LawrenceH

[quote name='escholl' post='904060' date='Jul 24 2010, 03:10 PM']I like this rule. I think I may start trying to do this, as much as is feasible.[/quote] Welcome to the world of science! If you're used to writing scientific articles it's pretty shocking when you realise the basis of how journos put articles together.

Anyone else got recommendations for where to get these? I'm about to refinish a 70s Classic MIM and want to get hold of the appropriate sticker for matching headstock. Can't find any on ebay, I assume people are rather coy about advertising them.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='903593' date='Jul 23 2010, 09:42 PM']+1, and since the majority of high end pro-touring PA cabs have been loaded with neo drivers for over a decade now it's hardly an understandable gaffe.[/quote] And I'm sure the band in question are using neo-loaded Turbosound arrays every week down at the Bakers Arms in Tewkesbury I really can't believe how much people are slagging off an engineer they've never worked with just because of one mistaken diagnosis when the important bit of his job, ie the ears, have not been called into question. When I heard early incarnations of neo drivers that were available in the UK they very much had a characteristic sound. For reasons that have been outlined on this thread by others. Just because this wasn't inherent to neo per se but reflected particular design choices, doesn't mean it's not real. Plus as Bill well knows, bass cabs are a total black box in comparison to PA cabs spec-wise. Pretty easy to spot a pattern but ascribe it to something spurious I think.

Can't really see the point of jumping on the sond engineer here - sounds like his ears are working fine, and he correctly attributed the sound to the TC cab - just incorrectly in terms of ascribing it to neo speakers, when presumably he'd noticed a similar tone before on some true neos. The important thing is they diagnosed the cab as the issue, and it sounds like it's sorted now.

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='902137' date='Jul 22 2010, 05:24 PM']Could it be a refinished 62 RI Precision bass? That'd be my first thought. Got any more pics?[/quote] I was wondering this, would it have the black underneath if it wasn't a refin?

[quote name='KevinJazzBass' post='900994' date='Jul 21 2010, 03:10 PM']Hi guys, sorry if this is this the second time you have seen this but i wasnt sure which section to post in. I really want to put a pick up cover on my JV Jazz bass over the neck pick up. However I am aware that drilling a couple of holes in the body for the screws could affect the value if I come to sell it on. When i got the bass it came with a black scratchplate and I replaced it with a tortoiseshell fender 62 reissue plate. This new plates has holes for the pick up cover which i think would look fantastic on the bass but does anyone know of a good way to fix it to the bass without using screws? If i was to drill a couple of holes then putting on the original black scratchplate would actually cover them up. Any help would be really appreciated guys. Thanks Kevin[/quote] Could you use something like rivets to attach the cover just through the holes in the scratch-plate? You'd probably have to recess the scratch-plate slightly to make it work.

[quote name='bobpalt' post='901700' date='Jul 22 2010, 10:26 AM']Changing to the Orange amp using the TC cabs didnt make things any better, but there was no problem whatsoever with the Ashdown combo, so the conclusion he drew was that the TC cabs have a low-mid emphasis that is exaggerated by the powerful pickups on the new Yamaha.[/quote] Yes, even on the various youtube clips of the TC gear I'venoticed this to be their overwhelming characteristic (easily audible on KJung's TC head comparison with the Markbass gear). It's a sound that, as someone who used to do sound quite often, I instinctively shy away from because it is damn difficult to control live and muddies everything up. And if the cab sound is giving this then there's nothing you can do with FoH. I often used to wish people would understand there's nothing you can do to suck sound out of a space before they start blaming a crap engineer for a band's bad stage sound.

Best jazz I've ever played tone-wise was a maple. I don't know how much of that was the maple though! It had a snappy top, great mid-range bark and growl and fat fat bottom. Didn't seem to matter how old the strings were either! That bass was the one that sent me on my (still unfulfilled) quest for the perfect jazz sound. It weighed a ton but was worth it, sadly can never persuade the owner to part with it.

That thing is seriously, seriously fugly. I quite like a lot of modern designs, but the ratios on that thing are all screwed up. I guess it could be cool, in a 'f*** you' sort of way. But pretty soon in the future it'll be the bass equivalent of having a mullet. If it sounds good, of course, then none of that matters a damn (sounds pretty 'generic modern active bass' on that video though!)

