SpondonBassed

Like the title says, I'm installing a John East preamp in my Ibby SR605. At some point I'd like to put some Nordstrand pickups in as well but for now, I have the amp to hand courtesy of @rk7. He kindly gave me the old East pre from his Overwater bass after he had it upgraded whilst having the bass chambered. The build thread is here. I have been happy enough with the Ibanez from a playability aspect but the output is a bit bland with its current pre and licenced Bartolinis. I'm exited to see if the East brings out anything interesting. It is a five knob J-Retro (I think). I'm winging it as far as resistance values and such are concerned. Maybe it won't like the humbuckers that I'm going to couple up to it... we'll see. It's already looking like a tight squeeze unless I remove some body wood. There is scope for that within the existing control cavity. The John East Preamp with its long PCB The Ibanez Preamp in its tiny cavity The first important thing was to label the wires and photograph where necessary for reference for if I want to reinstall it. Labelling Pickup wire positions I removed the control knobs and spindle nuts Then with a few dabs of a hot iron to de-solder, the old preamp comes out (on the left). After applying copper tape to the cavity to ground the control spindles as recommended by the East pdf, the new one goes in for a rough fit. The board is too long to fit as is. There is sufficient meat in the body adjacent to the output socket for me to carve out a niche for it (I think). There should be no need for a larger cavity cover. I put the East Knobs on to get a feel for it. It's nice. Beautiful action on the detents, the stacked knobs and the push pull knob for passive tone. I only hope I can get some sound out of it too. There is an empty hole where the mid frequency select switch went that I might fill with a dummy switch like Lee Sklar does. He says that flicking it makes recording engineers think he's tweaked something too subtle for their ears to hear but like with the Emperor's new clothes they daren't admit it. I'll leave off for now. It's far too late to start carving wood.

Haddock Knows I'm Miserable Now (Thanks, @Rich, for making fish (trout) an acceptable choice in this.)

Some Krill are Bigger Than Others

Wishing you a successful recovery.

I like that description. Succinct.

Welcome Han.

As well as issues with "free" image hosting services starting to charge, the site had an upgrade that didn't hold on to the old site images.

Welcome back* Steve. *We think.

Is it that bad?

If you ever get repossessed it would be quite appropriate for the Cardboard City blues.

Looks like the victim of assault on a battery to me...

My '80s Hohner is better overall than my recent Steiny Spirit. The Spirit's fine but it just doesn't feel as good somehow. It's passive and that's fairly adequate. The active Hohner just sings with lightweight and Superwound DBEs on.

"The Last Chicken in the Shop"

Welcome Nitebytes.

Welcome Straycat.

Welcome Fternolad.

Set to record. Thanks.

Hungry now...

Andy's basement earlier...

I always thought of The Smiths being somewhat limited by their singer. The instrumental bits were always special.

Given my feelings towards this, I will not be clicking on that! Thicke by name thick by nature. A bit like the Ross/Brand thing. Some folk are easily led.

One question about the Sims pickups. I read that the battery was just for the LEDs on the pickups. Would you still be able to see what had been selected at each pickup by looking at the switch if the battery went flat, for example?

You've got to admit... he's pushing the envelope.

For the first part of your question; There is a fair bit of instruction within these build diaries. You get posts from members with rudimentary skills all the way up to pro luthiers. Time would be well spent here. YouTube, of course, is another great resource. Parts rarely fit together straight from the factory so some amount of fitting is involved when buying loaded bodies and neck sub assemblies. For the second part; You can start out simple with a kit. I did this and learned a lot from the process. It will almost certainly give you a thirst for more. From there you can go as far as your ambition takes you given access to good timber and tools, either hand or machine. There's plenty of scope for creativity. It's not quite like Meccano but, as mentioned in the first part, it is possible to get playable results from off the shelf items with a little bit of fettling. I wish you a lot of joy with it.

Welcome Rob.