shoulderpet

21 minutes ago, prowla said:

I like the no-pots option there! 🙂

Yeah no pots is a good option, if I could find a control plate with no holes where the volume and tone would be then that is probably that I would do

1 hour ago, prowla said:

Why the higher value pots?

 

Ah - the old A/Log vs B/Linear question; some say Log for Vol and Linear for Tone.

More brightness really, I always find right single pickup basses I like them as bright as possible

1 hour ago, kodiakblair said:

£5 is a small price to see if you want it that bright 🙂

 

Opened the first one near at hand. 

 

B/Linear 250k Vol

A/Log 250k Tone.

 

Cap is 683/0.068uf

I have an even cheaper way, thanks for looking, much appreciated

24 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

Pretty sure they are 250k. Will be home in an hour or so, I'll double check and report back. 

Thanks, if I get the bass and I like it then then I am thinking of fitting 500k pots or maybe even 1meg pots

32 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

Good choice , the PB-50 is a great bass.

 

Not much of a platform for modding.

 

Peghead reshape and change of strings are pretty much the main things folk do. Roswell pickup is basically a Duncan SCPB-3 wound to 9.5k instead of 13k ; fairly high output but you don't lose some mids 👍 I fitted 2 saddle bridges to a few but that was purely a visual decision. Stock pots/cap and jack sockets are still going strong after 4 to 8 years. Tuners benefit from a dab of grease.

 

Plenty folk dislike the black scratchplate , or the white one if buying the red model.  Brian Pillans in Glasgow has the solution there. 

 

Having owned at least 6 of them my advice is play it stock for a while , most mods are done just for the sake of it rather than for any real improvement 🙂

Well, when I say a mod platform I don't mean anything crazy, just basically swapping out the parts that are generally junky on cheaper basses (tuners, pots, pickguard, bridge,fret dress if needed maybe the pickup depending on what the stock one sounds like), I know this will cost more than the bass itself but if I like the bass once I receive it then I have no qualms about putting money into it to get something I like them more.

Btw do you know if the stock pots are 250 or 500k?

And after giving it some thought I have actually decided to go for the PB-50 (Harley Benton single coil p bass) there is just something about the simplicity of the one pickup one tone that appeals to me.

Also means that if I do mod it there is a simpler circuit to modify and one less pickup to swap out.

1 hour ago, jezzaboy said:

I would go for the JB 75 as they get a good rep especially for the price you pay. The thing that has put me off buying one is they can be heavy but if you can live with that I would go for the 75. I fancied getting one and throwing some upgrades at it, bridge, tuners, just stuff that I would do to a Squier.

Thanks, yeah that is my aim with this is to have a cheap bass and use it as a modding platform

On 15/02/2022 at 09:28, 41Hz said:

Have DV247 sorted their act out, or is it still best to avoid? Tempted to treat myself to a new bass and it is a bit cheaper and in stock with them. 

Interested to find this out too

4 minutes ago, Maude said:

Fitted the Chrome flats, Tonerider pickup and gave it a set up today. 

It plays really, really nicely and sounds great now. 

Really happy with it.

The neck has a familiar Yamaha feel to it which is nice. It's amazing the transformation an hour or two doing some fretwork and smoothing/rounding every edge on the neck has on comfort. 

This will be my old skool thump Precision and the Aria STB that had the Chromes on will get rounds to go with the already fitted 1/4 Pound PU, and be my grindy rock Precision as it has a bit of a 70s look. 

 

 

It would look nice with bridge and PU covers on but I don't really like how cluttered they make a bass feel. Bridge ones are OK but the PU ones drive me nuts. 

I brought covers for my p bass and I thought I would get used to the one covering the pickup but I just couldn't and it impacted my playing so the pickup cover came off and the bridge one stayed on

Hi

Am looking at picking a cheap jazz bass and I can easily afford a Harley Benton, looking on the Thomann website they have the JB-20 which appears to be there Squier affinity clone and for a bit more they have the JB-75 which is basically a Vintage modified clone, does anyone have experience of these? Is it worth paying the extra for the JB-75? Thanks

JB-20

JB-75

Am after brightening up the tone on my P bass, have put some brighter strings on there but after a little more, am wondering what my best bet is for this , no load tone pot or TBX tone pot ? Thanks

51 minutes ago, ezbass said:

And totally lost in the over the top bass drum.

