway, because it's easily the best). I did look at a MacBook Pro when I got the laptop, because you can pretty much just run Linux in a VM now, but I would have had to pay more money for less than half the spec. Maybe if all I was doing was music and I had to use it live I'd get a macbook pro. I'm not inherently anti apple, I've got an iPad pro and an iRig for a portable setup and that's great.