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Obrienp

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Everything posted by Obrienp

  1. 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.
  2. Obrienp
    V1
  3. 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.
  4. Obrienp
    As I understand it, it is meant to be all 4 and that is how it works on mine.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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!
  8. Obrienp
    PM’d
  9. 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.
  10. Obrienp
    I must have struck lucky with mine. Good luck with the replacement.
  11. 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.
  12. Obrienp
    Good luck! Mine is fine. Frets all even, no sharp ends and it is really nicely made but I believe @scrumpymikehad issues with a passive 2S, before getting the Artist version. Luck of the draw I guess. As @fretmeistersaid, at that price why not?
  13. Obrienp
    Yes, a bit irritating if you spent close to list on one!
  14. Obrienp
    Heads up all: I was doing some research on current prices with a view to putting my Vox Starstream 1 H up for sale (don’t want to but got to shift a bass or two); Guitar Guitar are doing an offer on both the 1 H and 2 S models today: £199!! Note this is the passive model but still a nice little bass. At that money you can mod it to the Artist spec and still save cash. Hell I was thinking of putting mine up for £350!
  15. Obrienp
    Really surprised this is still here! I would have gone for it, if I didn't have my Elwood 32". GLWTS.
  16. Obrienp
    Notwithstanding the fact I am selling one, I think the Squier Jaguar H is a great bass for the money. It’s not the only bass that neck dives by any means but you need to like the single humbucker MM vibe. It’s got plenty of scope for modification for not much money too but you can probably apply that to the Ibby as well. If I was starting again, I would buy one of the FSR versions, as they have a 4 conductor pickup lead (giving plenty of scope for wiring options: serial/single coil/parallel) and graphite paint shielding as standard. They also have fancier colours. All for less than £250.
  17. Obrienp
    Yeah, I think it was some sort of epoxy and really randomly applied. Not really potted, just haphazardly sploged. That is what caused my luthier friend so much work.
  18. Obrienp
    Got the same rig. Only pedal you need is a tuner (in my case). Good stuff!
  19. Obrienp
    Got to state my vested interest up front, I am selling mine in the Basses for Sale listings. The reason it is dark is that the pickup is wired in series as standard. I have got more tones out of it by wiring it to have a series/single coil/parallel switch. Single coil and parallel have a brighter top end. The FSR version has a 4 conductor pickup as standard but they just wired it in series for some reason . I had to get a luthier to rewire my pickup to 4 conductor (standard Affinity version). I guess if you give it 500K pots it will make it louder and brighter too. Yes, the Jag body shape does cause it to neck dive but so do quite a few Jazz style basses (in my experience ). At least the Jag H is quite light.
  20. Obrienp
    Happy to post/courier but I appreciate that puts the cost up.
  21. Obrienp
    Update: In case you want to do your own mods, I am offering this bass but with most of the mods described below removed for £150, or you can have it with the mods for £170. Just to clarify, I would put the original bridge, control plate and electrics back in it. That will necessitate wiring the pickup in serial but it will still have the 4 conductor lead (in case you want to rewire in the future, or do your own mods). I would leave the shielding in this option, so it should still be a lot quieter than stock. The unmodified version would save you 25% over the cheapest street price I can find online. I bought this Squier Jaguar H late last year, as a proof of concept, to see if my arthritic left hand could cope with a 32". It seems that it can and in a rush of blood to the head I bought a Maruszczyk medium scale Elwood off fleaBay. I now have to sell a few things to contribute to the cost of that purchase. This Jaguar is actually a very nice bass for the money. I really like the neck: very Jazz like with a matte finish (no high or sprouting frets) and the bass is not too heavy at 3.9 Kg (8.6lbs). It comes with the hot MM style ceramic humbucker wired in series, which gives a hefty dark tone. Good to my ears but a bit of a one trick pony and noisy too. I got my local friendly luthier to open the pickup up, split the coils to give me a 4 conductor lead (plus shield) and wax pot the pickup. It proved quite tricky, so that cost £45. I have rewired it with 250K Alpha mini pots (cavity too small for full size), orange drop 0.047 capacitor and a 3 position DPDT switch to give series/single