LITTLEWING

I've just been reading on Talkbass five pages on stretching or not stretching new strings. There's a bit about not doing it as it can detach the windings from the core and instantly 'kill' the string, some people just go ahead and fit them and tune up all evening during a gig and some completely laugh at the idea. Personally I give them a few little tugs about a couple of inches off the fretboard while tuning to pitch then quickly check the intonation and lastly apply a little pressure just after each saddle to create the 'witness' point and to date have never broken a string and have had a great tone for ages. What do other good people here on BC in the UK think and apply?

[quote name='SH73' timestamp='1479622830' post='3177858'] Don't know what the complaint is. Free rehearsal room. [/quote]Yep, this. It's a paid rehearsal plus you get that valuable chance to make sure all the gear's working and you're all in that live line-up with everything spread out behind you and not half volume in a random circle in a rehearsal space. Any gig is worth a hundred praccies.

I just picked up a used Ibanez with PJ configuration where the P pups are reversed and have to say how absolutely 'right' they sound. The E and A have more authority and the D and G sound fuller and more mellow. Maybe the Fender sound is becoming (dare I say) boring, predictable and dated?

[quote name='bonzodog' timestamp='1479144882' post='3174309'] Playing along to drum loops is great. There are lots of free apps that you can get on your mobile that you can play along to. [/quote]

Sorry to have to tell you, but that seems typical of Ashdown stuff. I had a 300 watt evo head and everything I played it through had that fizzing decay sound. I thought there was something wrong with it and had an MOT by a top tech guy and it was pronounced 100% healthy otherwise. Out of the blue I spotted an Ashdown After 8 combo on the brilliant Gumtree to use indoors and soon sold it on again when it did exactly what you're describing even through an extension cab. Shame, must be cheaper components somewhere along the financial climate track....

I'm going to have to say amplifier, then cab. I suffered with an Arsedown for ages and was never really happy in any venue until I bought a Hartke 3500. Holey flipping' Moley, different world even through the original Armsdown cabs. As for basses, in my experience, (after throwing time and money at different Yamahas, LTD's, Westones and top end Squiers to find my tone) it's not always the actual bass you need to change to get a cool sound. Amplifier-wise as a personal example, I picked up a 40watt Stagg combo for 20 squids simply to throw in the car for quiet rehearsals, chucked a couple of bass ports in the back and hand on heart it sounds better than most other combos I've ever had in the past and even using my old project Westfield P bass modded with decent pickups and a Wilkinson bridge, a little bit of tone knob usage for particular songs and I'm grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

Ashdown Mag evo 2 300 watt which I suffered for three years. Every venue I played I tried every different combination on the dials. Possibly once I had a decent sound thru my 15 and 2 x 10 and that was in the open air in a marquee. Awful piece of toneless junk even thru an 8 x 10, just a slightly louder sound of a bus in a tunnel. Nearly as bad as my Fender Rumble 100 1 x 15 now also moved on, badly designed box, could have been really nice if it was built deeper. We live and learn, huh?

Same for me trying to get the downbeat on the start of bloody Sex On Fire. Unless a drummer counts it in on the hi hat, my old brain just won't grab the proper beat. And don't get me started on Andrew Gold's bleedin' Lonely Boy...........

Just out of curiosity (sitting here bored while she's watching every soap possible) what are the merits and/or downsides of wiring bass pup's hot wire to horseshoe and out from sweeper against hot to sweeper and out from horseshoe? Precisions seem to be the first and jazzes seem to be the latter.

Convinced Mrs Littlewing to buy me a Squier 5 string Vintage Modified Jazz without ever trying one anywhere one Xmas totally assuming it would be a magic thing in my hands being a new, shiny, perfect thing (never ever having a virgin guitar, always second hand stuff). I saw one via t'interweb at a well known retailer and it duly arrived. I really honestly tried to love it, I adjusted every possible piece that would move to make it play and sound sweet (especially the utterly bland rubber band sound of the B string even with Elixir nanos) and finally after admitting defeat that it was a complete and utter useless piece of firewood, wires and dog sh*te, I part ex'd a near pristine guitar for something else three years on. ALWAYS try out your dream instrument in a few shops and find a nice one before parting with your cash and your heart.

