ikay

Yes, good idea. If the spring doesn't fit (or allow enough adjustment) I was thinking about something like that, or maybe a wad of pickup mounting foam between the caddy and the face plate.

I'm thinking of getting a flush mounting plate/bezel for the bridge pickup on my 4003, like the Pickguardian one or similar (may make my own). But a flush mounting plate will have 1cm less headroom for the height adjustment spring. See pic below. The dotted red line indicates the approx level of the underside of the flush mounting plate which appears to leave hardly any room for a spring. The existing spring is quite long and, even it can compress into that space, it leaves very little wiggle room for raising the pickup height. Can someone who has installed a flush plate like this tell me if the original spring still works or did you need to use shorter springs? Thanks for any input.

I'm considering swapping the neck Hi-Gain in my 2019 4003S for a reissue Toaster. I've scoured youtube looking for a side-by-side demo of a modern Hi-Gain (11k) and a reissue or vintage Toaster (7.4k) to show the difference in tone but can't find anything. Plenty of vids showing one or the other but I'd really like to hear a direct comparison of the Hi-Gain and Toaster in a more controlled setting. Can anyone post a demo or point me in the right direction?

OK that sound good, cheers.

Did this project fall by the wayside or is it still progressing?

There's an Entwistle JBXN neck pup on ebay at the moment (bridge pup out of stock) - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333702776098

It's a '78

👍 I'll mention it when I'm there

I think round core strings are more prone to the straight cut/dead string thing, hex core much less so as the angled edges offer a bit more grip for the windings.

👍 PRO17s ordered and ear impressions booked for next week.

Ah ok, thanks.

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick but what does 'cut the string straight' mean and how does that deaden the string?

I found a few vids on youtube showing how to get the flush ones in and out and looks OK so I'll go without the lugs. Cord comes as standard and looks useful. Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the replies. I'll go for a set of PRO17s. Is it best to add the 'grips' option (extra silicone lug) to help with getting them in and out or are the flush ones OK?

I play in a band with an uncomfortably LOUD drummer. Having been in bands for the best part of half a century my hearing has a bit of wear and tear so I need to do more to protect what I've got left. I find playing with earplugs quite difficult as everything sounds muffled and I feel disconnected from the band. I currently use a fairly old set of ACS ER20 plugs which claim to 'preserve the fidelity of the sound' etc. However, to me it just feels like playing underwater. Ideally, I'd rather have some sort of hearing protection that works more like a limiter and only kicks in above a certain threshold, rather than knocking everything back by 20dB or so even in quieter sections. Are there any earplugs out there that work like this? I can't find any, so I'm looking to upgrade my earplugs to ACS Custom Pro series with moulded earpieces in they hope that they'll be better quality and more transparent than my cheap off-the-shelf ER20s. At around £150 I'll be disappointed if it still feels like playing underwater! But with my already dodgy hearing it probably will. If I get the ACS Customs, I'm also undecided which filter to go for (see chart below). I'm tempted to go for lower attenuation (eg. PRO 15) in order to reduce the underwater/disconnected feeling. Alternatively the PRO 17 which seems to be a popular choice. Or, with the snare/cymbals in mind, perhaps the PRO 20 which is somewhere between the two at lower frequencies but attenuates progressively more in the higher range. I'd appreciate any advice or guidance from anyone who uses ACS Customs or anyone with similar hearing/drummer issues and can recommend other solutions. Thanks for any input.

As mentioned above, have you tried using the allen keys you already have to narrow down the size? Metric sets usually increment in 0.5mm steps so if none of these fit then it's most likely an imperial size. If you can identify the metric size that's just too big and the one that's just too small, that should give you a pretty good bead on the imperial size which will be some multiple of 1/64". Here are a few imperial to metric conversions. It's easy to see how imperial sizes slip between the metric keys, and not all imperial sets will include odd ones like 7/64 or 9/64 etc. 7/64 = 2.778125 1/8 = 3.175 9/64 = 3.571875

I'm sure it will sound just as good in a band setting. USA SUBS are great no-nonsense workhorse basses.

These are great basses, I love my active USA SUB. Out of interest, do you find any use for the bass cut control on the passive version?

What type of bass is it? If it's US built the chances are it will be an imperial size. Anything else most likely metric. Using the allen keys you already have you can then narrow down the size to be somewhere between the ones that are too big and too small.