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Obrienp

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Everything posted by Obrienp

  1. Obrienp
    I know a lot of people say it is fine but I haven’t had great success using standard 34” scale strings on short and medium basses. I guess if you have through body stringing it might work fine but for most, you end up with an unsightly mess round the machine head, tuning instability and in one case a flat wound E that started to unravel. I might have been unlucky. For my medium scale (Maruszczyk Elwood) I am really enjoying using D’Addario Standard Light gauge (45-100) medium scale nickel round wound strings. The tension is fine, although I do have to be a little careful not to end up doing unintentional bends when fretting the E string. That is largely down to my poor technique and I got used to it pretty quickly. The D’Addario’s aren’t ridiculously expensive, last well and give a nice growl when you want it. The Maruszczyk had flats on it when I bought it (secondhand). I think they must have been their own brand, which are pretty cheap but seemed fine. I only changed them because they weren’t giving the sound I was after. Might be worth a look/try if you like flats. I think Bass Direct stock them. Generally though, there are even fewer choices for medium scale, than there are for short scale and there tends to be a price premium. Supply and demand I guess.
  2. Obrienp
    Ditto.
  3. Obrienp
    I had one of these. I think it was early 2000s. It didn’t have a scratch plate. As others have mentioned, the electronics were a bit weak. I replaced the pickups with a DiMarzio P/J set and better pots, etc. I also added a push/pull to give parallel/serial options when using both pickups. I replaced the original, rather cheap looking, bridge with a Gotoh in the smoke chrome to match the rest of the hardware. This is when I discovered that the top is carved and the original bridge sits in an indent to give it a flat base: the Gotoh base plate was too big to fit in the indent. I got round it but I also had to shim the neck a bit to compensate for the higher bridge height. Like others have said: I loved the look of the piano black finish but it smeared and scratched easily. The binding looked great but it did dig into the forearm a bit without the usual arm carve in the top. It was light and sounded great with the DiMarzios, which made it a good gigging bass (forearm problem apart). I kind of regret selling it but that was forced by arthritis in the left hand and the belief that going short scale was the answer. I reckon they are good basses and probably better made than equivalent MIM models. Certainly worth trying if you like a P/J with a fast jazz neck.
  4. Obrienp
    Sounds like you have got an amazing bass there. I hope other, perhaps more affordable, manufacturers adopt the design, so we can all benefit. Anything that takes the strain out of playing has got to be a good thing.
  5. Obrienp
    I agree but I don’t want loud, I just want audible. The blues band I play in is too loud; mostly driven by the drummer, who also suffers from tinnitus LoL. I wonder why? I would like a happy medium: audible but not deafening. Anyway, I’ve hijacked the thread. Let’s see how the next gig goes!
  6. Obrienp
    I know this problem of being asked to turn down too much. One of the bands I play in is like that. The rhythm guitarist/main singer has developed tinnitus, which I am very sympathetic about but he is constantly asking us to turn down. Fortunately, the drummer uses an electronic kit, so we aren’t driven by drum volume to the same degree as other bands I have been in. I was originally using an Orange Terror 500 and BF Two10 for gigs but at the levels we are playing at, they weren’t functioning properly: impossible to get any quieter and apparently too loud. I switched to my then practice rig of a BF One10 and Warwick Gnome but that was apparently too loud, even though I couldn’t hear myself because the sound was going passed me at calf level. Consequently, I sold the Gnome and One10 and bought a Peavey Max 150, which has a tilted speaker baffle, so the sound is projected up to my ears. I can just about hear that but to meet the bands volume requirements, I have the gain on 3 and the master on 1! It is hardly driving the speaker and apparently it is still loud. I have been begging them to just use preamps DI’d into the desk with in-ear monitoring, so we have a silent stage but the rhythm guitarist doesn’t like having anything in his ears! I even bought a cheap wireless IEM kit so they could try it out at a practice session but they have never once used it. I feel like giving him a slap and telling him to stuff it to be honest but I have invested so much time (and money) in this band, and we do sound pretty good (though I say it myself), that I don’t want to cut my nose off to spite my face. It is hard to find a decent band at my stage in life, so I don’t want to walk away from this one but it does try my patience to breaking point!