IMHO, get shot of the Ashdown. I had half a dozen different cabs over three or four years in a quest to find a sound and they all sounded lifeless and farty with my Mag evo II 300 with all different combination of settings. It might be me but a Peavey 4 X 10, a Hartke 2 X 15, an Ashdown 8 X 10 and an Ashdown 1 X 15 and 2 X 10 very rarely did anything to make me smile. I recently bought a Hartke 3500 and suddenly THERE'S the sound I wanted still using the Ashdown 1 X 15 deep and 2 X 10 deep. In fact the first time I used it live one of our regular crowd said out of the blue (without even knowing I'd changed amps) said it's the best we've ever sounded. I'm not knocking Ashdown by any means but I could never get any usable tone out of it in any venue with any cab.

Try swapping the wires over on one pup, for instance white (hot) to pot casing and black (neg) to pot live. I put a new jazz bridge pup in my PJ in normal config and both pups on full sounded like a cheap combo in a dustbin with the lid on in a tunnel. Swap 'em and wear an instant very broad smile.

I've just acquired an Ampeg BA115 combo and when turning it off (both volumes down) it pops through the speaker a second after switching off. I used one a while back in a local studio and it did the same which I assumed was something that needed attention after time with all the different player's usage. This one does exactly the same and I wondered if it's anything to worry about or is there a mod that an amp tech could or should do? I assume it's not ruining the speaker in any way?

To get the best out of a new set of strings, once you've set up and tuned to pitch, give each string a good push downwards to the body immediately after each saddle to give the string a decent 'bedding in' break angle to give maximum contact through the saddle to bridge and body. Not only will the string ring properly, it will be at the correct action and height from the pups rather than a huge arc over the saddle and will feel and sound 'right' from the off. And no, I've never broken a string yet doing this.

Follow the normal standard wiring diagram exactly but swap the Jazz (bridge) pup wires so that the coloured wire goes to the back of the volume pot casing and the black goes to the centre volume pot peg. All will burst back into life in every volume scenario. I had the same problem with my PJ when I replaced the bridge pup and had the same duff sound with both volumes full on. Something to do with phase blah blah....

TBH I've never been able to tell to any great degree if there's a massive difference with a high mass bridge, but if you want to hear what a bass SHOULD sound like, change your bbot for a Wilkinson item with brass saddles for around 12 squid. I've transformed a Precision and a Squier P/J and all the rich warm tones are suddenly there in abundance.

Just a quickie for all you other weekend modification 'have a go-ers' - I chucked a new Jazz style pup on my Squier PJ and it sounded beautiful on it's own and so did the P pup on it's own. When both on together however they sounded like a cheap combo in a dustbin. You know when you get that minute when you think 'what have I done/what wire has decided to detach itself from somewhere/is this new pup duff?? Panic not, fellow fiddlers - ignore the standard wiring diagram, simply swap the pos and neg wires around. (Put the black to the centre volume pot peg and the white/whatever to the ground on the back of the pot). VOILA!!! All is back to normal and the sun has come out again in your little world!! PS if you buy a new Jazz pup, measure/check/research everything first. A generic Jazz BRIDGE pup is LONGER with poles further apart and won't fit in the routing. The Squier PJ has the slightly smaller NECK size pup at the bridge where all the poles sit under each string very nicely. Have a great weekend. 😎

I've just acquired a used Squier Standard PJ four string with the Jazz neck, thing is the original Jazz style bridge pup has failed and there's an Aria unit in it's place but it seems a little quiet compared to the precision pups even when raised nearer to the strings. When both volumes are up it's even a smidge less. I've seen a couple of Wilkinsons on the 'bay, one's 7.5k and the other is 9k so which one would be best for balance with the original split precision pups?

