markdavid

Hi , am seriously considering getting one of these but was after some feedback from people who own one of these. I know about the neck dive, the intonation issues, what I am really after finding out is what the tone of these is like? any feedback issues? how adjustable is the action at the bridge? can you get low to lowish action with these basses? Thanks

My vote is a new set of pickups , these will make the most difference in my opinion , maybe some Dimarzio Model J's , also a series/parallel switch would be a good thing to add

[quote name='project_c' timestamp='1491809298' post='3275425'] Changing the pickups will probably have the biggest impact. Some pickups are voiced with way too much treble and high mids, even on PJ's and P's sometimes. And then you have to also deal with the stupid amounts of treble on most amps as well. I will never understand why bass equipment has to have so much treble on tap, I spend way too much of my bass-playing time fighting against 'crisp highs' (= nails on chalkboard) and 'punchy high-mids' (= annoying nasal honk) in various rehearsal rooms. [/quote] I always find that most amps have the midrange voiced too aggressively, always seem to spend a lot of time trying to dial out the mids on most amps

In development ...............constantly Seriously though, it was kind of aggressive, gnarly etc but my current band have said that my sound needs more low end, I can kind of see why they would say that as we are playing cream/hendrix/stones kind of stuff, now it is kind of dark-ish, bass and low mid heavy

[quote name='Greg.Bassman' timestamp='1489765505' post='3259662'] Very reassuring, cheers! Interesting. I have been looking into short scale basses myself recently. Tried a 30" fender mustang at my local guitar store; felt very strange at first, but I'm sure I could warm to it in time. I'm currently looking into 32" scale basses, but can't find one anywhere to try- ideally something jazz style. The best my local can offer is the Gary Jarman signature (32"), it has more of a precision neck profile though (not my preferred)- but I'm sure I could try it for size. Do you mind me asking what short scale [i]you[/i] use? [/quote] No problem, I use the Fender Mustang PJ and the Squier Jaguar short scale, I am fairly sure they both have jazz width 38mm necks, both fantastic basses, have tried long scale but feels awkward whereas short scale just feel completely natural to me

Ok, strangely by some unexplained magic over the course of a couple of days the action seems to have settled a little and the action is more balanced, still not perfect but better, hopefully when I swap out the bridge this will be further improved. Unfortunately the stock pickup sounds like ass , i think the issue is that with a pickup in the extreme neck position to sound good it needs to be massively over-wound like a mud-bucker to exploit the added bass afforded by the positioning, this pickup is anything but overwound so it just sounds like poop, if I can get this bass playing nicely I may drop a mud-bucker in place but doing so will require additional routing as the current pickup is not particularly big, if only I knew how to rewind a pickup

[quote name='Greg.Bassman' timestamp='1489703950' post='3259171'] Hi Chris B. Yes, I use 40-95's. I could go lighter (ie 35's etc), but I feel you lose something in the low-end. 40-95's give me a good amount of 'snap', while retaining a suitable amount of low-end 'groin' lol. [/quote] i use 40-100 gauge strings on a short scale bass with super low action so i would think that 40-95 or 35-95 on a long scale is definitely viable for low action

Thanks for the suggestions, i will look into all of the suggestions,i have an Eletro harmonix The Mole pedal on the way which will hopefully help until i decide which pickup to go for

Hi All Was just wondering what the best dark sounding P pickup is for that kind of dark rock type of tone with rolled off treble and boosted low mids (good examples of this are Nikki sixx, Charmer by Kings of leon,[u]some[/u] Kiss stuff) , I have tried the Seymour duncan hot SPB-2 and whilst it had rolled off treble and boosted low mids I found that the lows seemed to suffer to get the boosted low mids , what are peoples favourites for this kind of tone? Edit: Just realised this may be in the wrong section, mods please feel free to move this thread is applicable

Thanks for the replies, i have had a look at the bass again and measured it out of curiousity and it seems my eyes are a little off lol, seems the E and the G are quite far in on the fretboard (ie they are not close to the edge of the fretboard), the neck looking narrow seems to be an illusion caused by a much wider neck at the nut (around 47mm if i remember correctly) and the neck being slightly slimmer than average at the last fret (60mm at the last fret vs around 62mm on my Mustang), I have a bridge on the way that should fit this bass that another Basschatter is very kindly sending me , I think this bridge will fare better than the current one.

[quote name='ratman' timestamp='1488878492' post='3252508'] I agree with markdavid above. I used to have Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders in my PJ. The output of these pick ups are high but the rear J pick up always seemed to be overpowered by the front P. I eventually swapped the QP P for a SPB-1. Now I have a sweeter tone from the P pick up, and I can blend in plenty of the QP J pick up. This combination works for me. [/quote] I have the exact same pickup combo on my Squier Jaguar , the SJB-3 Quarterpound jazz works well with the SPB-1 P bass pickup, the volumes actually sound really well balanced and the tone is awesome. That being said with this pickup combo I pretty much have both pickups on full all of the time, the SPB-1 imo is a bit blah by itself, a bit too smooth and lacking the low mid growl that i associate with a good p pickup

Just wanted to add that low action can be achieved on pretty much any properly functioning bass as long as the following conditions are met 1. Nothing physically wrong with the neck(e.g neck warped or truss rod broken) 2. Neck relief is correct 3. Frets are level 4. Saddles are able to go low enough 5. Players technique allows for low action Also, was wondering what people here consider low action, I took one of my basses for a setup and brought one of my other basses along to the luthier for him to try and match the setup and he was amazed how low I had the action. I also [u]always[/u] find the setup on other peoples basses to be too high

