brickers

😅😂 well, all I can say is I’m jealous of you and not Tony Levin!

Tony Levin has a couple of beautiful peach 5ers - there’s a picture on this thread: Failing that I’d go for black or white but with a sparkle or pearlescent so it’s not totally plain

Bass Direct often have John East knobs in stock: https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/east-knob/

@Jamieboy how long would you say these last compared to something like dr hi beams? i usually use flats so don't have a clue how long rounds last. just got some hi beams, which i love the flexibility and sound of but still not sure of the zing and the texture. dragon skins look like they might be the fix!

Thanks @itu this is intended to be a bright build and I was thinking of using 500k pots, though I didn’t realise that’s how they stack. The mix pot looks cool, though I was intending for now to keep this passive, learn some soldering skills, find a focussed setup that works for me and consider active electronics later. Good to keep in mind though. your tilt/smile eq is very cool - doesn’t John east do something similar in a precision preamp to save space? Do you find that it’s intuitive to use?

I can't sleep so I've been drawing wiring diagrams. I wonder if anyone is able to validate what I've drawn please? It's my first time working with these things, and the documentation from the pickup manufacturer doesn't seem to quite include everything you'd need to know. My aim is this: A jazz neck pickup paired with a MM bridge pickup Vol/blend/tone But before the blend, the MM pickup has a four-way switch to choose either single coil or series/parallel Pickups are Delano JMVC FE/M2 (neck) and Delano MC 4 FE/M2 (bridge). Documentation for that is here: https://www.delano.de/downloads/installation guide_2018_1.pdf. The J is a 'shielded 2-conductor' and the MM 'shielded 4-conductor'. I've omitted shielding wires from the diagram as I understand they just go to ground. Thanks in advance!

Amazing advice - thank you again. Looks like you did a great job!

That’s a really great recommendation, thanks. I guess part of the challenge of this is ensuring just the right amount of epoxy. I’d presume that I’d want to err on the side of less rather than more so that I don’t have to deal with the dried excess? I can always trim back to the well-glued parts and use a filler if there’s a touch too little. But ideally this is minimal

Thanks @JPJ my current plan, created with the help of ChatGPT and to be validated by the lovely people of this forum is to fill the cavities with wood blocks and wood glue, then epoxy glue a veneer over the entire front. (Using epoxy because it’ll glue both wood and polyurethane) I was wondering how to deal with the edges without either dulling my nice chisels, or sanding ineffectively at it and potentially sanding the existing body because it’s possibly softer than the epoxied veneer edge. I also hadn’t considered cracking though I’d hope that as this would be a thin glue layer that might be mitigated. This is pure speculation though

Refinish it. Waterloo waiting for??

Thanks. I think that thought was probably in the back of my head. I currently have some EMG pickups that allow some of this tonal variety but I don’t really care for the differences that much, but I also think I’m not a fan of these particular pickups in general, so I’m struggling to know what the issue is. I guess this is what sterling did with their HH models… should have got an HH! 😭

Thanks Michael.

Absolutely. Takes a swathe of inexpensive basses off my shopping list, sadly. But I cannot get over it since some Canadian on talkbass compared it to a moose head

I’m considering building a music man/super jazz hybrid tone monster. The initial idea is to buy two quad coil humbucking pickups and set up the electronics for every possible combination. Each pick up would have a five way switch to choose between north coil, south coil, both coils in series or parallel, or off. And then a two-way switch to choose between combining the output of each pick up in series or in parallel. A couple of questions I have: Is this a viable way of combining the two pick ups electronics wise? is it even worth making all of these two options available?

I have a sire jazz bass that I routed some wood out of for new pickups. I’m considering routing out yet more wood for different pickups. Sooner or later I want to repaint the body and fill the unused cavities and I’m just wondering the best way of doing that. The plan so far is to fill the cavities by gluing in wood blocks, lightly sand most of the body, and completely sand the front, then use car paint spray cans for the refinish. My concern is that over time there might be some join visible on the front if there is wood movement - I’m going for a pickguardless look. Is it worth finding some very thin sheet wood to glue over the front? For example Hobbycraft have sheets that are 1/32 of an inch thick. Does anyone have any experience of refinishing sire bodies? Are they known to be polyurethane? And if so am I right in thinking they can be painted over as long as they’ve been sanded to give the paint something to hold onto? Would this apply to the headstock too - I’d like to match the body colour and I’ve GOT to get rid of that terrible shape…

I love Ernie Ball cobalt flats. They tend to be more like a roundwound in sound that many other flats, but they don't have that zing to start and mellow nicely. i'm told they stay at that point for a long time. only issue people complain about is rusting, though it's purely cosmetic, and if you use something fastfret it'll prevent it.

Hey @Gaano124 do you happen to have any sound examples of your mod? I recently bought a new ray34 and already I’m tone chasing. Would be really nice to hear the effect of your change. Also did you find the pickup without thumb rest fitted straight in to the existing hole?

I’ve been playing a lot of different strings on a couple of different basses - a jazz and the new stingray. The good news is that I’ve realised string tension, feel and flat/roundness are less important to me than I thought, and the same goes for neck shape and size. It takes me a minute or two and I can adjust. I’m pretty pleased about this as a short while ago I couldn’t play a p and needed a slim jazz neck, and I needed lower tension flats. So that feels like progress in a non musical way and opens up options to get the right sound. The bad news is I’m tone chasing and concerned that my new bass isn’t what I thought it was. I put fresh rounds on my old jazz and got 80% of what I wanted 😢The ray34 is a great bass but the array of options between the preamp and variety of strings is a lot to get through to find what I want. Then I found this video yesterday which has the tone I’m after, so I bought a 45-100 set of these Ernie ball cobalt flats, and I have something to aim for. They seem to have a brightness without clank, and a nice metallic rattle which is a big part of the stingray sound to me. Only time will tell whether it was worth the cost!

Thanks. I was reading about these elsewhere and heard the same about brightness. Weird naming. They’re on the list

Are the TI rounds similar in feel to their flats? I have a set of their flats so might test them out The Dogals certainly are pricey… £60-£70 from thomann! Probably a bit beyond me currently, but I appreciate the info

As far as I’m aware they only had this one in stock so if you try one it’s probably the one I had!

Hi all I've got the aforementioned labella’s on my jazz bass and love the feel. Just pickup a stingray and am looking for a set of roundwounds with a similar feel, ideally a bit growly and not too zingy - the preamp can provide plenty of that if needed. Presumably I’m looking for something nickel or nickel plated (I’d prefer not to shred my fingers or frets with stainless steel anyway) and maybe round core? So far I can find GHS round core boomers and DR Sunbeams - anyone have an experience with their flexibility? What other options might be worth looking at?