coil/parallel options. This has really opened up the tonal pallet to my ears. The single (front) coil position sounds quite Jazz bass like and the parallel much more Stingray. It is also very quiet now, as I shielded all the cavities with copper tape. I used micro connector blocks on the harness, so you can change pickup without having to solder (see pic) but I can't promise the wiring colours will match up on an alternative pickup. The pole pieces are covered so you don't get that irritating buzzing from touching them; e.g. with your thumb but they are not rails underneath, in case you are thinking of narrower string spacing than the standard 19mm. To complete the modifications, I put on a Fender high mass bridge with brass saddles and Ernie Ball Slinky strings. The OEM machine heads seem fine to me, so I left them alone. If they do start to wear, they are a very standard vintage design, so easily and cheaply replaced (Northwest Guitars do an identical own brand unit for very little). It is now a very nice and versatile bass IMO. Very easy to play with some good tonal variations on offer. The Jag body design does lend itself to neck dive, so a good grippy strap is recommended. The cheapest I can see these basses online is £199, so save yourself a chunk of cash with £100 worth of mods thrown in for free. Condition wise I would say it is extremely clean. There is a slight pin prick in the finish on the back where I started to install a screw in the cavity for the earth wire and realised it was going through (there is very little wood the other side of the route). Fortunately I stopped before it did real damage. The earth screw is now in the side of the control cavity. Otherwise there are a few micro handling scratches in the top lacquer that have not gone through: inevitable with a gloss black finish and some light marks by the pickup on the pick guard, probably from my thumb nail where I anchor it. You can try and buy in Fakenham, Norfolk. I have the original box, so can post/courier at buyers expense. I will travel to meet/deliver within about 50 miles of Fakenham. I am sorry, I need the money, so I am not open to trades and as a result of some bad experiences, I don't want to send it outside the UK.
  22. Obrienp
    Well the Gotoh would be a drop in replacement but obviously it would change your string spacing. I don’t think they do them with narrower spacing. Seriously though, I am all for bridges with locking saddles and intonation but I prefer something like the Babicz system for that. I find the standard Maruszczyk bridge requires a bit more skill and patience to set up than I posses. The more conventional screw based adjustment of Fender style bridges and the majority of high mass bridges, is more user friendly for the average owner IMO. However, I am sure a lot of owners manage perfectly with the Maru standard bridge. I just wanted to let folks, who want to change it, know that the Gotoh is a drop in replacement (for 19mm string spacing).
  23. Obrienp
    True. The standard Maruszczyk bridge with 19mm spacing to be precise.
  24. Obrienp
    I have found a drop in replacement for the standard Maruszczyk bridge. It’s a Gotoh 510BO. See:
  25. Obrienp
    OK, so follow up. It took about 20 minutes to remove the standard Maru bridge and replace it with the Gotoh. I used the original Maru screws as they are longer than the ones supplied with the Gotoh. I didn’t install the two front screws on the Gotoh because I wanted to make sure it worked OK before drilling new holes. I am pleased to say the Gotoh works well. It fits exactly with the original screw holes of the Maruszczyk bridge and the strings align with the pickup pole pieces about the same as they did with the OEM; not perfect on the two outer strings but acceptable. String height and intonation adjustment perfectly simple. Fortunately, the saddles will go more than low enough to get an acceptable action. In fact it is a bit slappy at the moment but I thought I would let the neck settle before doing the final adjustments. The E string saddle is just about back at the stops, so I am hoping I don’t have to flatten the intonation anymore. However, it was with the OEM bridge as well. It’s on its way to being 33” bridge to saddle on that side and it’s about 32 1/4” on the G side. New strings may get it back closer to 32”. The Gotoh anchors the strings a bit further back, so the wound part only just makes it across the nut before the winding starts (see photo). The Gotoh is about 20 grams heavier than the original Maruszczyk bridge, so it’s not going to make the bass feel any heavier, or fix the slight neck dive. I would definitely recommend it as a no modification replacement for the OEM standard bridge. I have put a few photos on: comparison of the two bridges and the string alignment with the Gotoh. Photos taken before setting the intonation.
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