  7. Obrienp
    I had the 5 string version, so this may not carry over to the 4 but I thought the P pickup was perfectly adequate but the Jazz was not great. It was also shorter than a standard Jazz, meaning you would have to enlarge the cavity to accommodate most replacements. I would only have used the Jazz to add a bit of top on occasions, so I didn’t see this as a big problem. The bass was also a bit noisy but for some weird reason they had shielded the P cavity with graphite paint but not the Jazz cavity: exactly the wrong way round. I shielded all the cavities with copper tape and put in some ground wires to link them all up and it was super quiet after that. One mod I did find that produced interesting results with the standard pickups, was to add a push/pull pot to get an option to put them in series. You get a very full and aggressive tone: a bit like a hot humbucker. Over all it was a nice bass but I found the 5 string neck a bit too chunky for my arthritic left hand, otherwise I would have held onto it.
  8. Obrienp
    If the pickup has a 4 conductor lead you can add a 3 way DPDT switch to get series/single coil/parallel options. I did this on my Squier Jaguar H bass and it really opened up the available tones. An alternative would be to use 2 push/pull pots: one to provide a coil tap and the other to switch between series and parallel wiring of the coils. Series is louder and fatter, with prominent mids; parallel has scooped mids like the classic Stingray tone (and is not as loud); single coil is more like a Jazz pickup but the exact tone will depend on which coil you keep active. You may not be able to get the full Fallout tone this way, as I believe they use some resistors, in addition to series wiring, to shape the tone. Apologies if this is teaching you to suck eggs: there are plenty of wiring diagrams online for these mods. I found the Bartolini diagrams very useful but bear in mind that there is no standard for the conductor colours, so you will have to figure out which colours your pickup uses. You need to identify start and end conductors for each coil, or do it by trial and error. There are some online guides on how to work out which conductor is which, if you don’t have the patience for the trial and error method.
  9. Obrienp
    Yes, it’s a good thread that one. I should have posted an update, in case anyone else was nervous about doing the replacement . I went ahead and did the valve swap but I used two JJ valves in the end. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. The biggest chore was undoing all those screws to get the cover off. I also wore cotton gloves when handling the valves, so as not to leave grease on the glass but I have since been told that it is not really necessary. The JJs are still going strong, so I have not done a yearly replacement. My local amp tech says that preamp valves don’t need to be replaced anything like that regularly. I guess I’ll leave them until the sound starts to deteriorate.
  10. Obrienp
    You have had some good suggestions already but I would throw the Nordstrand Acinonyx into the mix (squeezes in £50 under your £1K limit). It is super easy to play and very light. However, if you have big hands you might find it a touch cramped (36mm nut width and 16mm spacing at the bridge). I have a Starstream 1H and mine is a great little guitar but perhaps not as versatile as twin pickup models. Also there have been some quality issues with them. Mine is fine but I might have been lucky. However, at that bargain basement price, you might be able to put up with doing a bit of setup work to get it right. The original asking price was around £500! The Ibby EHB1000S is a nice little bass. I was sad to part with mine. It would be better suited to those with larger hands than the previous 2 I mentioned. It is very light and ergonomic. The string locking mechanism means that you can use standard scale strings and snip off the excess. That gives you more choice and also avoids the SS cost premium. However, a lot of people find the standard Bartolini pickups a bit old fashioned and upgrade to Aguilars @ over £200. Another option would be to look for a used Maruszczyk Jake or Elwood SS, or a Mensinger Cazpar. They are in the same league as the Sandberg Lionel others have mentioned IMO.
  11. Obrienp
    I didn’t notice the nut width: well spotted. That reduces the GAS a bit and if it turns out to be heavy as well, even more so. I’ve come to the conclusion that Jazz width, or less, is the ideal for my dodgy left hand. Heavy is definitely off the menu as well.
