itu

Oh dear, I can see the headlights going towards woods. The woods of Tone...

How about a moving pickup? - one of the first Alembics (Jefferson Airplane and...) - Gibson Grabber - Westone Rail - Spalt vViper Then you have all possible options available. Problem solved.

The cheapest option is to buy good ones in the first place. Keep the length under 10 ft / 3 m. They are easy to coil and keep in good shape for years to come. Just like @BigRedX said, Neutriks and silicone cable. I still have my first self made cable up and running. Made in the late 80's or early 90's. Do the maths: yearly cost is minimal. Try Thomann.de.

Was it Larrivee (Eloustic?) that made hollow body basses in the 80's or 90's? There were no openings, but the body was really light. Maybe made from glass fibre?

I won't tell you. You don't know, you cannot torture me.

Not everybody is the same, but... It is nice to buy a pedal and expect to get an instant super sound from it, while it should be tested thoroughly. Yes, you can turn every knob to 11, but have you ever done it? Learning curve can be very steep even with simple units.

I have tried a few, and my holy grail was a X-over. With it I can keep the lows clean, and distort (or flange, or...) everything from 400 Hz upwards. Four hundred suits me, your choice may be something else. Even pretty bad OD/dist/fuzzes sound decent, when they do not mush the lower register. I think Rolls has a cheap unit for trials.

I wouldn't be surprised that the tones are also 500k. Besides if the originals were 250k, you may get a hint of highest end with them. A = audio = log pot B = linear Except these may be the other way around, as there's no standard with naming, and conventions vary a lot.

As said, use the MN type pot. Ordinary log/audio, or linear taper starts at the other end and stops in the other. In blend tapers start from the center detent (or middle). Therefore you get 100 % in the middle. Note: This is a hi-Z circuitry! Battery powered mixers (or active blends like Noll Mixpot) may have very different way of working and shouldn't be compared directly without deeper knowledge of the functions.

That"s one of the coolest instruments I've seen in a long time!

My experience has been that a burnt breaker is very rare. Maybe two, three times, but then the electricity has been questionable. I have played maybe +1500 gigs and far more rehearsals. Of course any suspect unit can kill a breaker, but that usually happens in a soundcheck. At the moment I play in a band with 2 x JBL PRX735 (1.5 kW/side) after a U24i, a tube g-amp (12 or 50 W), piano, a Glockenklang Soul (450 W). On top of that, half a dozen LEDs. A quick calculation gives +3500 W (full power including LEDs), and that is around 16 A. But there's no need to drive the set so loud. The max RMS power taken from the line is probably closer to 20 % of the max = 2 - 4 A. I think this should be measured some time...

...and the pot has to be a Bourns MN 250k or MN 500k. MN has balance tapers.

How about blue suede shoes? Would that make a difference?

Not so, because aluminium is so light in weight, it works only for metallic (a paint or similar). For medium metal it should be steel. Lead is illegal, so heavy substances are mostly gone.

I heard a slight change in tone. If the pickups weren't the same, and their height was different, they weren't testing the pickguard.

It's horrible to play, as I expected, mostly because of the flat strings. Sound is so short that a comp couldn't make it any longer. Very much what I thought it would be. Band actually liked it. Left me wondering why. @KiOgon did this nice rotary switch which is very usable.

The tone zone by Scott Malandrone An old BP article, Jan/Feb 1995. I found it here: http://www.bandatempo.com/baixos/pres.pdf

I'd be amazed if Sire didn't have any spare parts. If they do not for some awkward reason, Mouser et al. may have something reasonable in their selection. If the pot is very exotic, you may put one together from two units. Wiring the pot to the PCBA is an option, if it doesn't fit exactly to old holes.

I have ran after so many basses during the years. Big things happen after trying them. Steinberger was the biggest disappointment of my bass playing life: very round, chunky neck from a double bass. Never again. Alembics still interest me, but so far I have met sky high prices, super small string spacings, instruments made of lead (I think)... but maybe one day. Of course the bass has to look good, but the feel and later on the sound will tell, whether you will really play it or not.

This depends on the brand. ESP 6-string was really wide, like a table. I do not see an issue using a 4-string body with wider necks. Less wood may equal lighter body, too.

This is one very good point. Most amps are clean until they are driven to their limits. @Bill Fitzmaurice commented also about cabs. If these two are clean at high volume levels, we can call the set non-distorted. N'est-ce pas? There are lots of descriptive words, that are not standardized in any way, and I think sterile means something connected to hospitals, doesn't it? There are words that are freely used in music, and try to represent sound, but most of them are like quotes from wine reviews: "round and fruity". Doesn't mean a thing. THD, response, sensitivity, loudness... I know, too complicated to understand. - My amp sounds a bit sterile, but growly! - Say what?

Very much the same with us trying to play Africa, and the piano solo starts...

I might change one word from the headline: "easy" to "simple". One of my favourite songs is "Everybody wants to rule the world". Just eighths, only eighths, and nothing but the eighths.

Switchcraft may be known for quality, but plugs and jacks not. Neutrik makes good plugs, the solution is still somewhat cheapo, but it is the standard today.