shoulderpet

1 hour ago, Ricky Rioli said:

 

"Do you get much damage to the fingers? 

 

Yeah, the first couple of weeks I get blisters. Then they burst. They're really, really sore for a few days, then they go really hard, and that's it. They stay like that for the rest of the tour.

 

When you play somewhere really, really hot and get really sweaty, your hands go soft, and that completely changes your sound. Your fingers tend to sort of sink into the strings, almost. And there's nothing you can do about that. It's like someone put a muffler over your speakers. So, you just have to add more top-end to try and compensate, but there's not a lot you can do. 

 

With the blisters, have you tried putting stuff on to harden them? 

 

Yeah [dismissively], tried that. Doesn't work. I tried that Nu Skin stuff, when I've had a blister that's come open, when you're through to the skin underneath, that's really sore. But once you get out playing, get the adrenaline going, you tend to be alright anyway. It hurts a bit, but sometimes the pain—you just grit your teeth and get on with it."

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

31 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

Aye , you'd be scunnered finding this on your MIA Fender 🤣

 

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

58 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

?

 

After the factory change in 2018, some owners reported the hook up wire from the single coil being visible under the scratchplate. The channel was formed by drilling from the top , one hole angled into the pickup cavity while another went towards the control cavity.

 

PB-50 FR belongs to friend, burst is one of mine.

 

 

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

On 23/02/2022 at 16:44, mcnach said:

 

It definitely isn't. Now that I've seen the stock pickup in my bass I can confirm it's the same pickup that they sent me.

I guess the seller just bought a few to sell on and copied the description based on what he thought he had. He didn't contest, I just printed the return label and will be posted tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile I ordered another Artec from a different place, but it's going to take 3-4 weeks.

 

I have to say that since I put a set of nylon tapewounds it sounds a lot better. 

 

 

 

 

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

4 hours ago, shoulderpet said:

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

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

23 minutes ago, NT1991 said:

I get what you mean they can be difficult in some settings, however I think Steve Harris of Iron Maiden uses flats and his tone really suits rock/metal which I always find weird. Although he may well just change them a lot more regularly, and I suppose tone is still in the fingers...

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

On 10/02/2022 at 11:46, jackreacher193 said:

No wouldn't be going that low. Want something substantially better than what I've got now. So looking around £400.

 

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

On 10/02/2022 at 11:43, lownote said:

 I have had an Affinity and it was OK, it's just that the bass world's offering has changed a lot in say the last five years, both with new players in the field and a ramp up in quality across the board.

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

On 21/02/2022 at 16:37, shoulderpet said:

Yeah, I will wait for the bass to be delivered and assuming all is well I have some mods I want to do 

 

No load pots

Kiwi shoe polish neck tint mod

New pickguard (white always looks awful imo)

Brass saddles (purely aesthetic)

 

I would love to reshape the headstock to look like a 51 p bass but I have neither the tools or the know sadly

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

23 hours ago, mcnach said:

Not happy.

 

My multimeter had ran out of batteries, and I only just managed to get today the MN21 type it requires.

 

I checked the pickup and it's 1.2 KOhm, not 29-30 as advertised.

 

To cut the story short, I received exactly the same pickup it's already on the Epiphone: 

- slightly narrower polepiece spacing than the Artec should be, and identical to the stock one down to the marks on the magnets.

- 2 magnets rather than 4 (it may not make much difference, but it's evidence of it not being the pickup advertised

- 2 wires rather than 4 (I don't really care as I will only use series, but... again it looks like the stock pickup)

- no sticker with the model number, which the Artecs have

 

It's going back.

That's a real shame, sounds like they sent you the wrong pickup, from the above or doesn't sound at all like it is the Artec

23 hours ago, mcnach said:

Not happy.

 

My multimeter had ran out of batteries, and I only just managed to get today the MN21 type it requires.

 

I checked the pickup and it's 1.2 KOhm, not 29-30 as advertised.

 

To cut the story short, I received exactly the same pickup it's already on the Epiphone: 

- slightly narrower polepiece spacing than the Artec should be, and identical to the stock one down to the marks on the magnets.

- 2 magnets rather than 4 (it may not make much difference, but it's evidence of it not being the pickup advertised

- 2 wires rather than 4 (I don't really care as I will only use series, but... again it looks like the stock pickup)

- no sticker with the model number, which the Artecs have

 

It's going back.

That's a real shame, sounds like they sent you the wrong pickup, from the above or doesn't sound at all like it is the Artec

17 hours ago, Geek99 said:

Yes i am that person

 

I have those in my p bass - there’s a very slight tactile “click” (not audible) as the pots go full on at 10 and come off the track - sounds amazing 

 

Much better answer than a blank plate - good idea 

Yeah, I will wait for the bass to be delivered and assuming all is well I have some mods I want to do 

No load pots

Kiwi shoe polish neck tint mod

New pickguard (white always looks awful imo)

Brass saddles (purely aesthetic)

I would love to reshape the headstock to look like a 51 p bass but I have neither the tools or the know sadly

3 hours ago, uk_lefty said:

In theory a PJ bass should be everything I want. I loved my P bass, I've enjoyed every J bass I've had. I've not got on with my Warwick PJ, or the Hohner PJ before that. I've made a PJ Bitsa and put DiMarzios in it. The pups sound great individually, but together I've just never found a way to get the sound I want from PJ basses. I think it's just me, maybe my expectations are wrong or its the way I attack the strings.... Anyone else got this quandary?

Im not a massive fan of P/J basses, I had a Fender Mustang that sounded good in P/J mode but all the other basses I have tried have all been Meh in P/J mode, you lost a lot of the beef in the tone as soon as you roll in that J pickup, Also things get a little bit brighter but you lose some of the snarl from the P pickup along with a good chunk of mids

Something has just occurred to me as a possibility, hoping someone with more know how than me can weigh in.

If I used no load pots for both the volume and tone when both pots are on full would that then essentially be the same in terms of tone and output as going direct to the output Jack?

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