Jerry_B

Yeah, it's the first medium scale bass I've ever owned or played and for the first few plays my brain was not sure what to do It's actually more beaten up than it looks in the photo. Various dings and scratches. I'm guessing the previous owner mostly played the E and A strings at the top of the neck and hammering away with a plectrum. There's a lot a scratches around the neck pup, there's gouges in the fingerboard and the frets have seen better days. But it's still very playable and the pups are nice and barky

I also recently acquired this Pro II Laser Electric, but I've not tried it out yet as it's in the UK and I'm in Finland I've been after one for a while after not being able to afford one in the 80s

Well, with a lot of swearing and much flattening of thumbs, I managed to get the bugger to budge! The pup rubber was more like a thinnish block of plastic, so the pup now sits on some slices of mousepad. The bridge pup now it adjustable, and combined with a new set of roundwound Chromes (I think the bass was still wearing the original factory strings!) the whole bass has come to life I've attached a pic so that you can see how it looks now. It's a medium scale 1983 CSB. Thanks again for all the help and encouragement!

Hehe - I was thinking of maybe using a few spoons as levers

That's good to hear - cheers! There's a bit of a gap around the pups so they're not wedged in by the body, so it must just be 36 years of being just sat in it. Anyway, it now means I can just have another go at trying to get the pup to budge, so some more elbow grease is obviously in order.

Get a wiring harness from KiOgon, a member of these forums. These are a set of replacement pots which you can just swap out with your old ones. No soldering is involved, and they're excellent!

Hi all I've just acquired one of these and was wanting to remove the pickups, namely the bridge pup. This is so that I can put some foam under it and have a bit of control over the height, as at the mo' it's rather low and therefore sounds pretty anemic. However, after removing the pup screws, the thing doesn't want to budge. Were there actually glued into the cavity? Or are my fingers just too wimpy? ;D Any help much appreciated!

[quote name='project_c' timestamp='1495325225' post='3303028'] Put some rounds on the bass and see if it makes any difference [/quote] I would if I had any, but it's odd that this problem only happens with one particular bass. Like I said, my other pbass with tapewounds has no issues.

[quote name='project_c' timestamp='1495027772' post='3300608'] you're getting hum because of the tapewound strings. this is a known thing and it happens under certain conditions, dimmer switches are a big contributor but other things can cause it too, computer monitors etc. Same with almost any other coated string, its something you need to take into consideration when using coated strings. [/quote] Hmm - I'm not so sure. I have tapewounds on another pbass and there are no issues with them at all WRT noise. In fact, this bass I'm asking about has had tapewounds on it but with some older electrics inside and there was no hum then either.

Unfortunately the bass is elsewhere at the moment and I won't be playing it again for a few weeks. This means I can't take any photos. WRT the bridge wire under the BBOT, I made sure that there was a small piece of copper tape on the body that the exposed wire was resting on before the bridge went back on. I was hoping this would fix the problem but it seems to have made no difference. The pups are brand new so I'm hoping that they also not faulty.

Hi all I've recently put some SD Quarter Pounders into a Frankenfender Pbass. These are going through a wiring harness made by KiOgon, with Alpha mini pots. The strings are D'Addario nylon tapewounds. Despite adding some copper tape shielding, especially to the underside of the scratchplate, I'm having a few issues that I'm a bit mystified by. First of all, there appears to be some sort of grounding issue, even though I've taken the bass part twice and made sure everything is correct (i.e. wires are going into the right pots, ground wire is sitting nicely under the bridge). There is a certain amount of noise, which typically goes away when I touch the bridge, controls, etc. If I touch the poles on the forward, neck-side block of the pup, it buzzes a lot. This doesn't happen with the rear, bridge-side block. That one stays silent. I know the pickups are pretty hot but these noise issues seem a bit odd. Secondly, when tightening up the nuts on the underside of the control knobs so that the pots are secure to the underside of the scratchplate, if I do this normally the bass tone goes completely muddy. If I loosen the tone pot slightly, the muddiness goes away. I'd be very grateful if anyone could enlighten me as to why these things are happening! I've been using the bass a lot recently for recording and the noise issues are pretty annoying

Ordered and received another Pbass wiring kit from John - great stuff!

Another happy customer here for one of John's Pbass wiring kits. Great stuff - and a very fast turnaround!

I bought a Pbass wiring kit from John - all spiffing, as usual!

He was probably insured...

I quite like DiPinto's... [url="http://www.dipintoguitars.com/product.php?id=11"]http://www.dipintoguitars.com/product.php?id=11[/url]

I thought they were pretty good - although Rob Smith nowadays looks like some sort of scary auntie who's wandered on-stage from a WI meeting...

Here's me at a rehearsal last week, playing my fretless Frankenprecision. The rehearsal space had a slightly green strip light in the ceiling, which the iPhone decided was the best colour for the whole photo...

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1333028505' post='1596400'] Yamaha. My bass tutor uses a simple RBX170 in his band and it works great for him. I have a BB614 that I picked up for buttons (although it had some issues to iron out) and I would say that a BB414 would be a great, inexpensive bass (I have heard some people say they preferred it to the active 614). [/quote] BB414s are just brilliant for the money - great sound and very very good build quality!

I've got a Vintage 204, which is awful in terms of build quality but sounds nice. The 'relic' job on it is just silly, and badly done - for example, the worn paint has laquer over it. The 'tinted' neck is a sort of sprayed-on fake tan

[quote name='StraightSix' timestamp='1331889265' post='1580333'] Westone basses are available within that price range - here's a Thunder 1A: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Westone-Thunder-I-A-Fretless-Bass-Guitar-Flat-Wound-Strings-Shipping-Case-/130651889185?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item1e6b759e21"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item1e6b759e21[/url] This is the active, single pickup version of the Thunder III. Top quality, made in Japan by Matsumoku. More info here: [url="http://www.westone.info/indexthunderbass.html"]http://www.westone.i...hunderbass.html[/url] [/quote] Definitely worth it - amazingly good basses!

I'd say you'd be better off trying to build one as a bitsa project. It depends on what sort of bass you're after (P, J or P/J). Or see if one comes up for sale on Basschat.

[quote name='ead' timestamp='1331818681' post='1579382'] Sorry Jerry_B, I rather selfishly forgot to complement you on a very nice looking bass. [/quote] No worries - cheers

There's an Ebay seller called bluebass320, who sometimes has Mighty Mite unlined ebanol-fingerboard necks for sale. May be worth tracking him down to see when he may have some on order, etc.

Maybe it's worth just getting a new unlined neck. You can sometimes get Mighty Mite ones from a guy on Ebay for 100 quid, more or less.