polvo

I've been acquiring random bass & guitar effects pedals for a while, basically buying up anything interesting that I find being sold cheap second hand. I've played around with various different combos, but I'm interested to hear what other people would do with this.

So treat this like a box of lego - what are you gonna build? And what's it gonna sound like? Bonus points if you can point me to a recording of the kind of sound you're aiming for. You can also add in one or two missing pedals if you think there are others I should be adding into the mix here.

Pedals include:

• Sansamp BDDI
• MXR blow torch fuzz/overdrive (NOT PICTURED)
• EHX bass big muff
• Boss ODB-3 bass overdrive
• MXR sub octave bass fuzz
• MXR blue box octave fuzz
• EHX octave multiplexer
• Boss OC-3 super octave
• 'Dumble' homemade overdrive*
• TC Electronics skysurfer reverb
• MXR smart gate
• Neewer noise gate
• Marshall ED1 compressor

(*Seller's description of the Dumble: Based on the NE5532 chip. Can go from full distortion to light overdrive with the drive knob. Has a smooth sound that works with single coils and humbuckers. Mid-focused overdrive tone.)

Thanks everyone, good sleuthing!

Would love it if someone can tell me anything about this bass, or have a guess at who made it and when.

Here's what I know...

• neck thru
• double truss rod
• active
• serial number 00134

Bonus points if you can tell me what's going on in that last photo, I've never seen electronics like that (but also don't know much about active electronics). What's the rectangular thing and is meant to look that lumpy?

Still available? 

This is an update on my previous post:

I had a go at rewiring the bass, and it mainly works ok. But there's a problem with the volume knob - first, it doesn't actually control the volume at all, and second there's a buzzing noise when I touch it. The buzzing suggests a grounding issue but I don't know what... Can anyone help me figure out what's causing the problem?

I more or less followed the wiring diagram below, except for a couple of changes to make the rewiring simpler. Do either of the changes below sound like they would cause the problems with the volume knob?

1. The original wiring had everything grounded to tone, so I left it like that (instead of unsoldering all of those ground wires and resoldering to volume) 

2. The tone pot was wired completely differently and I kept it pretty much as is: 

volume wire goes to the left lug (instead of the middle lug, like in the diagram)

left lug also connects to middle lug

capacitor is on the middle lug (instead of the right lug, like in the diagram) and then grounded to the top of the pot

right lug grounded to the top of the pot

Thank you to everyone above for your help! But now comes the follow-up question, where I try to understand what I've done wrong and how to fix it...

EDIT: Removed the rest of this comment and moved it to a new thread here: 

22 hours ago, gjones said:

If you are fine to spend £45 I know a man who can help you out with an excellent, solderless, Volume, Blend, Tone wiring harness https://www.basschat.co.uk/profile/7835-kiogon/content/

Thanks, but I want to give this a go myself. I make a complete hash of it then good to know I have a backup option!

On 27/04/2023 at 09:32, Matt P said:

as you are rewiring and replacing one of the pots i would suggest replacing all of them with good quality ones (CTS would be my top pick, with Alpha second choice) while you're in there

Is this about the new blend pot somehow being consistent with the volume & tone pots? Or just about upgrading the other pots since I'll have them out anyway? I hadn't planned on that... but will think about it if it makes a noticeable difference.

On 27/04/2023 at 09:32, Matt P said:

i generally get a bit of thick card and mount the pots into that while i'm soldering everything together if the pickup wires are long enough you should be able to do all the work out of the bass except the output jack connections.

Great tip!

On 27/04/2023 at 09:13, BigRedX said:

Having said that, it would be useful to see where all those wires disappearing out of the left side of the photograph go.

That's mostly just me holding the bundle of wires out of the way to take a clearer photo. But a few of the black wires go into the body to connect to the pickups - as I've since learnt, these are extra grounding wires.

Before I get to my main question - what is the point of 2 separate volume knobs rather than a blend knob? It really annoys me that I can't quickly & easily adjust volume without impacting on the tone, or vice versa. I can't really see any advantage of double volume knobs but it's so common... what am I missing?

Ok, and now the main bit. The plan is to turn the 1st pot into master volume and replace the 2nd with a blend. But I'm kind of confused by the wiring under the hood, and it doesn't seem to match what I'm seeing in the diagram...

.

Based on that, I was expecting to see three wires connected to the 1st pot (two from the pickup, and one going to the 2nd pot). But instead I have one from the front pickup (yellow in the photo below), one going to the jack (white), and one to the 2nd pot (white/red). The front pickup also has another two other wires (both black), one going to the 2nd pot and one going to the tone knob.

Does anyone know why the wiring seems so different to the diagram? Or am I missing something obvious here?

And any advice on how to approach the rewiring?

Thanks!

Don't suppose you're ever in London and able to bring it with you? 

If not then I might have to find an excuse for a trip to Brighton...