  12. Obrienp
    Now I’ve got GAS! I’m telling myself it’s in the same space as the Acinonyx and that is already occupied.
  13. Obrienp
    I started a thread on the EHB1000s here: Like a few others, I changed the pickups for Aguilars in the end. Otherwise great bass IMO. Light, ergonomic, comfortable and you get a lot of kit with it. Plus you can use standard length strings giving more choice and keeping the price down. I am sure there is a thread on the EHB1005 as well.
  14. Obrienp
    I take it your third sentence is referring to the V1, twin pickup version?
  15. Obrienp
    I would certainly report it to the dealer (Thomann?). At the least they might refund you a few quid. It would be a pain to have to send it back though, especially as it is birthday present.
  16. Obrienp
    V1
  17. Obrienp
    I’ve been wondering about that and had come to the conclusion that 3 is not different to button 1 but I have to admit my hearing is not what it was.
  18. Obrienp
    As I understand it, it is meant to be all 4 and that is how it works on mine.
  19. Obrienp
    I just tried mine and it is definitely louder in all-in (series) mode than in parallel. Are you sure all the switches are engaging when you put it in series? I have a hell of a struggle getting mine into series mode. I would happily trade the mute button for a one button series switch.
  20. Obrienp
    At least it looks easier to modify than previous iterations. I suspect the pickup is the same strat under a solid cover but with better machine heads and individually adjustable bridge saddles, it is already a great improvement.
  21. Obrienp
    What a beautiful bass! I can’t even manage 3.8 Kilos, let alone 5 but somebody is going to get a fabulous instrument. GLWTS!
  22. Obrienp
    PM’d
  23. Obrienp
    A nice thing about the passive Starstreams is that they are quite easy to modify. The bridge is standard 5 hole Fender style and at least on the 1H, the pickup standard MM. The machine heads are Gotoh style, so I should imagine an easy swap: the OEM ones on mine are fine so I haven’t tried to change them. I am an inveterate tinkerer, so immediately replaced the bridge with a Fender high mass unit. The OEM was fine and in fact was more solid than the units they use on Squiers. After a while, I decided the Fender unit just didn’t look right: it came too close to the bottom of the body and having Fender stamped on it confused the hell out of fellow bassists. I replaced it with a more discreet but still chunky unit: there are so many 5 hole units out there. I also replaced the pickup with a Kent Armstrong. Again nothing wrong with the OEM unit but I prefer covered poles on MMs because I tend to anchor my thumb on the pickup and it buzzes if you touch a pole piece. It turns out the Kent Armstrong casing is a few millimetres bigger all round and the Starstream has a very tight route. I had to ease it a bit by sanding the casing. Incidentally, all the cavities are shielded with graphite paint. In the process of wiring in the new pickup, I replaced the mini OEM pots with full sized CTS. There is plenty of space in the control cavity but the through body mounting does cause challenges. At the time the only long shaft push/pull CTS pot I could find was a 500K. Ditto standard pot. This made it very loud but too bright as well. I eventually found a full sized non-CTS 250K pot for the tone that had a long enough shaft to fit. This plus a 0.1 oil in paper capacitor calmed the brightness down. I have since seen long shaft CTS 250K pots are back in stock with some dealers. I had to keep the original jack socket because it is quite unusual, in that it has to go through both the body and the outer plastic moulding. Fortunately, it is a good unit but could prove tricky to replace if it fails. As I said previously, the control cavity has plenty of space in it, so I imagine it would easily accommodate a preamp and battery, if there is a two knob unit out there. There might be enough room to drill a mounting hole for a third pot too. The jack socket might be an issue though.
  24. Obrienp
    I must have struck lucky with mine. Good luck with the replacement.
  25. Obrienp
    Just as an indication of post/courier costs: I just sent a fiend's Precision bass off to Northern Ireland by Parcel Force Express 48 and it cost £12. This will have a slightly higher insured value but I reckon it would be around the same money.
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