Jerry_B

I'm on holiday and so have been giving this 1985 Aria Pro II Laser Electric 'Heritage' a bit of an overhaul. Despite playing around with the pickup height I still can't seem to get the bridge pickup to sound less thin and reedy. The neck pickup is really good, but when the two are combined the bass sounds a bit compressed. Anyway, aside from that, this is a very nice bass.

Thanks! Yep, everything is now back to normal. What a fun bass to play

Yep, all done and working fine now. Thanks for everyones' help!

12 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

No it goes to the right hand tab of the tone pot.

Great, thanks!

The reason I asked here is because I don't know anyone who could help me out 😉 All I need to know really is where the aforementioned wire needs to go. Hopefully someone can explain that.

Here's a photo. I soldered the stray wire (the thin white one the right of the picture) from the jack to the middle lug of the tone pot, but that doesn't seem to be doing anything much apart from making things sound muddy and there's also no signal from the bridge pup. So that doesn't seem to be the correct connection.

Thanks very much for the pics guys! That said, I'm still a bit confused as to where this loose wire from the hot pole of the jack needs to go. Mine has a barrel jack like Bigguy's.

That's what I'm trying to figure out, I think. The stray wire isn't from a volume pot, as there's a second wire seems to be still connected and eventually runs to the jack, but not the hot pole. I think the tone pot is wired up a bit differently to a Jazz, but without seeing another B2 I'm not 100% sure what goes where. There are a lot of connections to the tone pot which all seem to join to one of the lugs via a big bit of solder on the top of the tone pot where various wires meet. So I'm wondering if the stray wire got broken off from there.

Thanks! I thought it was going to be a version of Jazz wiring too but I'm not sure it is.

Does anyone have one of these and could perhaps take some pics of the internals for me please? The one I have has one loose wire from what I think is the hot pole of the jack - one end is connected to the pole but the other end has come loose, and I'm not sure where it connects up to. Any help much appreciated!

10 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

As built, they were novelty basses designed as something of a joke and absolutely built down to a price. All the electrics/electronics without exception were compete pants ... cheap, shoddy pickups connected to cheap, shoddy pots using cheap, shoddy wiring.

Well, they weren't cheap at the time of their release, but not expensive either. Strange to hear that the electronics were not up to scratch. In all the Westones I own, they're pretty much bullet-proof and I've never had to change them. Ditto the pickups.

I dunno if it helps there's a basic wiring diagram here.

I have an '83 T-40:

It's one of my favourite basses. I'd not put it through an amp for a while but got the chance to do so last weekend, after not having the chance for a few years. It's a nice rugged piece of engineering, and I don't mind it's weight (tbh, with a decent strap the weight isn't noticeable IMHO). I like all the different tones it can create, and sooner or later I've found myself gravitating to a few settings with the controls/switches that I use as a kind of default. I'm also interested in the 1000w MiniMega head, as my PF350 isn't really powerful enough any more in a band situation but I've not committed to that idea just yet. My only 'gripe' about the T-40 is that, now their price has ballooned, using one for gigs seems like a bit more of a risk...

I don't mind the weight of the T-40 - mind you, in the event of a nuclear war I'm going to use its hard case as a bunker 😁

Aha. I've not seen any since maybe 1990 or so. The three music shops in the little town where I was living at the time all stocked them, IIRC.

13 hours ago, shoulderpet said:

I only used Elites once and they literally went dead overnight, I was 15 at the time so wasn't playing gigs and was tbh a bit lazy with practicing so between the time they were fitted and when they went dead they had all of 20 mins play on them, how they went dead overnight is a mystery but it's the only set of strings that has done that (I killed a set of Rotosounds in 1 gig once but tbh the venue was so hot I don't think any set of strings would have survived)

Strange. I've been using Elites for donkeys years and have never had any problems with them. In fact, they're the only strings I've used that don't go dead or muddy after a lot of playing and as I play with a plectrum I like the fact that they keep their sound well over time. I think one of my basses has a set that's about 3 years old and they're still perfectly useable. Their DBEs are good too. That said, their Detroit Flats are not my cup of tea as they do go muddy - I much prefer Chromes. I think in the late 80s I was using Labella Hard Rockin' Steel strings but I think they were rebadged some time ago(?).

Mids. But I play with a plectrum.

Yep. I almost bought a quite battered 1979 model on Ebay before I spotted the one I have now, which I bought from someone here on BC in 2010. It's crazy how the price of T-40s has rocketed since then.

Oops - forgot to mention I also own this monster from 1983 (my brain still thinks of this as being a 70s bass, for some reason or other):

On 06/02/2025 at 09:30, Twigman said:

Whatever happened to Westone?

 

A school friend of mine had one  - it was the first bass I played - i really wanted a Thunder 1A but I couldn't afford one.

My first proper bass was a 1985 Westone Spectrum DX, which I bought in 1989. I say 'proper' as my first one was an Indian-made Jazz that was barely playable. I got the DX second-hand for 20 quid from a shop in Weymouth, but some dingbat had spray-painted it with green car paint and filed off the serial number. The paint was a bugger to strip off and when removing it the original red paint went too. So the whole thing was given a coat of beeswax and it's been the same way ever since:

It's been a solid bass over the years. The only thing I've ever had to do with it was put in some new tuners and had it refretted about 3 years ago. I am a die-hard Westone fan. I have a few more:

This site has a lot of details pics etc on the various Westone basses and guitars. The other 80s basses I have are an Aria Pro II Laser Electric Heritage from 1985 or so, and a Hohner B2 headless from about the same date or a bit later. Both of those are good fun too.

I've just acquired a Westone Spectrum LX and it's neck pup is essentially a Pbass type but with bigger poles. At the moment the D and G strings sound much quiter than the others when played. I've unscrewed it from the body and flipped it over to see if there are any loose wires, but it all seems ok (although the pup itself is sealed with a dob of plastic-looking glue at four points). I've had a look at the pots and the wiring there seems ok, so I'm wondering what the issue could be. The bass wasn't in all that great condition when it was delivered, despite having its own hard case, and was generally cruddy with some evidence of rust on exposed painted metal parts, and some of the poles on the pup were a bit tarnished. So I'm wondering if something has rotted somewhere, or whether it just needs all the electrics having a squirt of contact cleaner (which I haven't tried yet).

Any ideas about what might be going on would be much appreciated. I have a few regular pbasses but have never had this issues with their pups. 

I have an old Hondo II guitar that needed revamping so as part of a few upgrades I asked John if he maybe made looms for Les Paul-type things. Luckily he did and he also tweaked the loom a bit to get the most out of the Iron Gear pups I'd added as part of the revamp. Once my my sausage fingers managed to install it, everything worked brilliantly!

Yamaha BB's are awesome bits of kit. Not a huge fan of the scratchplate and metal they put on them now but either way they sound good and play very nicely.

Bass:

David J

Glenn Campling

Hooky

John Nowlin

Dave Riley

Rainy Wainwright

Paul Gray

Leslie Langston

Alison Shaw

Dean Garcia

Sooyoung Park

Klaus Fluoride

John McCoy's bass on the first Space:1999 theme tune is what started it all.

Geetar:

Michael Schenker

Captain Sensible

Bernie Tormé

Dave Sardy

Steve Albini

Mark Francombe

Matt Cope

Jon Fine

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

My brother has one. Dave Brock played a Spectrum guitar for several years.

I've been playing Spectrums since '88. Still have my original Spectrum DX (see pic) and it's still going strong. Generally I really like Westones (I have a few) but the Spectrums are my particular fave.