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

On 10/11/2023 at 09:10, Jonge McLengo said:

For anyone not keeping up with the stream of Beatles stuff that’s been coming recently, new versions of the Red and Blue albums have come out featuring a load of AI-assisted proper stereo remixes of some of the early stuff as well as a few of the later period songs that hadn’t been covered yet, mostly Magical Mystery Tour stuff.

 

I reckon most of the remixes are a revelation, especially of the early stuff - it’s bizarre to hear that music with separation between the instruments, and really exposes how good the drumming is!

 

The remix of I Am the Walrus though… very questionable. It’s like he’s tried to recreate the weird stereo mix and the second half sounds like it’s in a box, and the radio is way too loud.

 

 If you’re curious: Red and Blue. Thoughts?

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.

On 02/12/2023 at 09:21, max_overdrive said:

I came across a youtube video in which a guy asserts that since stainless steel is harder than nickel, stainless steel strings will eventually damage nickel frets. Is this true?

 

I understand that some of us have dozens of guitars which they cycle so for them fret wear is going to be extremely slow, but I currently own only 1 bass guitar which I play frequently so I want to know if what this youtuber is saying is a fact. The last thing I want is to have to re-fret the neck.

 

Thanks in advance.

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.

On 25/11/2023 at 10:11, mrbacco said:

very nice build you have there! bravo! 🙂 

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

8 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/386166369662?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=ef1mXj02Rzi&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=SRFiokWqR6y&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

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

Final offer, now £65 collected

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.

15 hours ago, PaulThePlug said:

Far too confident screwing the cavity plate on... Yep... Blend working Ar$e about Face... Think DiMarzio wiring diag was for AC not MN... nothing stated... and their recommended 250k / 0.033u don't seem to do much tone-wise... 'praps i should go A250?.. might even do without... [Edit: Just removed the tone...]

Think i might need to take a second look as Vol doesn't seem to go Zero? Anyone? Un-Ground the Blend?

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.

On 15/11/2023 at 17:08, 1Poser1 said:

Hi all, first post here, I was looking to off load some of my basses and noticed there are very few (If Any) for sale in the UK and the price is in excess of £1200!! anyone know why these have rocketed in price and are more rare?  pic of mine attached.

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.

Now £75 collected

Now £80 collected

52 minutes ago, PaulThePlug said:

Depends if you are happy drilling holes? 13 v 11 etc... there are a few on Aliexpress - neck truss as well so watch out... quality is good... This on my Aria Pro Jazz to PJ...

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.

1 hour ago, Richard R said:

I went to Tesco and bought ibuprofen.  You win!

 

How wild do you want to go with the pick guard? British racing green? Cyan? 

1 hour ago, PaulThePlug said:

I'm Red/Green Colour Blind... Red and Green does the 'stand-off' or 'behind' thing with my eyes...

 

The Green Pearl looks Wonderful - nice with the maple neck.

 

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mO7snGC

 

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.

Up for sale is my Harley Benton JB62, collection from Bognor regis.

Bass has a couple of blemishes which I have tried to show in the attached pictures, a finish scratch around the bridge pickup area, a couple of chips in the finish around the neck pocket, the control plate also doesn't sit completely flush, this was caused by me fitting a wiring harness with series parallel (the harness takes up more room internally than the stock wiring did).

The aforementioned wiring harness with series parallel is still fitted and gives a nice boost in the mids in series

23 hours ago, Lord Summerisle said:

Maybe it’s because it looks like a P neck (with Precision Bass written on the headstock and dot inlays) but with the J dimensions. That’s noticeably different to putting to putting on a Jazz neck, isn’t it?

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.

Dimarzio COPY Jazz bass bridge pickup for sale, looks like a Dimarzio but is not, is a single coil and the pole pieces are not adjustable.

Despite this it sounds pretty good, seems loud but not muddy so would be a good choice in a PJ setup, the wires have been trimmed down a little but still a good 7ish inches of wire

£15 shipped.

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.