itu

Once more: www.ovnilab.com

I had issues with a flight company: they forgot my instrument to the airport and then ruined the molded case. I would not fly with either of my M80, if I did not buy a ticket and a seat to her. That SKB looks rough and tough enough to withstand airport abuse.

I feel this is very close to some old Bass Player article. Overall it is a short overview. Some links to other texts by him are "interesting" like the ten best basslines. In fact many details are inaccurate: Alembic (1969) is certainly older company than Warwick (1982). A. Jackson started to play 6-string in the 80's rather than 70's. This is marketing, not historically correct text.

Madinter has instrument woods, too. Their blackwood was my choice for the fretless fretboard. Hard and black. It is actually tinted.

* or Russian, or American, or _________ Place whatever country on the line. If the kid is OK with the training, go ahead. If not, blame his/her parents.

My Achilles heel has always been the neck profile. I ended up ordering a custom fretless from a luthier.

If you are thinking about the resale, you are not going to keep it. I can see no reason to buy this one.

If you want to understand the basics of the signal chain, I wrote something to the following thread. It may help you a bit. Another thing is to understand the physical details, like pickup height, and the effect of strings (Ni vs. SS, flat/ground/round).

Come on, my answer was the third from the given options.

Humbuckers and a very functional preamp, need I say more?

Check "Takamine bass gothic", and find at least two black instruments of the 80's.

Digital multimeter. Simple functional units start from maybe under £20.

pickups - blend - vol - tone - output Any part in this signal chain can be "active" (battery powered, that is; low impedance = lo-Z to be correct). The most common way to "activate" an instrument is to add a battery powered tone capsule that can boost certain frequencies (most common are B/T). High impedance circuits (hi-Z, "passive" tone) can only cut. EMG has pickups with internal buffers. They can be considered "active", but the main point is that their output is lo-Z. Lo-Z output is less prone to interference and the cable length does not deteriorate the signal so much. For the hi-Z signal maybe 30 feet/10 m is still doable, but lo-Z signal can pass even 300 feet/100 m cable lengths. OK, if any part of the signal chain is lo-Z (to simplify things: battery powered), the output becomes lo-Z. The least common parts in the chain are active blend and vol. There are only few companies that offer active mixing like Audere, EMG, John East, and Noll. That £300 Sadowsky is only a tone circuit, if not pretty nice sounding. Why bother having an active mixing? Well, the biggest issue is, that any hi-Z component directly in the signal chain does two things: reduces volume and frequency response. Guitarists tend to use bleeding capacitors in the (hi-Z) pots to lessen the higher frequency reduction. If the "active" circuitry is only after the blend and vol, these first two pots affect the sound, like it or not.

Battery change is in need. If you have a DMM, it might be feasible to measure the voltage now. When you put the new in, write the month and year to the battery. Then you will see the approximate battery lifetime.

Yes, the resistance of the coils has a bit to do with the output level. But you can compensate the level with your amp settings. Preamp is usually wanted because of the eq, not the output. You get the possibility to sculpt the sound with T/M/B/LP/BP, semi parametric or whatever. Most of the preamps do not handle panning, but that is done with simple high impedance pots (250k/500k MN by Bourns is good for blend). It is the same with volume, cheap parts. John East, EMG, and Audere have real mixers, but these are rare. Maybe Alembic has mixing, too. Go and test the pickups. It is possible to wire them in series/parallel/single with a (rotary) switch, but I would say, that in practice you need only two of those three options: series/single or series/parallel. Parallel and single are so close together, I would leave the other out. If the pickups have 4-wire outputs, you can play with many options, a rotary switch (one hole) may be helpful, or just take two ON/ON DPDT ordinary switches (two holes needed) for sound variation possibilities. The choice of parallel (more output) or single (clearly thinner sound) depends on if you need the level difference against the humbucker. Nowadays I would say: take series/parallel, and use series most of the time.

Anything Bootsy has played is... different. Takamine did pointy black and red basses. Overwater Original is kool. T-bird is to be considered, reverse or not. The time of hair, glitter, and heavy produced quite strange instruments, like B. C. Rich. There has been machine guns, stars, sticks and so on. http://1musicstudio.blogspot.com/2013/04/guitar-shapes-explained-part-2.html

I have tools with me, so if there is a problem, I try to solve it right away. Twice there has been a wire issue.

If there is a thread in the other end, this could be done by any machine shop that has few tools. Looks very simple. Production time, maybe one hour depending on the surface quality and if the thread is not exotic. Two metal parts cut to measure, two holes, thread, polishing... what else?

To be honest, I love the work you have done @LukeFRC. My humble point was, that colours tend to look quite funny on an uncalibrated display. Take a walk in a TV store and see it yourself.

Second option is to open the back cover and take few sharp, big and well lit photos. Then share them with us. We may be able to see, if there is a clear issue, that can be repaired. A bass preamp is very simple like a bassist (read: me). Fifth option is to bring the bass to someone who has some understanding in electronics. S/he can fix the unit for you. OR (option #1) is that this person takes the preamp out and changes it or only takes it away.

@rk7 has a very good story of his Overwater and her modification. A must read. https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/423202-rk7s-overwater-chambering/

If you have a zero fret, the nut can be practically in any angle. I have seen a fanned fret bass with the nut perpendicular to the side of the neck (and strings). If you have time and want to experiment, you can carve the nut the way you want. Should it overlap the fretboard, the stem could be thinner than the top of the (zigzag shaped) nut. Then the string path could be made straight from the bridge to the tuner.

Have you ever used a ColorMunki or similar with your computer? Colours change drastically after the first calibration. I suggest a check every 6 months. I did work with photos and the Monkey was really worth its price. But if your white is bluish and so on, there is no reason to concentrate on colours. The colour reproduction is not related to the price, or size, or brand of the unit. Not at all.

I think that a good deal is one thing and a vintage equipment another. - 1960's precision, jazz, Rickenbacker, Ampeg... - 1970's Alembic, Music Man... - effects like Maestro, Eventide, tce, EHX... Prepare to have deep pockets even while doing those good deals. There are many others chasing the same stuff. Reverb.com is a good place to start.

Mouser supplies components. If it is a capacitor, a new one should be 105 degree version. They are better than plain 85 degree versions.