To update, I've finally finished a fill repair on my natural ash Jap 75RI, which I did using a superglue fill plus Plastikote Polyurethane varnish, and removed some nasty buckle rash. I'd done the filling ages ago and sanded out the buckle rash with 280 through to 400, but only today have done the final finishing. I found that to get a really glass-smooth finish, you have to sand right down then work up carefully through all the grades of sandpaper, then a coarse rubbing cutting compound. I think the finer grades of wet'n'dry sandpaper you can get the better, up to at least 2000. I went up to 1200 which was all I had and then to Halford's rubbing compound, then T-cut. Worked well and the finish is a nice smooth high gloss, but I had to do a LOT of rubbing and I still haven't got the 1200 scratches completely out. Much better to work finer with the paper, bridging the gap between the paper and compound is the issue (or was for me this time). I'll be ordering 1500, 2000, 2500 (at least) online for my next project and maybe a couple of different grades of rubbing compound too. This may be a grandma-egg-sucking scenario, but I thought I'd mention it as after today's experience, I'm confident that if you put on enough layers of clear-coat, sanding down, cutting and buffing like this will give that Fender finish - as long as the body has been well-prepped and is smooth/flat to start with.

I was asking about this sort of thing recently. From what people said and what I found elsewhere in the course of my research, you have to be very careful putting polyester over lacquer finishes like acrylic and particularly for nitro it may well f*** right up. Btw Fender USA are typically polyurethane. Only the MIM and Squiers are polyester. I did find 2k polyurethane available in spray cans from specialist auto suppliers. But you'd still need breathing equipment to spray it.

[quote name='gjones' post='896070' date='Jul 15 2010, 10:23 PM']Replace the neck of the 70's Jazz with the neck from the Classic vibe.......sorted![/quote] And/or swap the pups from the 70s Classic to the CV and see if it's the pups themselves that you prefer rather than the positioning. I'm surprised you find the 70s neck too chunky, I now have a 70s Classic and find the neck amazingly comfortable, and I'm someone who's used to the ultra-slim Ibanez SR500, or the shallow-profiled but close to P-bass-spaced Bass Collections

[quote name='bubinga5' post='889952' date='Jul 8 2010, 10:39 PM']Sounds like the guy doesnt know what hes on about...def not a 77...looks like a roadworn to me (but the price is way too low) ...Walnut effect scratchplate?? Could be a MIM but distrrssed ? for any bass with Fender on the headstock this price is low...confusing...if its too good to be true...it usually is..[/quote] That's just a stock pic of a roadworn. Anyone nearby, go and have a look asap!

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='889899' date='Jul 8 2010, 09:48 PM']I've got quite a lot of stuff on YT. If you look at it, you'll realise within a couple of seconds that it's not an attempt to show what great a bass player I am... God forbid. I'll leave that kind of thing to MarloweDK, who I think is awesome. In my formative years hunting for gear, I struggled to find clips of people... playing the bass. There was loads of slapping and flashiness, and I found it really difficult to compare stuff to gauge fundamental differences. Most of the stuff I have up there consists of me playing the same line on different combinations of amps, cabs, basses and strings to help people compare. It's obviously not scientific, but people do find it useful. I know this because I get lots of messages from people saying so. Which is nice. I also get fair few telling me 'my chops suck', or 'Dude, play something different!' or similar. ha ha.[/quote] I agree with all this...but actually I think it's really good performance practice for lots of people to put vids up of themselves - you don't have to watch it if you don't want (and it's not something I've ever done myself), but the 'pressure' of performing for others, with video evidence for dissection afterwards, is a good stepping stone out of the bedroom as it were.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='888909' date='Jul 7 2010, 08:39 PM']Good info, thanks The new 08 onwards Fenders have a slightly thinner coating with Fender's blurb 'allowing the body to breathe' more. I must admit, there does seem to be a difference. They sound exactly how I wanted them to. Its a shame the Highway 1s dont get more coverage....seem like a bargain.[/quote] It's really difficult to attribute any difference to a particular facet unless you actually swap it over while all else remains equal. When I get round to stripping a couple of poly (one polyester, one possibly urethane?) bodies then I'll see for myself what difference if any I can perceive with an unfinished body on one individual instrument, before I refinish. I will report back! But it may not happen for a while, much though I'm impatient to get going.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='888133' date='Jul 7 2010, 09:53 AM']The nitro finish on these makes a huge difference to the sound. I compared the one I had to an American Standard and the US bass sounded almost choked by it's poly gloss finish. Perhaps the 'holes' in the finish let more sound out or something? [/quote] The problem with that is it could be due to something other than the finish, there's quite a lot of differences specs'wise between a US standard and the RW . 'Cos otherwise the Highway 1's would sound amazing.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='887858' date='Jul 6 2010, 10:21 PM']I'm going to shelve the idea for a while. The RW is a nice bass, but I've confirmed with Fender UK and USA that it's exactly the same as the MIM 60s bass, except the appearance. The extra cash is for the relic/paint. All parts are Mexican including the pickups. That's not knocking em, but I'm going to think about it a little more.[/quote] This has been puzzling me. Why don't people rave about the Classic 60s then? I find it hard to believe the finish makes such a massive difference. Do you think they are picking the better tonewoods for the Classic 60s, or better QC, or are the Classic 60s seriously underrated?

