shoulderpet

Thanks, I will add treble bleed to my "to do list"

Thanks, it is normal on a single pickup bass? I noticed as I turn down the volume it sounds like of like I have a tone pot that has been turned down about halfway which is odd as I have no tone pot at all

Ok so 1 mod completed, after trying a couple of different wiring configurations I decided to just go with 1 volume no tone for the brightest tone possible without wiring direct to the output jack. Tim at Gig.ink cut the new control plate for me. Tonally this beast is bright, lots of growl and treble on tap. I have a transparent pickguard on the way which will cover up the screw holes but still keep the red finish visible I tried the Kiwi polish trick on the neck but I ended up removing it with some alcohol shortly afterwards as it barely took to most of the neck but on the edges of the neck it left a red stain 🤮 I have been looking into replacement necks and I am considering getting one of the Northwest P bass necks, a Tele style headstock would be nice but is by no means a deal breaker, it is more the pale satin finish that bugs me, I have always been a vintage tint gloss kind of person Ok just noticed that whilst the tone is lovely and bright with the volume on full it gets noticeably darker as the volume is rolled off, is this normal?

Hi I have a bass that I suspect has the nut cut a little high, I searched but could not find anything, basically I am wondering what the action at the 1st fret should be, hoping someone can help, thanks

The way I think about the pricing is that with the MIM Fenders with the Player series you have what is basically Fenders "entry level" instrument ie the cheapest instruments available that will carry the Fender name, ime the Player series is basically comparable to the cheaper Squiers, maybe slightly better quality but not a world of difference and at this price point you are pretty much just paying for the name. When you go up in pricing to Vintera and Classic 50's these basses are a tonne better than the Player series, better necks, hardware, pickups the lot. The player plus series is also better than the standard Player series but I would take the Vintera or the Classic 50s over these . This is all imo and based on my experience only, I had a chance recently to play a load of Fenders/Squiers from the entry level Squiers up to the more expensive MIM Fenders

What are your thoughts on the aftermarket pickups you have tried? The stock pickup is decent but it seems to be a clone of the Duncan Quarter pounder so probably not the most traditional single coil tone, Herrick are probably not either but there promise of a brighter tone with added treble with the Neodymium pickup is intriguing.

Tbh I have never played a bass where the hum has been an issue, as you say it's usually drowned out by all the other sounds

Yeah that is a bit confusing, I wonder if they got the eq mixed up with the vintage wound scpb1, people usually think of vintage pickups as being bassy but in reality that are often fairly full range and bright. I haven't had a chance to use the PB-50 in a live setting or rehearsal yet so I think that will be the test for the hum, I know there are stacked coil 51 pickups that are meant to address this but my hunch is that they will change the fundamental character of the 51 pickup

Thanks, that is good to know, funnily enough the Duncan SCPB-2 is one I am interested in, it is a hot pickup but Duncans Eq specs say that this pickup has strong treble response which is something that appeals to me

Ok after looking on the Seymour Duncan website it appears there single coil P pickup is also 84.94mm (or 3.344" as it says on the website) so it would appear it is Herrick that is a slightly different size to standard spec

Just wondering if anyone has done a pickup swap on a Harley Benton pb-50? Is the pickup a standard length(will for example a Duncan single coil p pickup fit?) Roswell says it is 84.94mm in length and just looking at Herrick pickups and there single coil p pickup is 87mn in length, my guess is the Roswell is slightly different to standard spec but I could well be wrong Am asking as the pickup route is very tight in terms of space, there is no wiggle room at all

I share this sentiment regarding there amps,a place that my band uses to rehearse has Ashdown amps and I'm sure some people get great tones out of Ashdown amps but I can never get enough top end out of them, it always seems to sound like the highs are rolled off regardless of how I set the controls on the amp

So looking for some wiring ideas, I found the below diagram which is supposedly for a bass cut, does this look correct?

Jesus, why not just use lighter strings

Apparently he plays really softly so most of the pressure would be on his fretting hand, still an incredible amount of string tension though

Haha yes, I have owned a few Fenders and even if the routing was done via a panel on the back of the bass you still couldn't take off the scratchplate because of those bloody locating holes they punch into them

Interesting, I am glad I am lucky to get some without the hole under the scratchplate although at this price it is by no means a deal breaker Am liking mine so far, is good to go out of the box, nice bright tone, only grumble is the bit of fret buzz on the first couple frets but at this price you can't expect the frets to be perfect and I have seen worse fret work on much more expensive and honestly I have played much more expensive basses that been worse basses

Ok so have received the bass, overall I am pretty happy so far, some shortcomings but that is exactly what you would expect at this price and they are all things that can be sorted in one way or another The nut is a cheapo, I may replace it but I love the fact that it is cream coloured, that is awesome so I am thinking maybe I will get some fine sandpaper and just smooth the edges a bit on it instead, some fret tarnish which is not a big deal and some T-Cut will sort that out, the pickguard is super cheap looking but not a big deal as I was looking to replace that anyway. The pickup has some tarnish on the pickup poles, anyway to remove or cover this without damaging the magnets?(from what I have heard this pickup is alnico5) I lowered the action to Fender spec and there is some fret buzz on frets 1 and 2 on the E string but not anywhere else on the neck so I am thinking that the frets probably need dressing, I might just slap a heavier E string on there to reduce the string excursion until I have the cash to get the frets dressed. Looking forward to giving the neck the Kiwi polish treatment, what colour do people usually use? Also is it limited to just Kiwi shoe polish? I have seen this which if it works looks like it might actually be a better colour Cherry Blossom shoe polish - light tan I read somewhere about some of the PB-50's having the ground wire under the pickguard, thankfully on mine it is under the control plate, looks really good with the pickguard off so I might just have a see through pickguard made for the sake of having something to put the pickguard screws into to hide the screw holes where the white pickguard was I was looking at no load pots and found that it has been suggested that they don't work as volume pots only as tone pots so I have instead ordered some 1meg pots for some extra brightness, am hoping my soldering has improved enough to not bodge it up

Its a good thing you had a multi-meter to test it with otherwise you might not have known, personally I was not a fan of the stock Epiphone EB0 pickup as the low dc resistance makes it sound kind of weak, I found that tapes and flats made it sound a tonne better

Just to add to my post, really, Really oddly the tone I got from flatwounds that cut through the mix best was on a Hofner contemporary club bass, both pickups on full, slight boost in the upper mids and treble, cut through no problem but for some reason a P bass with flats just doesnt with me Sadly I stopped using the Hofner as the 14mm string spacing made it really awkward to switch to other basses

Steve Harris changes them for every gig and every recording session, fresh flatwounds can be pretty aggressive however for most of us they are just too expensive for us to be able to afford to do this

Oddly enough I am one of the few that finds flats work better at home, I find most bass amps and rigs have more than enough low end (too much on a lot of them) and then when you throw in guitars and a drummer I find it gets hard to hear what is going on

I would look at used, someone on here said the other day that a £500 bass is essentially a £200 bass with slightly better quality control and a little more labour time and I really agree with that assessment, I have played (and returned) a number of £400-500 basses and I am always struck by how marginal the improvements are vs basses that I own that are in the £200-250 price range

This is true, Affinity used to be pretty good value for money but now looking at the Affinity series you can nowadays get a better bass than an Affinity for less

Ok so as I never actually use tone controls I am thinking of just having a volume control, I will reach out to one of the companies that does custom pickguards and see if they will make me a control plate shape with one hole for the volume control to replace the original control plate