Oh yes, I remember a gig that I went to, great gig but soundwise not great and the bass drum read eq'd with so much low end that every time the drummer hit the bass drum you couldn't tell if it was the bass or the drums that you were hearing

On 16/02/2022 at 00:37, Marty Forrer said:

My reply to another thread made me wonder, why oh why do bassplayers have this obsession with cutting through? Got to admit, I was in this situation too until a couple of years ago. I use a wireless and always go out front to set my level and the desk levels (I run the PA too). One gig I decided to cut my bass volume as an experiment, and epiphany! The overall band sound, and in particular the vocals, drastically improved. This got me to thinking about listening to records, and I realised that in 75% of cases the bass was just audible. It was there for sure, but non-musicians could not hum along to the bassline. My conclusion: bass needs to make bums on seats twitch, but does not need to become another instrument for the punters to listen to. Since adopting this approach my band's sound and following have improved greatly. By lifting my cab off the floor I can hear myself fine, and my bandmates have become much more concious of making their sound fit the song. Food for thought.

I disagree, I know there are some musicians who think that bass should be felt and not heard but honestly I dont understand that mentality at all

Honestly I think the bass should be felt less and heard more, I have been to a lot of gigs where the bass was eq'd with bowel loosening amounts of low end and zero clarity, unfortunately that seems to be the trend now

3 hours ago, BlueMoon said:

Me too.

What does it take to drill in the correct places? I've done it myself on a few of mine over the years........never had a problem.

Yes and at that price there is no excuse, on a £200 Squier I could possibly overlook it but not on a bass costing thousands

On 13/02/2022 at 03:07, jd56hawk said:

Saw this one at Russo Music, a local shop.
Fender Custom Shop '60s Jazz Bass NOS Rosewood, Faded Shell PinkFender Custom Shop '60s Jazz Bass with AAA rosewood fingerboard, handwired single-coil pickups, and Fender Custom Shop New Old Stock finish treatment
$4,300.00

That bridge cover not covering the bridge pickup would bug me

1 hour ago, mcnach said:

Artec pickup arrived!

 

It has two bar magnets, I thought there were four? At least they seem to be mounted in the correct orientation.

 

The stock pickup sounded alright on Sunday. We recorded a couple of demo tracks. It was not exactly the sound I expect from a 'mudbucker', but having never owned one I am not sure how far my expectations are from reality. It sounded nice. The nylon tapes really suit this bass.

I'll give the Artec pickup a go at the weekend. After I vinyl wrap the cover too.

As long as they are able to magnetise the pole pieces it should not make any difference, the most important thing is the wind, I would test the dc resistance with a multimeter and as long as it is in the 30k range or close you should be all good

59 minutes ago, skychaserhigh said:

This is what I've done to mine. Bartolini MM humbucker with a John East MM 2 band pre amp. I think the mix of vintage and modern really works here, looks cool and sounds thunderous!

The mods were done by Jim Fleeting by the way , I'm not skilled enough to do this sort of thing. 

wow that is awesome, I have been thinking about getting a cheap P bass and doing something similar but the cost has always put me off

2 hours ago, Maude said:

I suppose, very generally speaking, a £500 bass is pretty much a £200 bass with some extra man hours and stricter QC. 

 

 

Having purchased a number of £500 basses and returned pretty much all of them I would agree with this but with the caveat that the QC improvements are generally very small,

As someone who has pretty much exclusively played cheap basses, I decided recently to get some decent basses but to set my limit at £500ish, for £500 you should be able to get a decent bass... right?

First one I ordered, initially I thought maybe it was just the particular model of bass that felt cheap, then I purchased more basses around this price point and I started to see a pattern, with the exception of the Fender pj Mustang bass they all felt like £200-£300 basses that someone had slapped a £500 price tag on.

