shoulderpet

Have managed to sort the issue, I did some googling and the 2 main causes of a sticky finish seem to be a) humidity too high when applying b) too much varnish applied so I sanded off the finish and started again and this time I did the application(s) outside for lower humidity and applied the varnish much more sparingly

Guy Pratt is awesome, I love his bassline on Like a Prayer , less enamoured with the actual song but the bassline itself is awesome

Yes, the bass on the original studio recording is a midi track but this one is billed as live and it appears that in this version it is real bass rather than midi

I quite like the bass tone, could maybe do with a little more bass but sounds pretty good to me..... I think you would absolutely hate my tone, I crank the treble on my amp and then engage the bright switch which gives me another +13 of treble..oh and I switch the tweeter on, lowish action so i get plenty of clank

Bass player is absolutely killing it in this, theres a looong intro and the song actually properly starts around 1min37s , I suspect this has been tweaked but even so..Damn I know what the next bassline I learn is gonna be [youtube]

Ok so have done the finish in satin varnish looks food but it feels a bit sticky, any pointers as to where I may have gone wrong? Thanks

Ok , have decided to go with a satin finish clear varnish,I figured this would be one of the most difficult ones to screw up, fingers crossed

Thanks, I think I might leave the colour as is for now and might try some beeswax or carnauba wax to seal the wood , have heard of people using boiled linseed oil for fretboards, wondering if that might be a viable option, also would like to keep to items with as few ingredients as possible so anything that is a pure oil or wax would be great

Hi all In an uncharacteristic idea for me I decided to strip the finish on a satin finish neck and refinish in a tinted gloss varnish as the original neck is a very pale maple colour, however after 3 attempts I have found that (probably because I suck at this kind of thing) I just cannot get an even finish so I have stripped the neck back to bare wood again and looking for easy refinishing ideas that I cannot easily bodge, I was thinking a clear gloss varnish would be hard to mess up but am wondering if there are any other options I should try, maybe there is some kind of wax I could use that will seal the wood and give it a nice gloss? thank you

Ok so have tried to do some soundclips of the Kent Armstrong Hot P compared with the Roswell Quarter Pound P , sound quality sadly is not great and you will have to excuse the sloppy playing and fret buzz, this is on a bass that is in need of a good fret dress and it was late, I was tired and not bothered about being precise. First part is the Kent Armstrong, 2nd is the Roswell Quarter Pound P, although the sound quality is not great on the recording I think I am hearing a stronger low mid bias on the Roswell pickup and a slightly brighter tone from the Kent Armstrong pickup Pickup comparison link

Hi I have some Neodymium bar magnets and I have a cheapy ceramic P pickup that I am planning to replace the ceramic magnet with the neo magnets, I could only find the bar magnets in 20mm length bars so my plan is to put 2 bar magnets side by side for each half of the pickup but I was wondering if it matters which side round the bar magnets are, to explain what I mean if you add a magnet to the bottom of an alnico pickup if the magnet is the wrong way round it will repel, seeing as I will be removing the ceramic magnet completely and these are not alnico pickups there will be nothing to repel the magnet? so does it matter which way round I have the magnets ? thank you

Ok so I have found some neodymium bar magnets for only a few quid so have ordered some and will be experimenting with them, not sure whether to use one of the ceramic pickups I have and replace the ceramic magnets with the neodymium magnets or whether to put them at the bottom of one of the pickups I have with Alnico pole pieces

Ahh so I guess nickel plated as then they do not have to use stainless steel, they just use a low grade of steel and nickel plate it so it doesn't rust ?

Having recently tried a load of P pickups I eventually decided to stay with the Roswell Quarter Pounder P pickup having a nice thick tone and having a good look to it, that being said I have found the highs a little muted compared to what was in the bass before and has less high end than the Duncan Quarter Pounder P pickup and being wound at 8k rather than (i believe) around 12 for the Duncan the pickup has slightly less output. This pickup is an alnico pickup that uses alnico 5 pole pieces, having some ceramic magnets spare from some cheap pickups and knowing that Dimarzio have a few pickups that have alnico pole pieces boosted by ceramic magnets and having read about people adding magnets to boost the magnetic field on pickups I thought why not give it a try. I was initally thinking I would epoxy the magnets underneath the pole pieces but the pole pieces stick out a good mm out the bottom so I resorted to taping the ceramic magnets to the bottom of the pickup using electrical tape. Put the pickup back in tuned my bass up, nice result! More highs and high mid punch, the pickup is very crisp sounding now, greater output, more of that piano like tone that you get with a bright bass/pickup, worth the experiment

I can well believe that the Squiers would be better, tbh my Squier Jaguar bass is a much better bass than the Musicmaster I owned (also a 79) ever was, I would get another Musicmaster IF the price was low (£400-500) with a view to modding the crap out of it

Yeah the prices are crazy, I owned one many years ago, I brought it for £75 and moved it on after 2-3 years, it was a terrible bass, weighed a ton, terrible bridge, cheap pickguard, the cheapest nut ever and the tone was terrible, really murky sounding, now on Ebay there are Musicmasters going for close to MIA Fender prices which is ridiculous when you consider that this was Fenders budget offering at the time that these were made, they even made the bodies from leftover wood from other instruments and put a strat pickup in to save costs

Hi Just wondering why is Nickel plated steel so common on cheap strings? Almost all of the cheapy strings out there, Harley Benton, Gear4music, Rotobass, Legacy, Johnny Brook are Nickel plated steel, there must be a reason but what is it? thanks

Have you tried a cable from your bass to a pedal and then the headphone amp plug goes in the output of the effect pedal, thats what i do with my Amplug and it works

Yeah it's the tone to me, Amplug sounds awful, noisy, mine is temperamental, really it should be a £20 device not £30-£35

Let us know how it is, I would love to find a replacement for my Amplug which is imo complete crap

Rotosound funk master's are your friend

I was listening to some music on Youtube and I was listening to this live track and I instantly thought about what you said about your bass sounding un-Raylike , if I were not watchign the video I would never think this was a Stingray [youtube]

Thats a Seymour duncan SPB-1 vintage P bass pickup and a Seymour duncan Jazz hot stack, I absolutely hated the SPB-1 when I had one

Ok fair enough, I tried Seymour Duncan hots, vintage and quarter pounder, I only liked the quarter pounder pickups though they are an acquired taste, the vintage were too boomy and not enough high mids for me, sounded like the tone knob was permanently rolled off, the hots were too middy. For punch you have a few options Entwistle Pbxn and Jbxn sound huge, a ton of punch but the magnets stick out several mm out the back of the pickups so you may have to route the cavity deeper for them. Dimarzio model p and model j are meant to be very good and are very popular with rock players but I have no direct experience with them EMG Geezer, again no experience with these but a lot of people like them and they are geared towards a rock tone so should have plenty of punch I currently have in my pj bass a Roswell QPA p pickup (Roswell clone of Seymour Duncan Quarter pounder p) and a Seymour Duncan Quarter pounder j pickup, both sound very good imo

I'm not a big fan Seymour Duncan pickups apart from their Quarter pounder pickups, what is it that you don't like about them? that will help others recommend replacements and possibly to work out what model of Duncan's you have currently. What is that funny black bar thing by the bridge?