MattiZ

I think so. Might be a good idea to ask Ernie Ball, to be certain. 

1 hour ago, lancer said:

Hi Guys

I have unfortunately developed a nickel allergy and need to change strings.

I play a P34, I have been using the stock strings.

I don’t like stainless rounds or coated, so I guess that leaves me with flats.

Can you guys recommend flats you’ve used to good success on a 424/434/734/P34

Thanks in advance

Andy

If you’re coming from roundwounds, you might like EB Cobalt Flats. Quite flexible and bright-sounding, I’ve had a set on a BB735A for two years and counting. 
 

Note: clean them properly with a string cleaner solution or isopropyl alcohol before installation, as they may have a sticky residue left from the manufacturing process. 

13 minutes ago, Maude said:

 

@AndyTravisput a pickguard on his orange 414 which looked fantastic.

No reason you couldn't reverse the pickup on a 414 and do that.

I've reversed the pickup on my 424x. A straight reversal puts the pickup right on the edge of the standard pickguard. I moved it slightly neckwards and put an exaggerated curve in the pickguard to make it visually right. 

If anyone wants a template just shout. 

 

I'm considering doing the same to my 734a and making a pickguard more like the old 70s BB1000 etc with the pointed bottom edge. 

 

The BB1000 / BB800 pickguard is beautiful. If somebody made them, tailored to fit the latest series BB’s, I would buy two right away. 

21 minutes ago, pn_day said:

Where did you get it? Import from Japan? Very nice indeed

Thanks! Local sale, actually a 4-hour roundtrip. Seller was a very nice gentleman, ex-pro musician who had bought it off the original owner in 1982, played it professionally for 10+ years and apparently forgotten about owning it for the next 30 years. 😆

Original case, original truss rod wrench. A set of well-played flatwounds on - possibly more than 30 years old, still holding their tuning and intonation and sounding perfectly fine, so they went back on after proper cleaning. Sadly, the funky little tuner adjusting tool is missing. But, the seller threw in a perfectly functioning MIJ Boss OC-2 instead!  

This Is what I brought home yesterday. Spent several hours cleaning it up, almost ready now. 
 

May I present my 1981 factory fretless Yamaha BB2000. 

On 07/03/2023 at 09:32, javi_bassist said:

 

I know this has been discussed before, but I wish Yamaha would offer more colours in their top range. 

Deep Green! Deep Green! 

NBD! BB450!

Last friday, in fact. Took me a couple days to get it to a playable state. Unresponsive truss rod (fixed, I hope, will see in a couple days), at least one broken tuner, badly worn and cracked P pickup cover. Great neck, sounds very good. A nice addition to my BB collection (if the truss rod holds).

4 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

https://yamahaguitardevelopment.com/2022/09/27/ygd-custom-shop-bobby-dall-custom-bb-basses/
 

FFS NICE!

Very nice, with old style fretboard inlays! 
 

Wish they were made with reverse P option…

My two compact boards. The bigger (Metro 20) is tuned for doom/sludge/stoner: 5 strings, big lows, lots of dirt, lots of volume. Small one (Metro 16) I’m using to play post-punk/goth/hardcore: 4 strings, somewhat cleaner, more cutting tones, played higher up the fretboard. 
 

Many similarities between the boards. Different goals though, so much that it really is much easier to have two different sets of pedals.

Just noticed firmware 2.0 is available, with lots of bass-specific effects added. 

Anybody still have the G11? I already got rid of mine last summer, after realising I liked the B3n more. 

On 30/04/2021 at 21:40, MattiZ said:

Quite happy with my Metro 16 at the moment. But I need a flanger and a chorus, and one more fuzz (maybe two more). And a Metro 20. 

A few months later, after trying a couple of flangers (BF-2, HF-2), some choruses (Bass Clone, Ibanez Mini Chorus, Walrus Julia) and an Ibanez 850 Mini Fuzz. Also, another HPF and of course, the Metro 20. The cabling still needs some attention. 
 

Next, I need a bigger power supply.

17 hours ago, Ricky Rioli said:

While the edges of my 424's fretboard aren't rolled, they do have a pair of well judged bevels doing a useful impersonation. Will those have been done in the factory, or is that something that will have been done by the previous owner?

I’d say it is factory setup. Both my BB235 and 735A have bevelled fb edges, both were bought new. 

3 hours ago, Ricky Rioli said:

If that's a VIIs, will it be a short scale?

Quite happy with my Metro 16 at the moment. But I need a flanger and a chorus, and one more fuzz (maybe two more). And a Metro 20. 

8 minutes ago, gobasserk said:

I put some stuff in and on to make it more a bass 😎

Pm’d!

