The Aerodyne Fender should have made?

[neepheid]

1 minute ago, Chienmortbb said:

I am the same, do I need another bass or more importantly how many more basses do I need?

 

I definitely don't need it.  Need doesn't come into it when one owns ten and has churned through 58 in total...

[ezbass]

2 hours ago, neepheid said:

 

I definitely don't need it.  Need doesn't come into it when one owns ten and has churned through 58 in total...

I feel you’re setting yourself up for a purchase. Pretty good way to go out though.

[neepheid]

On 29/03/2024 at 14:58, kodiakblair said:

Mine definitely was 🙂

 

 

Think it cost me £189 either last year or the one before that so if they're no £150 it's a serious bargain.

 

Saw no reason to "upgrade" anything. Neck is a dream to play, not too chunky but thankfully not too thin. Had two issues. 

 

1. Slight string hum, that's down to grounding;  either poor contact at the mono saddles (no bare metal) or a saddle has been skipped.

2. Tone knob needed raised 1mm so it could clear the finish.

 

It is unclear from the photos I've seen - where does the ball end of the string go?  It's not through body but they just seem to disappear like through body stringing.

[kodiakblair]

57 minutes ago, neepheid said:

where does the ball end of the string go?

G4M use the same design as Ibanez, ball ends lock below the saddle, could do string through body option if needed.

 

[neepheid]

18 hours ago, ezbass said:

I feel you’re setting yourself up for a purchase. Pretty good way to go out though.

 

Nah, I'm walking away.  It's a frivolity, and if I'm going down, I'd rather it was for something special instead of a curiosity killed the abstinence type situation.

[ezbass]

1 minute ago, neepheid said:

 

Nah, I'm walking away.  It's a frivolity, and if I'm going down, I'd rather it was for something special instead of a curiosity killed the abstinence type situation.

That was a close brush. You’ll notice that there weren’t hordes of folk trying to dissuade you from buying one   .

[neepheid]

Just now, ezbass said:

That was a close brush. You’ll notice that there weren’t hordes of folk trying to dissuade you from buying one   .

 

Yeah, thanks pals.  Stand by and do nothing why don't you?

 

[ezbass]

24 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

Yeah, thanks pals.  Stand by and do nothing why don't you?

 

You’re welcome .

[Chienmortbb]

Oh dear. My finger slipped and I accident my ordered the G4M…,

 

I did not want SWMBO to know so I did click and collect from a local post office.

 

I will do a review/NBD with pictures in a day or two but i ritual thoughts. 
 

It looks almost ad  good as it does in the pictures. The finish is good on the body with just a couple of tiny blemishes that measure less than 1mm across. 
 

The neck joint is a good fit, no gaps although the lower part of the body at the neck joint is not perfect. 
 

The neck is a lighter shade than I expected but hey. lt looks like there is no finish on the neck but it is a colourless silk finish and is much nicer than a traditional gloss lacquer. There are no sharp feet ends although they look like they could do with a polish. A quick look seems to suggest there are no really high frets. 
 

It is a precision, so the neck is 42mm wide, I am used to 38mm on my Fender Aerodyne, Sire M2 and Peavey Milestone 4. At first look I think the string spacing is the same as my other basses , the extra width allows more margin at the edge, so that the strings will not go off the edge of the fingerboard when playing enthusiastically. 
 

There is very little relief on the neck, I will sort that out tomorrow. To be fair both the Fender and the Sire need the relief adjusting. String height is too high but all my basses were like that when I got them. The pickups are way below the strings and I hope that it’s why the volume is so low. Sorting out the relief and then the string height should take care of that. 
 

One of the areas I hate in most basses are the machine heads. The Grnder ones on My Aerodyne were far from ideal and were replaced with Goto Res-O-Lites. The Sire had awful machine heads, they  did keep in tune but  there was som much backlash, that it was hard to tune initially. They were replaced with Hipshots. The initial impression on the G4M is quite good. Little backlash although the tension on the four is not consistent. That can usually be adjusted. The Low E is slightly wonky but it can be rectified easily, It is quite flat, stated as 15” radius. My Aerodyne is 7.5” but it seemed OK. 

 

The nut is not plastic but it works so I won’t touch that. As with most budget basses, the strings are not to my liking. They are extremely light gauge strings, maybe because it is described as rock/metal bass. There seemed to be a lacking in low end but the E string is only 90 thou so I am not surprised. If the pickup is lacking once all those things are rectified, A Warman or Tonerider will not cost the earth. I will do an NBD/Review based on these notes but I will expand.

[sprocketflup]

9 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

Oh dear. My finger slipped and I accident my ordered the G4M…,

 

I did not want SWMBO to know so I did click and collect from a local post office.

 

I will do a review/NBD with pictures in a day or two but i ritual thoughts. 
 

It looks almost ad  good as it does in the pictures. The finish is good on the body with just a couple of tiny blemishes that measure less than 1mm across. 
 

The neck joint is a good fit, no gaps although the lower part of the body at the neck joint is not perfect. 
 

The neck is a lighter shade than I expected but hey. lt looks like there is no finish on the neck but it is a colourless silk finish and is much nicer than a traditional gloss lacquer. There are no sharp feet ends although they look like they could do with a polish. A quick look seems to suggest there are no really high frets. 
 

It is a precision, so the neck is 42mm wide, I am used to 38mm on my Fender Aerodyne, Sire M2 and Peavey Milestone 4. At first look I think the string spacing is the same as my other basses , the extra width allows more margin at the edge, so that the strings will not go off the edge of the fingerboard when playing enthusiastically. 
 

There is very little relief on the neck, I will sort that out tomorrow. To be fair both the Fender and the Sire need the relief adjusting. String height is too high but all my basses were like that when I got them. The pickups are way below the strings and I hope that it’s why the volume is so low. Sorting out the relief and then the string height should take care of that. 
 