I've just acquired a used Squier Standard PJ four string with the Jazz neck, thing is the original Jazz style bridge pup has failed and there's an Aria unit in it's place but it seems a little quiet compared to the precision pups even when raised nearer to the strings. When both volumes are up it's even a smidge less. I've seen a couple of Wilkinsons on the 'bay, one's 7.5k and the other is 9k so which one would be best for balance with the original split precision pups?

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1462445512' post='3043033'] Wunjo's is almost all that's worth going to Tin Pan Alley for these days. The street is a pale and sickly shadow of its former self. I remember a time when you could kill a whole day there. [/quote] Ah, the good old days. Macari's, Fender Soundhouse, ...bumped into Townsend, Boz Burrell (Bad Co), so many faces.

How do people find on average the condition of a bass on arrival? I know it's best to try a few at a store and go home with the best one, but to save a round trip of a load of miles I'm looking at buying a Mex Precision online from a very well known store and wondered if in general for instance they're actually ready straight out the cardboard box to do a two hour pub set and have no real issues? Or is it a case of sharp fret ends and buzzes where they've just been screwed together at the factory and sent straight out to punters?

I bought one for £169 in walnut a few months back and for the money it's absolutely awesome. I was looking for a spare bass for gigs and tried a few very underwhelming Ibanez's when I spotted a Toby hanging nearby. The second I plugged into the shop's combo the depth and clarity and character hit me, followed by the butter-like ease and speed of runs I could suddenly achieve on the very grin-inducing neck. The active bass control is just sublime and reminded me of the sweet Music Man palette. What amazed me recently was the overall punchiness that came over clear as a bell on a video someone did of a few live covers on a simple iPhone. If the price tag was in the five hundreds I would still have bought it. It is honestly that good to me.

I know we've had this topic a few times before, but during last night's gig my left hand index fretting finger cramped down halfway thru a song and slowly went away to only somehow transfer to my right index playing finger leaving me to rely on the second and third for one number. Bloody embarrassing although most punters don't really pay that much attention if the low end isn't quite right for a bar or three. Anybody got any ideas? Never seems to happen at rehearsal.

Here's one for ya..... I acquired a 31 year old Westone Thunder 1A a little while ago and as it sounded and played incredibly in passive mode, I never bothered about seeing how the active circuit sounded. (okay, there was a wire off one of the two battery connectors and I couldn't be arsed soldering it on again until recently...) Anyhoo, I chucked two (admittedly different makes, one Duracell and one perfectly working one showing nearly 9v made by VMP whoever they are). Plugged in and all was sounding absolutely bleedin' awesome. However, 2 weeks on at rehearsal I went to switch to active and it was dead as a dead thing, totally fine in passive mode. First thoughts were 'sh*t, I left it switched on and both batteries have died', so I took them out and tested them only to find the Duracell was showing 8.9v and the VMP wierdo was showing MINUS, yes MINUS 5.7v. Turning the test leads the opposite way showed 5.7v in normal 'plus' mode. How the heck can a battery turn it's polarity backwards??? Is it because it's (probably) a foreign jobby and made cheap inside and couldn't handle pushing it's puny 9v with a proper Arnold Schwarzenneger type batt and just screwed itself ?? Right now I'm a bit loathe to put 10 quid's worth of Duracells in if there's a strange fault in the Westone circuitry.

Here's one for ya......Which is best - Angling a pickup or staggering the polepieces (where applicable) ? My old Westone Thunder 1A has adjustable polepieces. I've angled the split pups to suit the distances from the pups to the strings and all sounds pretty darn sweet and balanced, but would it be more aurally beneficial to leave the pups flat with the E and G at sensible distances and raise the pieces for the A and D in an arc as per fret radius? I know it's all down to the pup's magnetic field to transmit the vibes but how would the raised pieces enhance (or not??) the volume/tone? Ol' Leo recognised this and manufactured staggered poles on his Strat, so there must be something in it. (but then, Jazz and Stingray pups etc. are all at one level and they always somehow sound just superbly right. Damn this electrickery stuff........