ikay

I take it you've already found this? https://britishaudio.com/products/trace-elliot-va350-and-va400-user-manual

2 hours ago, prowla said:

Is the pickup bobbin glued to the base or held in place by a couple of screws on the underside?

The bobbin should be attached to the caddy by two phillips head screws as in the pic below. The screw holes in the bobbin are often slightly off centre from the factory, hence the wonky alignment. Easy enough to adjust by slightly filing out the holes in the caddy to provide enough wiggle room to set it straight.

5 minutes ago, ped said:

 

It's because I used to own it, so it's become holy

😅 haha, the holy grail of bass provenance!

16 minutes ago, itu said:

@ikay : There's most likely a frame of some kind made of metal. That could explain the halo. 

I was thinking the halo outlined the shape of the coil. The curious thing with your pic is that it doesn't seem to show any mag flux along the centreline where the poles are.

On 20/10/2025 at 21:50, itu said:

Here's my Passion II with Benedetti single coils. 

 

This is curious. Here's a flux pic of the Benedetti SCs in my Excess and the mag field (blue) shows through the centreline of the pickup where the poles are. On the pic above the flux seems to be showing as a halo rather than through the centreline. Having said that, I don't know why mine are showing a white halo!

Thanks

I've used Accu.co.uk several times to source replacement screws of various sizes. Excellent service and you can buy small quantities. If you know the thread size and length of the screw you should be able to find a replacement there. Here's an example: https://www.accu.co.uk/metric-cap-head-screws/3864-SSCF-M6-10-A2

What does it weigh please?

21 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Try the Future Impact V4 too!

I've just looked through the FI V4 manual, partic the editing section, which has slightly blown my mind! Very impressive synthesizer engine - 4 oscillators, lots of filter options, full ADSRs etc. I really like the PC editing option as well, much more intuitive than having to select each parameter one at a time using the tiny screen on the pedal. I wish the Enzo X had that option. On the other hand, I've watched quite a few demo vids of the FI but none of them match up to the huge lush sounds the Enzo can produce. I guess a good part of that is down to it being monophonic vs the 6-voices of the Enzo.

Compared with the MXR bass Synth though, the FI offers much more in the way of sound building and editing capabilities - not to mention 99 footswitchable patches and Midi in/out. Available from musicstore.com for £261 which is cheaper than the MXR. Why is everyone so excited about the MXR when the FI can do so much more for around the same price or less?

The MXR Bass Synth is out of stock everywhere so I thought I'd look around and see what else I could find and came across the Meris Enzo X - https://www.meris.us/product/enzo-x/. Has anyone tried one of these?

It's around twice the price of the MXR (£599 at Andertons) but the synth engine and tweakability is much more comprehensive than the MXR (eg. full independent ADSR envelopes for filter and amplitude, 6 fully polyphonic voices available simultaneously, can be triggered directly by bass/guitar or via midi, 99 footswitchable memory patches etc). It sounds fabulous, here's a demo.

55 minutes ago, prowla said:

 

I think they're the same overall length;

Here's a better comparison with the 4003 pic adjusted to have the same overall length. Much easier now to see how they've cobbled it together with minimum new tooling and just repositioning the bridge and bridge pup. 

23 hours ago, Bass Direct said:

... and are exactly the same in overall dimensions to a 4003s  

 

Having done a side-by-side photo comparison, the proportions and layout of the 4030 look quite different to me. The overall length (bottom pin to top of headstock) of the 4030 appears to be longer. I wonder if that's just an illusion - perhaps the 4003 pic wasn't taken exactly face on? Both pics are from BassDirect. It would be interesting to know if the overall length is the same as a 4003 if BD could do a quick check.

Regardless of that, the top strap pin on the 4030 is opposite fret 15 which, I would expect, makes it more prone to neck dive. On a 4003 it's opposite fret 13 which (to me) is already a bit marginal. It would have made more sense to move the bridge somewhat less severely to the right which would have shortened the overall length and improved the balance. 

The other difference is pickup positions. The bridge pup looks about right but the neck pickup is proportionally in a completely different position to a 4003. I actually prefer the idea of the neck pup being closer to the bridge, but it will sound different.

Overall it looks like a bit of a half hearted attempt at a true short-scale version. I certainly wouldn't pay a premium for it over a regular Ric!

1 hour ago, Jabba_the_gut said:

Hi, I’m not sure what the gear ratio is - I’ll try to find out. Each tuner weighs 61g and the bushing outside diameter is 12mm. 

Thanks for that.

Can you provide more details on the M5-2000 machine heads? I can't find them on the Schaller website so assume they're an older/vintage type. Can you let me know the weight per tuner in gms, the outside diameter of the bushing (ie. the required headstock hole size), and the gear ratio. Thanks

Just bought a pedal from Alex who was kind enough to reply to my wanted ad. Good chap to deal with, quick delivery and pedal in excellent condition. Thanks Alex!

Thanks

This might seem a bit of an odd question but can you please let me have the exact weight of the unit in gms?

What does it weigh please?

Thanks for the weight

Hi, can you provide an exact weight for the body please (in gms)?

I've played this very bass and it's exceptional. Also a very nice weight which is unusual for one of these. A really lovely example. If I still played 5s this would already be mine.

What does it weigh please (accurate weight in gms if you can)?

I have one of these, it's a really unusual and useful bit of kit. The HPF does the usual thing of progressively filtering out unwanted low frequencies, very useful but can sometimes leave the bottom end feeling a little lacking. By adding in a little resonance you can not only tighten up the bottom end up but also retain some real low end punch. The mid speaks for itself, really handy to have, particularly if you have a bass with 2-band eq (or passive). The LPF does the reverse of the HPF, and in combination can emulate a cab sim. By itself it's useful for filtering out unwanted clacky high end or tuning in a vintage vibe. But with the added resonance control, it effectively works like an Alembic filter preamp (or ACG/East, Lusithand etc). By adding a bump at the cutoff frequency you can tune in a vast array of sounds from any pickup. A clever little box of tricks.

Thanks for the reply!

13 hours ago, AinsleyWalker said:

 

Generally I've found that the sound breaks up more as the bias is turned to the right.

That's interesting, the manual says smoother to the right...