Ancient Mariner

Interesting comments: this is the first negative stuff I've heard about Pleking. In the guitar world they're considered to offer better fret work than *most* luthiers working by hand are capable of: certainly when Gibson started using a machine a couple of years back everyone breathed a big sigh of relief when they started shipping guitars with consistently acceptable frets. The point about them is that they measure the neck under full string tension and then cut the frets, ensuring that even an iffy neck plays acceptably. However at a very high cost it's almost impossible to justify: I'm certain that Chandler's priced themselves out of the market (original review in Guitarist mentioned a stainless steel refret and plek treatment at £100 each, but investigating a few months later suggested it would cost a LOT more than that). I don't think any decent UK luthiers have anything to worry about from plek at this point in time. You have much more to worry about from guys that already have good luthiery skills losing their ordinary jobs and trying to make a bit of money setting up in competition.

You know, I was completely convinced the Machina dynamica site was a spoof, right up until the last couple of posts here (and I'm STILL pretty sure it is).

The settings won't affect the amp because the speaker will present a constant load. The idea of having a tone control in the speaker leaves me with mixed feelings, since most amps have a perfectly good set of tone controls to begin with, and one would specifically not want tone to change with attenuation. But there's another issue, in that a substantial part of what makes us want to play loud is the behaviour of speakers working hard and the way they sound when they're pushed a bit. I'm not sure this has been thought through very well, although I can't really say without trying the final product.

They have gained a reputation for patchy quality in the guitar world over the last few years. Still my make of choice, but certainly not without their faults.

It's a TRAP!

[quote name='hillbilly deluxe' post='706608' date='Jan 9 2010, 02:34 PM']That is proberbly how the 60's/70's ones came,bearing in mind that the red and yellow will have faded by now and the black often takes on a brownish colour with age.[/quote] Agreed, except being poly it probably won't fade enough.

Cool, but only just. Reminds me far too much of those Tiesco guitars made of plywood and tin cans.

You might want to try a compressor on it. If you don't have one then you could try the CS100 from behringer (about £20 from bluearan.co.uk). You could also try the BLE100 limiter, which is bass specific (but do not buy the DC9). Adjust the attack setting to control how much 'pluck' comes through - faster attack settings will cause the compressor to activate more quickly and reduce the initial spike.

The bass centre have a bunch of fleabasses for £289 as B stock (due to finish damage) if anyone's interested. [url="http://www.basscentre.com/bass-guitars-amps-sale.html"]http://www.basscentre.com/bass-guitars-amps-sale.html[/url] HTH

There are a few things that might cause some sort of fizzy distortion, but diagnosing them remotely and through the written medium is *difficult*. You really should take your amp to a tech where it can be checked over properly. By all means try swapping valves around in the preamp, but if you're having to back the gain off much more than normal and still getting it I'd suspect something has happened in the power supply to the preamp.

Spear guitars don't have a great rep for quality, although they usually look 'interesting'. That may well carry through to the bass lines as well.

Likewise. Burpster - I didn't think anyone was having a go as such, and if you can justify buying a PRS bass then you have no difficulty justifying a £100+ addition to it. It's only your money, and not up to anyone else to hassle over what you do with it. Besides, how many would spend that on a different pair of pickups, or trying a different set of valves in their amp? I did like the way other guys suggested budget alternatives, and I'm sure that a manufacturer like GFS could create a cost effective korean alternative. The thing is, you paid for a tool that you find useful, is well made and that you were pleased enough to post about. Legitimi non carborundum: their parents were likely married, but don't let it grind you down anyway. And you've made me want to try it now too - thankyou.

Max has the answer I guess - people don't change their sounds mid song. FWIW a 3 way switch will allow you to blend 2 pickups together exactly as you already can with a J type, but will allow you to quickly solo either PU without fiddling with a volume pot. This strikes me as more useful: all the sounds you already have plus 2 more. The same thing could be achieved with push-pull pots on each volume, but without changing appearance from the front.

Coming from the world of guitar where almost every instrument with more than 1 pickup (except the Godin Radiator: each PU has it's own volume) has pickup selection on a switch, I've realised that basses almost never do. Bass players have a reputation for being innovative and not bound to tradition, so this omission surprises me. Is there a good reason or is that just 'how it is'? A simple 3 way selector seems an obvious addition to a jazz bass.

You could always replace it with a push-pull pot that allowed you to bypass the tone pot: that way you retain the 'new' tone and have a bit more versatility for those moments less bite is needed.

[quote name='iconic' post='694674' date='Dec 28 2009, 08:16 AM']wow, many thanks for posting these vids, so it isn't all witchcraft afterall...........only some of it! ...regarding the intonation, what did he mean by open string and the harmonic using the 12th fret? Can anyone explain? cheers[/quote] To generate the harmonic of the open string place your fingertip gently on the string over the 12th fret but don't press down. Pluck the string and immediately remove your finger. The string will produce a note that is an octave above the normal open string note.

Thanks guys, both for advice and links. And sorry if I posted in the wrong place. So there's nothing special to it compared with conventional guitar, allowing for greater string oscillation of course? That's handy. This afternoon I collected 2 basses: an Encore precision type that I got in trade for a pedal, and gafbass002's Johnny Brooke jazz type. The Johnny Brooke seems fine just like the man said (and is a nice looking instrument too) but the encore needs action, intonation and neck relief (not in that order!) sorting. At this stage I've no idea which style of bass will work best, and since they were available trying both seems a good idea. I plan to follow the G&L manual for bass set up. [url="http://www.glguitars.com/faq/GLmanual.pdf"]http://www.glguitars.com/faq/GLmanual.pdf[/url] Now for the fun of trying to wean myself off using a pick. At least bass fingerstyle is nothing like conventional guitar, so I can start from scratch instead of trying to adapt existing techniques with all the bad habits that brings.

Hi guys - my first thread here. I'm about to acquire my first bass in nearly 30 years (had an Avon EB0 copy as a teenager) and I'm pretty sure it'll need setting up, judging by the video demo the current owner made. I'm quite happy working on guitars, doing everything from fret leveling to pickup replacement, and although a bass is superficially the same, I'm sure there's subtle tricks specific to bass for getting it right. So this is a request for knowledge - what should I do that's different from a guitar. Please share your tips to make a bass play and sound great. Thanks gents.