shoulderpet

This charming man by the Smiths, I can probably play with no mess ups 40% of the time, very busy bass part and all over the neck

Honestly I think the mixes sound better than before but I was hoping for a less conservative remix of the songs. For example the bass in the early stuff that has been remixed is still pretty quiet even for the era, i think the bass should have been made a little less boomy and it could then have been made louder, there may well have been technical reasons this could not have been done but I suspect they didn't want to stray too far from the original mix for fear of upsetting people.

A refret will not be needed for years unless you have frets made of cheese, honestly I wouldn't worry about it too much, if the bass is cheap then just replace it if it eventually needs a refret, if it is something pricier then a few hundred quid for a refret in many years time is a small price to pay comparatively speaking. I am using stainless Rotos on my new build and if the frets eventually get worn down I will just buy a new neck

And so more nut fixing being done, whilst the other slots are sorted the A string slot is a tiny bit on the low side so have refilled the nut slot for the A string and will refile to correct height. Worth noting, I recommend when fixing a nut that superglue and cornstarch is used instead of the usual superglue and baking soda, using cornstarch gives the same results but it gives you a couple of minutes to work with it before it sets completely instead of getting only a couple of seconds to work with baking soda and superglue.

So, I have swapped the P pickup again, this time for a Seymour Duncan SPB-2 that I had spare which is my usual go-to pickup. I initially wanted a bright P pickup but I figured that the Duncan although usually is a very low mid heavy pickup and quite dark would be significantly brighter without any pots to load it down and in an ash bass with a maple fingerboard and I was right, the tone is plenty bright but with some nice hefty low mids, no issues at all getting treble from this setup I am going to hang onto the Kent Armstrong as it is a nice pickup and I will use it if I decide to get the bass routed for a 2nd P pickup.

Thank you, I still need to get a nicer pickguard sorted but is coming along nicely

I have (more times that I like to admit) often just cut up an unused washing up sponge and used that, proper foam is obviously 100 times better but it does the trick in an emergency

Awesome, thank you

One of these over the bridge should help

And so after a mishap with the wiring I have the pickup now wired direct to the output jack, initially I was going to redo the wiring with volume and tone or similar but I am seriously considering just leaving it as is as it sounds so good direct to the output jack, very loud and very bright and with the Rotos has a nice bite to the tone, added a couple extra screws to the pickguard also

I would pass on it and I speak from personal experience. Was in a band where the singer would book gigs with lousy pay, tiny crowds etc, the first gig we played he told the venue as it was the first gig we had done for them we would do it for £100, we then did a few gigs at a venue for a percentage of the bar takings, he then booked us to play a few songs and to loan our equipment for a battle of the bands bash on the promise of a paid gig with the venue a few weeks later. The problem is when you accept gigs for low amounts of money, poor conditions etc not only do you get shafted in terms of pay but because you are undervaluing your services the venues treat you like dirt because they see you as cheap entertainment and nothing more. I remember the above mentioned series of gigs we did at a venue for bar takings the staff would harass us to hurry up packing our kit up after we had just played a gig for them for basically the cost of a couple pints.

Funny you mentioned removing the tone control, I have had a little "mishap" with the pots on my build and I have just removed the volume and tone and wired straight to the jack socket, I am actually considering leaving it this way as without the loading effect of the pots it sounds really gnarly and aggressive.

The price doesn't surprise me, look at the cost of Fenders nowadays, there MIM Player series which is there cheapest most basic line is £750 and up, some Squirts are selling your £400+ , prices are crazy and everything is overpriced now.

Nice, I am thinking of adding a bridge pickup eventually but maybe another P pickup as I am more of a P bass person and most of my favourite tones from other players are p bass so would be good to be able to use a P bridge pickup for some extra high mids bite with a little of the middle position P pickup rolled in.

I'm open to anything however loud as long as it looks good really. I have a cheapy black pickguard on the way (hopefully it fits) whilst I decide what kind of pickguard to go for. Those AliExpress ones looks pretty good, worth a try at that price I think.

Ok so I had a fun lunchtime, an adjustment I made to the setup revealed that I had cut the nut too low on the D string so out came the talc(cornstarch) and super glue( I was out of baking soda so had to improvise), filled the slot and re-filed it. Got the Kent Armstrong pickup and went to fit it and somehow managed to yank out the bridge ground so off came the bridge and I had to refit the ground wire, was not expecting that, anyhow new pickup fitted so all good, not had a chance to have a proper listen to it but I can tell already it is better than the pickup it replaced.

Ok fair enough, glad you found a neck that you like. I wish that Fender would sell the Vintera p bass necks separately, those necks are lovely.

Bit confused as to why this is a "conversion" neck, surely there is no conversion needed you just buy a jazz neck and stick it on a precision bass.

Ok, I have a Kent Armstrong ceramic hot pickup on the way to replace the Wilkinson. Next question is, what colour for the pickguard? What colour would go well with red? The existing pickguard is ok but a little boring

Not much to add to this other than the few basses I have played that have had 2 tone controls, the tone control for one pickup always seemed to also turn down the tone for the other pickup, I'm sure there must be a workaround but worth knowing.