In summary, if I ever feel the need to buy  what I consider a 'decent' bass I will look around the £700-£800 mark (assuming I am buying new), the improvements in the £500 range compared to basses in the £200 range are minimal considering the price difference.

10 hours ago, Majid said:

Hi Shoulderpet,

Did you attach any track for me to listen? I can’t find any…..

Apologies, I did mean to, this is the track

[YouTube]https://youtu.be/hgjXP_eS2R4

3 hours ago, Majid said:

I should also say that I noticed that I like a tone with a bit of fret buzz (It might sound funny or weird though but I really do). For this reason lowering the action gave a very good feeling to my tone in my ears. But I don't know to what extend a fret buzz can be considered as normal. Look at this video around (time 2:43 to 3:08):

What do you think about this tone? and is his action considered as super low? 

 

A bit of fret buzz can be a good thing, helps the bass cut through

Take a listen to this isolated bass track of Red hot chilli peppers Blood sugar sex magic album, the isolated track doesn't sound great but on the album that bees in a tin can buzziness is the special sauce that makes the bass sound great on the albums mix

37 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

Given the volume of purchases by factories there is little to no difference between material costs.

 

6 alnico slugs from Axesrus cost £10.50. 1000 alnico slugs from Rongchang Magnets* will cost £20 , 8 slugs make a pickup so 16p.

 

Ceramic pickups not only require iron slugs they also need a bar magnet. Again Rongchang sell 1000 for £20 , 4p + cost of slugs for a split-P.

 

 

* Rongchang Magnets chosen at random for prices

 

Alnico pickups generally use more copper wire but there's no way I could give the cost increase for a single pickup , maybe  0.001 p 🤣

 

The Encore likely does have a ceramic magnet pickup , with JHS banking on consumers shelling out £20 more for the same bass but with the "more expensive" alnico pickup.

 

Guitar companies make a killing from what the public are prepared to pay for so-called better materials. 

 

Oh yeah I mean the cost difference is minimal but as you say it is about perceived value more than anything else and people perceive ceramic to be inferior but the magnet is just one part of the pickup, same with cloth wires on pickups, pickup makers will state cloth wires as a selling point but they actually make no real difference at all

1 hour ago, Maude said:

To be fair they are all excellent basses/guitars. There's always the pick of bunch even from cheaper brands. 

The Kay is a neck through similar to Westone Thunder or Aria SB, actually made by Cort with very nice Powersound pickups, the Kimbara is a very accurate Gibson Ripper copy in looks and sound, the Hohner is a nice Arbour Series fretless P and the Melody is a cool little bowl back, f hole archtop acoustic guitar based on an Ovation. 

 

I like an underdog. 😉

 

Cool, yes with cheaper basses some can be really good, that Kay actually sounds really nice, would love a Westone Thunder, also really gives you a nice buzz knowing that the bass that you paid peanuts for is a really nice bass

2 minutes ago, Maude said:

I'll pull it apart tomorrow probably and give a good clean and polish. 

I'll see what's what then. 

 

I really need to stop buying 'rubbish' though. In my 5 space living room rack at the mo I have an Encore, Hohner, Kimbara, Melody and Kay. 

We had paramedics in the house earlier in the week and one of them was in a band and asked who the bassist was. It was almost embarrassing, you almost want to say, "I have some really nice basses in cases, honest."

😄

Haha, not heard of Kimbara or Melody, I know Kay are usually junk though but Hohner are actually often fairly playable

5 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

 

It's dead easy to tell if your Encore has ceramic or not , there will be a magnet glued to the underside 🙂

 

BTW the final years of Encore overlap with the other JHS brand "Vintage".

That's true although I think at this price point I think it's safe to assume it will be ceramic

1 minute ago, Maude said:

That's good to know because my other P bass has a SD 1/4 Pound and is aggressive and scooped. 

I'd like this to be more classic Motown P tone. 

My tone is generally very aggressive so I haven't used that pickup in a while but when I used it I was immediately reminded of Mike Mills from REM's P bass tone(not there earlier stuff when he used the ric), that kind of full,warm low mid focused tone