[quote name='mrjim' post='880453' date='Jun 28 2010, 10:29 PM']I just used the cheapest from the local auto shop which was a combination of Carplan acrylic primer and colour coats. I then had to use Granville acrylic clear as they didn’t have any carplan clear in stock! Regarding paint volumes, if you read through the reranch 101 [url="http://reranch.com/101.htm"]http://reranch.com/101.htm[/url] and [url="http://reranch.com/solids.htm"]http://reranch.com/solids.htm[/url] It will explain it all in detail but it is basically one can of colour and at least 2 cans of clear (third permitting if you can afford it...) Just don’t spray a whole can in one go, I could get about 4-5 coats from one 400ml can.[/quote] That's ace, I'd seen some of that stuff but wasn't sure on quantities compared to the nitro. Thanks again, the contributions on this thread have been a great help!

[quote name='mrjim' post='880325' date='Jun 28 2010, 08:48 PM']There’s no harm in experimenting as long as you use scrap wood but I’ve found acrylic finishes to be hard enough. You can still dent/chip an acrylic finish but I can also damage super thick poly finishes as well![/quote] My 75RI is testament to that...is there any brand of acrylics you'd recommend? Otherwise my digging around on the internet has led me to specialistpaints and their 2K aerosols, which look great, but as well as being expensive the toxicity is an issue. Also does anyone have an idea of quantities, in terms of ml, that'd be required for each layer?

[quote name='Bloodaxe' post='879165' date='Jun 27 2010, 08:12 PM']Drying time & Curing time are different animals. If your 75RI is already finished in Poly, then there should be no real issue with adverse reactions from any refinishing. Poly coat is catalysed, so it chemically cures in next to no time. The only way to get it off is with a sander, chisel or a [b]lot[/b] of Nitromors (preferably the lethal yellow version) & steel wool. The Rustin's brush-varnish will go on over any painted finish with no adverse effects at all, but it does need to be "keyed in" to the surface it's being applied to and it's always a good idea to key in all coats from primer up to final varnish to ensure good adhesion (almost irrespective of the paint system you're applying).[/quote] The bass I'd be refinishing is a tatty black 80s MIJ - not sure of the finish yet as I haven't received it yet, but I'm guessing either polyurethane or polyester. If it's anything like as thick as the coat on the 75RI then I'll try and get at least some of it off, just out of curiosity over whether I can hear any difference in tone! On the 75RI chipping out the dings seemed straightforward, if a little time-consuming. I understand I can put almost anything over the top of poly, but not sure about what works the other way round. Could I use an acrylic lacquer for my base colour and then coat with something like the Rustins or 2K, or will I get problems with shrinkage/adhesion/something else? From what I've read somewhere (posibly reranch?) you can't do this over a nitro base coat. I'd not previously considered brush finishes. It seems an attractive option if the finish can be made reasonably thin. Ideally I want whatever is the most durable, so this might mean 2K(?) Questions questions! I appreciate all the input so far, everyone's been very helpful thanks! When I get this project off the ground I'll post a thread in the Build Diaries section, for better or worse. I'm thinking Candy Apple Red with a matching headstock on a rosewood neck.

I''ve not heard the barefaced cabs but I'd be surprised if there was a significant difference in volume in favour of the markbass, you're talking about a 4x10 versus a 15+12 with similarly high-spec drivers. The Markbass might be voiced louder in the mids, but you can always make that up with EQ, with negligible effect on overall power draw. I think the main difference would be the tone, that's what would make me wary about the switch if you're happy with the Markbass sound.