£408!!! Oh my lord, not far off mim price, not saying that Squier are not good but surely the point of Squier is to offer a more affordable alternative to Fender mim or mia

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1489432592' post='3256900'] The frets at the top of the fretboard on a Sadowsky get gradually lower so the action can be taken down even further. [/quote] This is what the people who did a fret dress on my mustang bass did,really helps in getting the action nice and low

Thanks, i think i will just move this on, sell it as a project bass (bridge replacement needed) and eat the loss

[quote name='rmorris' timestamp='1489489271' post='3257307'] Looking at the pics on your original post - I had same sort of thing - a CMI EB0 copy. Narrowness of string spacing (something like 15mm from memory) a big problem for a new bridge. All the standard bridges wouldn't accomodate this - including the adjustable Schaller type. What I did was find a six string bass bridge on ebay with approximately the right spacing annd use that (with two of the saddles unused). The bridge was a one off sale from an incomplete project and is unbranded so I can't give a source for it. Any other bridge would have resulted in the E / G strings being on the edge or off the board. But given the height of the original bridge I had to raise it up considerably. For this I used a piece of hardwood moulding - 8mm height - screwed onto the bass body and mounted the bridge itself onto that. I think i needed to put a shim in the neck pocket too. Looks a bit odd though ! Drilling was no problem - clean up the surface after removing the old bridge and use masking tape for pencil marks and to stop the surface finish breaking up. Difficult bit was aligning the bridge / pilot holes accurately. Measure twice / drill once etc... [/quote] Damn, that sucks about the spacing, sounds like I might have to take it to a luthier and ask them to sort it, was hoping it would be a simpler fix

Hi All Have recently aquired an eb0 copy as per my other thread [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/301936-just-bought-this-odd-eb0-copy-off-the-bay/page__pid__3257211#entry3257211"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/301936-just-bought-this-odd-eb0-copy-off-the-bay/page__pid__3257211#entry3257211[/url] The bridge on this bass is awful, terrible and I was thinking of fitting a new bridge, the string spacing is very tight so I dont think an other EB0 bridge will have the peg holes in the correct place, I was considering fitting a fender style bridge and drilling the holes and fittign it myself. Is there anything I need to consider when doing this? Can I just take a drill to the bass or do I need to take any precautions etc to prevent issues doing this? sorry for newb question , have not done this before

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1489446286' post='3257103'] Well - unlike most of the rest of the bass, the bridge is a pretty accurate copy of the Gibson 2-point used on real EB-0s! And yes, they're pretty useless. There are drop-in alternatives available, Hipshot do a 2-point replacement, and there was a Schaller 3D version back in the 70s/80s. Not sure but if the stud spacing is the same, you could proibably use a Babicz 3-point too. [/quote] had a look at hipshot but have noticed that the string spacing on this bass is pretty narrow so not sure if the hipshot would be the same dimensions etc,the spacing at the nut and at the bridge are pretty much the same,i think a better bet might be a fender style bridge with a chunky baseplate to hide the existing bridge holes

Ok have received the bass,unfortunately the bridge on this bass is horrendous,the worst bridge i have ever had the misfortune to stumble across,no individual adjustment of height or intonation, my fault for not doing my research, i will take this to my local luthier for him to have a look at sorting a bridge

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1489248811' post='3255488'] I have to admit to never having used them, but I saw a guy recommending them and sounded like a good idea. He was measuring the gap between the bottom of the string at the top of the fret *while fretting at a high fret... 15th or 17th, somewhere around there. Then the gap is a lot lower than 2-3mm. It certainly is on my basses and I don't have a particularly low action [/quote] i think what he was talking about was neck relief,you fret at the first fret and the fret where the neck joins the body and measure the gap at the 8th fret , measuring action is different,you generally tend to measure at the 12th fret without pressung down on any of the frets

I can only comment on the new pj mustang but mine is awesome,worth every penny

They make some great pickups and some not so great (imo). I have SPB-1 Vintage P and SJB-3 Quartpound J pickups on my p/j bass and love the tone, they sound huge together , however when I had the SPB-2 Hot P pickup I couldnt get that pickup out of my bass quick enough, it was just mids,mids and more mids, with that being said I was using flatwounds at the time which can often sound a bit woofy in the mids so the SPB2 probably sounds much nicer with rounds

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1489156394' post='3254812'] You misunderstand me, you don't need to, the pickup should sit in the hole you already have, and then the big chrome bit sits over the top, hiding any holes left by the old one, hopefully this picture illustrates what I mean. Although looking at that, it seems wider than I remember, bit of chiselling needed maybe. [/quote] Ok thanks, so the cover is not even a part of the pickup but literally just sits on top of the pickup. I am going to order a mudbucker of some kind and see if it will fit in the rout, I have looked up the dimensions of the pickup that I believe to be in this bass and if the info is correct the dims are 95x51mm, googling mudbuckers give me dims of 89.5x53.5mm so possibly a mudbucker might well fit in the rout without the cover

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1489150686' post='3254764'] It should, if I recall correctly most of the bigness of a mudbucker is top mounted chrome surround. Bloody hard to find one though. That leaves you with a leftover smaller humbucker, which would go very nicely by the bridge like an EB3 (I'm like a dog with a bone sometimes) [/quote] Awesome , I assume it is fairly straightforward to separate the cover from the actual pickup?