Obrienp

Nice bass! If it seems reasonably balanced across the strings, I would leave it where it is. Generally pickups are set a bit lower under the bottom strings than the top but there are bound to be some exceptions to the rule. You might be able to find some guidance on the recommended pickup height by searching online but that will be based on all other things being stock: i.e. string height, gauges, etc, which takes us back to: if it sounds OK to you, I would leave it where it is. You won’t do it any harm by experimenting with the pickup height though.

Thank you for the offer but I’m trying to keep myself away from anything that might induce further GAS at the moment. I have an LFSys Monza on order….. I lasted about two months after selling my two Orange 12s, before deciding I needed a single as well as my BF Two10. 🥴

Another one I had never heard of! Quite a bit cheaper than a BF 2x12 as well but a bit heavier.

Have you tried any of the Barefaced 10CR based cabinets? They are designed to have a more vintage sound while combining the benefits of compact size and light weight. They also have amazing power handling, so although they do an 8 x 10, I can’t imagine a situation where you would need that much power handling and such high SPL. I have a Two10 and it is goes loud, while giving a nice vintage sound. It also weighs less than 14 Kg with the cloth grill.

I tend to buy mine off fleaBay. Possibly not the cheapest way of doing it but there seem to be plenty of suppliers on there. Outlets that sell components, like Northwest Guitars, also carry it but their prices can be a bit steep.

With through body stringing 👍.

Amazing looking venue! Enjoy!

I just bought a Bass Flyrig from Patrick. A very smooth transaction and he even delivered it to me on his way to Sunny Hunny! You can’t beat that for service. A really good bloke and a pleasure to deal with.

I agree with you about the pickguard but why would they put a two saddle bridge on it? Especially as it is likely to be sold at a premium price! Intonation is a bit dodgy on short scale basses anyway; why make it even worse? The first thing I would want to do as an owner, is put a decent four saddle bridge on it and it would just annoy me that I have to do that on a premium instrument.

Yep but the Standard is even cheaper: £85! I was trying to work out what justified the extra £18 and noticed that the SBK body is poplar and the Standard basswood. I suppose the black chrome hardware might add a bit of cost too. I would like these even more if they had a jazz style neck. The Standard has a typical P-bass 42mm nut width and the SBK stats don’t say, so I assume it is the same.

I guess most people on here would rip off all the hardware and electronics to replace them with better after market items. However, you can’t cure a dodgy truss rod that way. It might still be worth it if you get a good one. I can’t think of another shorty P-Bass like object that comes anywhere near this price bracket.

P.S. Thank you for the suggestions folks. Quite a lot to try in the future!

I thought I should tie the thread up with what I actually did. Having considered the passive switch and the fully passive option, I decided to go for a two band Glockenlang preamp, as a drop in replacement (ha, ha). I didn’t want to drill anymore holes in the bass, so that ruled out the passive switch and stacked vol/tone pot. The Glockenlang has good write-ups and it gives me the passive circuit out of the box. I am holding the totally passive mod as a fall back, if I’m not satisfied with the active/passive solution. As @BassBunny said above, the Glockenlang doesn’t colour the sound of the pickups but that also reveals their imperfections, so I decided I would upgrade in that department too. I set myself a total budget of £200 for the mods, so that limited my choices. I went for a Tonerider TRP-1 for the precision (£35 from their website) and stupidly didn’t go for the P/J set (£65), thinking I didn’t care about the J. I’ve had the Tonerider P before and thought it was as good as most more expensive aftermarket pickups I’ve tried. Later on in the process I decided I did want to replace the J but to keep within my budget I went for a Wilkinson WBJ. It came with wires in the same colour scheme (yellow and black) as the OEMs. I wonder if the OEMs come from the Wilkinson factory? Still with a bit of cash left from my £200, I got a set of Wilkinson lightweight machine heads (£28). Strictly speaking this took me about £10 over budget when all the postage charges are accounted for. Installation wasn’t quite as straightforward as I hoped. It turns out the OEM J pickup is not a standard J bridge size. I needed to enlarge the route at both ends, especially as I shielded all the cavities with copper tape. Despite using masking tape on the paintwork, the routing process caused a few chips around the edge of the pickup cavity. It seems the standard paint flakes off pretty easily. I’m now looking for a touch up stick in that shade of matte black. It turns out that the wiring diagram that comes with the Glockenlang isn’t quite right. I had read about this elsewhere, so I used my multimeter quite a lot to sort out the ground connections from the battery positive and where the pickups connect to the balance pot. You have to solder onto circuit boards, which I am nervous about but managed without overheating them. I didn’t want to have to do it again, if I changed pickups, so soldered my own wires onto the boards and then joined them with connector blocks to the pickup leads, ground leads and battery lead. This will make any rewiring pretty easy but it did make the control cavity very cluttered, what with the boards on the preamp pots and the replacement Neutrik barrel jack I used, which protruded into the cavity much further than the OEM item. Having got it all connected, I discovered that the thread on the Glockenlang pots is barely deep enough to get through the body: with the locking washers on the pot shafts on the inside, I had to ditch the washers that go under the nut on the outside. Even then they only nipped up by about one thread. However, it does seem to be holding. The other little annoyance was that the leads on the battery clip provided by Glockenlang are pretty short. You have to extend them with extra wire to reach the sleeve terminal on the barrel jack and to have enough slack to change the battery. After the hassle above, I was quite relieved that the Wilkinson lightweight tuners are a drop in replacement for the OEM machine heads. The jury is out on whether they are actually lighter than the OEM machine heads but they do have a better action. I guess they can make them look like Hipshots but can’t afford the same lightweight alloys at the price point. I now have a pretty nifty bass. All the lightweight, ergonomics and playability of the original but with better electronics and machine heads. It still doesn’t sound like a good Precision to my ears but it’s close enough and I guess it could never get there, given the lightweight body and slim neck. I’m liking the Wilkinson Jazz pickup as well. Nice burpy sound with the tone rolled off and does add a bit extra bite blended with the P, along with that nasal tone when set 50:50.

That’s nice! Wish I hadn’t seen that!

I have both the Kent Armstrong and Warman pickups that I have used in a passive bass. I like the Kent Armstrong: enough output and the covered top means you don’t get the buzzing from accidentally touching the pole pieces. The Warman is higher output and not as refined to my ears. Both sound quite Stingray like to me used in passive mode. Both pickups have four conductors, so you can do parallel/single coil/series switching. That really opens up your tone palette.

Yep, although I am hoping my work doesn’t leave too much live wire exposed but live lugs on pots, especially if there is a danger of it twisting and making contact with the shielding. I guess that even the grounded parts of a pot touching the shielding might generate a crackle but not sure about that.

Do you find it as effective as copper tape? I’ve had basses that had cavities painted with graphite paint from the factory and they are still noisy. Put copper tape over the paint and the noise disappears. Of course, the factory might not have put as many layers on as you do but it has made me default to copper tape as the best solution.

Not sure whether the question was specifically regarding passive or active electronics but from experience, you really do need to shield the control cavity with active. All the Ibby basses I have owned with active electronics have picked up mobile phones near them. Shielding the cavity stopped this. I always shield my passive basses as well. It has never caused a problem and they have become quieter as a result, so I am assuming the cavity shielding contributed. Where the cavity is really tight, I put a bit of insulating tape over any areas of shielding that could possibly make contact with any live part of the electronics.