6 hours ago, gobasserk said:

I still have a BB body that could be a 350's.... anybody interested? 

Maybe. Any pics? 

3 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

There’s a nice bb300 in black on Facebook currently.

Bit rich at £300 but to be fair it’s in good nick and worth every penny. 
 

Early Taiwanese I think due to shape - seller says 81 (I’d guessed 84/5)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/184621401586617/permalink/3885984948116892/

It is not early Taiwanese. Mine was an ’83 and it had the volume knob closer to strings, just like the Japanese BB300 models did. 

36 minutes ago, Horizontalste said:

The J pickup poles on my BB350 are the same.

I'm thinking of taking it apart to see if they're mounted in wax. That way I might be able to manipulate them to fit flush with the cover.

It should be possible. At least, there was no wax on mine, the cover was quite easily removed. Didn’t realize there would be a problem with the sharp polepieces while I had the PU apart. I might not try to force them into the pickup - the polepieces are rusty and may not move - but instead cut some cardboard slices into proper shape to fit inside the cover, punch holes for the polepieces and call it a day. 

Some issues remain: J PU poles are not flush with the cover, they feel so sharp it would be easy to split fingernails by hitting them, and the routing still looks hideous. I have no woodwork experience, but I guess the only way to clean it up would be completely re-routing the cavity, to fit a larger PU, like the soapbar-styled J like the one from BB1000S (or the older Yamaha SB Series basses). Anybody have one to sell? Or even if not the pickup, just the soapbar cover would do!

Before & after rewiring, both PUs installed, final result. 

I must repeat that I’m deeply grateful to @jezzaboy without whom this little restoration project would not have been possible, as he provided me with most of the impossible to find parts. Thank you! 

The Schallers had a different mounting pattern from the original tuners, so extra holes and imprints were left visible in the back of the headstock. Oh well. 

Just admire the impressive woodwork here, at the J pickup cavity. The P rewired and reversed, ready for assembly, and some stuff waiting for the next step. 

My BB1200S is almost restored, for now. Some history: I found it in about a year ago in quite sad state: Original pickup missing and replaced with an EMG PJ set (with quite an ugly route for bridge PU, plus the original neck PU frame destroyed), volume and tone pots changed to 25K dual volumes (correct for active EMGs), knobs replaced with ill-fitting chickenheads, machine heads replaced with Schallers (very good quality but not as pretty as originals), scratched and dented all over. Oh, and a large poo brown wooden thumbrest was installed, had to remove it even before taking pictures, two screw holes remain. 

But what matters is it played beautifully and sounded acceptable. The EMG P was quite good but the soloed J and both PUs together did not do much. I even considered removing the J, getting the PU route filled and having (maybe the whole bass) refinished. Glad I didn’t. 

In late August I received a pagkage containing a set of original BB tuners, PJ pickup set off a MIJ BB1100S plus some other Yamaha hardware. Thanks a lot @jezzaboy! Still missing the reverse P pickup frame, I had to find a way to make a replacement. A friend helped with drawing and laser-cutting it, and it took lots of filing, sanding, buffing and polishing to make it look like a 40-year old piece of plastic, but finally I’m quite satisfied with the result. The P needed to be reversed (BB1100S being non-reversed), so some rewiring was to be done. That also meant new pots, 250K LOG for volume, 250K MN for blend. And two new original knobs - surprisingly, Yamaha still sells those as spares! Not cheap, not easy to get (it took 4 months for the order to arrive at my local Yamaha distributor. Finally, last saturday, I had everything I needed at hand. 

Some pics to show where I was at the beginning. More to come.

... for some reason, my 235 wanted to visit this page. 

I have a question to all you BB735A / BB734A / BBPH owners and former owners, about the feel of your center-detented Balancer and EQ pots. On my 735A those pots have very stiff feel, almost so that the center detents often go unnoticed while adjusting. I don’t like this at all, and would like to know if mine are faulty or is it a ”feature”. 
 

So, what about your pots? Stiff or not? Please tell me! 

22 hours ago, Al Krow said:

I think that's a slightly sore question, given that I encouraged him to get a 735A at the same time as I got mine! 

But it's having two 1200S that I find is just plain rude 😁

Yes, my friend, it is all your fault. 😄 

Does it ease your pain at all that one of the 1200S’s has a hideous routing for a bridge J pickup, and an EMG P/J set, missing its original P pickup? 

If anybody has a spare BB1000S bridge pickup lying around, even non-functional, or just the pickup cover, I’m very, very interested. I could make the routing even bigger and even uglier. Drunk at 3 am, with a blunt rusty knife and a hammer, in a dark shed...