2 hours ago, Doctor J said:

Page 13

 

https://guitar-compare.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2014_ESP_Catalogo_Argentina.pdf

Actually, I just took another look and I don't think that's the same bass. This one has a humbucker but the ones in that catalogue (and the reverb link) have split pickups.

Good sleuthing, thanks!

3 minutes ago, Doctor J said:

Can you get a clear photo of the inlay on the neck? With LTDs, that often has the model number therein.

It's not very helpful in this case...

Does anyone have any idea what model this might be??

Looks similar to the B-10 but I can't find anything online about a single pickup model.

16 hours ago, PaulThePlug said:

I think if you remove the hardware, and sand it a bit, it will get rid of the light area...

You will prolly need to sand the surface finish off anyway for any stain to take...

Yeah this is a good point. Whether I stain it or do a decal I'll need to sand it down first, and that might be enough to solve the immediate problem anyway. Thanks

3 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

What colour do you want to stain it?

I don't really have a colour in mind, just something that will cover up the white mark where the decal used to be.

Lots of good decal suggestions in this thread, but I think I'd rather go with staining it if that's an option.

Picked up a dirt cheap bass that I want to start modding, but I hate having a website logo on the headstock so I managed to remove the decal. Now I want to stain the headstock to cover it completely.

Any ideas? Bonus points if I can use tea or coffee or something I already have lying around the house!

I might also just try to cover it up with some weird artistic decal, but haven't been able to find anything good online (most of my searches just show fake Fender decals!). So if you have any suggestions for online shops that do good ones, that would be awesome!

I've ended up buying a logarithmic pot as a replacement, from what I've read online that sounds like a better choice for me. 

Decided to stick with 250, since that's what was in it originally (unless the previous owner replaced it at some point).

35 minutes ago, tauzero said:

It seems odd that it's a B250 as that's a linear pot, so not very good for volume control (the sensitivity of the ear has a logarithmic response). Although the schematic for the B4 shows it as a B500:

 

 

Unless this is one of the revamped B4s (Element?) in which case looking at Bartolini's circuit diagrams might be more useful.

 

This is really useful, thank you! Where did you get this from? And which model is this for specifically?

Mine is a B4 Plus AS RM.

32 minutes ago, PaulThePlug said:

Alpha, made in Korea.

If you undo the nut on the top, and push it thru, should have the value on the underneath... Active with Mk1 Barts? Similar to Ibanez SR500/600...

Sweet, got it, thanks!  It's a B250. Now just need to figure out if it's short/medium/long shaft length, but I'll check with the ebay seller about that.

On another note, the ebay advert says "I would check what pots you have installed first before you choose your replacements. Most bass guitars are actually fitted with all A250K pots as with an audio taper the treble is decreased much later in the turn of the knob proving more useful for bass players". I'm curious what basschatters think... is there any advantage to the taper instead of linear? I would have thought linear is better - I'd rather my volume knob only controls volume, so I can EQ separately.

Just now, PaulThePlug said:

New pot... simples.

Have the cover of the back and see what it is? A250k vol log pot, solid shaft... what make Guitar and Pot?

All it says on the back is 'A'

The bass is a Cort Artisan B4, so I'll do some digging online and see if I can find any specs about what kind of replacement pot I need.

For anyone following this thread, you may be interested in the latest tragicomic development... I bought it and then broke it within 10 minutes. Goddamit. It played beautifully for those 10 minutes though...

Just picked up a second hand bass, tested it out and it was all working fine. And then I went into idiot mode. 

I decided to switch out the volume knob, but the knob was really stiff and hard to lift off the bass (me being an idiot, I only noticed the little screw in the side afterwards). I managed to get it off... but something has come loose and now there's no sound coming from the bass at all.

A few other symptoms...

The volume knob just keeps turning now, it has no minimum or maximum.

The internal part of the volume knob (don't what this bit is called) can now lift up or push back into the bass. I'm assuming it should just be staying pushed down?

The volume pot inside the bass has also come a bit loose. All the wires still seem to be connected but it has a bit of wiggle which none of the other pots have.

I think I must have just pulled something loose... any ideas how to fix this?

I'll take it to a tech if I have to, but would like to have a go at fixing it myself. If this is a risky procedure I have a crap £10 guitar I can experiment on first...

Does anyone know what the difference is between the Cort Artisan B4 plus and the B4 element? And is there a third type of Artisan B4 (maybe older) which is neither Plus nor Element?

I'm tempted by this beauty, which is just listed as "Cort Artisan B4", but can't quite tell what model it is exactly. Any clues which model this might be, and whether £230 would be a good price?

1 hour ago, Aidan63 said:

Looks like the originals had lifted and the voids have been filled with wood filler or the like; you could rout out the filler and maybe some more wood to fit new inlays or as you say just use stick on ones; stick on ones you can change the look to suit your mood, sharks fins one day, birds the next....

Are the inlay stickers a decent option then? I'd kind of assumed they'd be a bit rubbish, but maybe not.