One of the areas I hate in most basses are the machine heads. The Grnder ones on My Aerodyne were far from ideal and were replaced with Goto Res-O-Lites. The Sire had awful machine heads, they  did keep in tune but  there was som much backlash, that it was hard to tune initially. They were replaced with Hipshots. The initial impression on the G4M is quite good. Little backlash although the tension on the four is not consistent. That can usually be adjusted. The Low E is slightly wonky but it can be rectified easily, It is quite flat, stated as 15” radius. My Aerodyne is 7.5” but it seemed OK. 

 

The nut is not plastic but it works so I won’t touch that. As with most budget basses, the strings are not to my liking. They are extremely light gauge strings, maybe because it is described as rock/metal bass. There seemed to be a lacking in low end but the E string is only 90 thou so I am not surprised. If the pickup is lacking once all those things are rectified, A Warman or Tonerider will not cost the earth. I will do an NBD/Review based on these notes but I will expand.

Pardon my ignorance please, what do you mean by 'backlash' on the tuners?

[neepheid]

22 minutes ago, sprocketflup said:

Pardon my ignorance please, what do you mean by 'backlash' on the tuners?

 

Backlash relates to looseness in the teeth of meshing gears (in this case the interaction between the worm attached to the button and the worm gear at 90 degrees on the baseplate of the tuner which is attached to the capstan) - most noticeable when you change direction, there's this moment where the turning does nothing, is usually easier than normal and it's quite disconcerting until the teeth mesh properly in the opposite direction then work as expected.  Change direction again and the same thing happens in reverse.

[Chienmortbb]

1 hour ago, neepheid said:

 

Backlash relates to looseness in the teeth of meshing gears (in this case the interaction between the worm attached to the button and the worm gear at 90 degrees on the baseplate of the tuner which is attached to the capstan) - most noticeable when you change direction, there's this moment where the turning does nothing, is usually easier than normal and it's quite disconcerting until the teeth mesh properly in the opposite direction then work as expected.  Change direction again and the same thing happens in reverse.

A better explanation than I could have managed. 

[Chienmortbb]

Apologies for the lack of pictures still but I only have brief periods to look at it. 
 

The neck was far too straight so I got the capo, feeler gauges and Allen key ( hex wrench). Tomyrelief (sic) the truss ros adjusted easily. I quickly made the adjustments to set the 0.35mm clearance at the top of tb3 frets at the 7th fret. In fact I always check both the 7th and 8th frets. 
 

Next was to adjust the action/ string height. FAIL. I now have to look up how to adjust the height of the individual bridge pieces. More soon 

[kodiakblair]

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

I now have to look up how to adjust the height of the individual bridge pieces. More soon 

You use the 2 grub screws at the the front of the saddle.

[neepheid]

[Chienmortbb]

On 07/04/2024 at 20:54, neepheid said:

True. I was going to but…,

 

I got my tools out and started to adjust the relief then the string height. I got the relief spot on but the bridges would not let me lower the action to a sensible point. 
 

It’s going back but a replacement is on its way.

 

 

[nige1968]

On 30/03/2024 at 15:00, kodiakblair said:

I thought all things 'Authentic' were Gibson trade marked.

 

 

 

Wow, hadn't seen that before. He looks like he's on the verge of righteous tears.

[Chienmortbb]

On 07/04/2024 at 20:54, neepheid said:

Once I have the replacement I will post pics of the wjole kaboodle.

[uk_lefty]

I'm pretty sure there's one of these on eBay right now. Caught it out the corner of my eye before I could filter to left handed.

[kodiakblair]

@Chienmortbb

 

G4M have changed hardware, those mono saddles are not the same as shown on the website or on mine.

 

They're actually easier to string up and adjust 😎 No poking ball ends down into the gubbins when fitting strings, you just hook the ball end in place/pull straight up to the tuning peg/snip the length then wrap and tune up 🙂

 

To set intonation you slacken this grub screw then manually slide the saddle back/forth, tighten again when set.

 

 

 

To set the string height you first slacken this grub screw.

 

Then its a case of using the top 2 grub screws as per normal.

 

 

If the block bottoms out yet the action is too high, you whip the block out.

 

 

Place it on a flat file.

 

And take a bit off the bottom. Doesn't matter if you get a bit fierce, the 2 vertical screws will still raise the block while the horizontal one locks it in place 👍

 

 

Added bonus with these is you can shave the sides too, that gives you some string spacing movement; I'll have a photo from doing that if it's required.

[Chienmortbb]

On 15/04/2024 at 17:18, kodiakblair said:

@Chienmortbb

 

G4M have changed hardware, those mono saddles are not the same as shown on the website or on mine.

 

They're actually easier to string up and adjust 😎 No poking ball ends down into the gubbins when fitting strings, you just hook the ball end in place/pull straight up to the tuning peg/snip the length then wrap and tune up 🙂

 

To set intonation you slacken this grub screw then manually slide the saddle back/forth, tighten again when set.

 

 

 

To set the string height you first slacken this grub screw.

 

Then its a case of using the top 2 grub screws as per normal.

 

 

If the block bottoms out yet the action is too high, you whip the block out.

 

 

Place it on a flat file.

 

And take a bit off the bottom. Doesn't matter if you get a bit fierce, the 2 vertical screws will still raise the block while the horizontal one locks it in place 👍

 

 

Added bonus with these is you can shave the sides too, that gives you some string spacing movement; I'll have a photo from doing that if it's required.

Thanks for that. I should have thought of that but brain is in post viral fog.

[Chienmortbb]

The replacement bass arrived on Saturday and a quick look suggests a keeper. All my concerns on the first one have gone and with no adjustment I could gig with this one. I will change the strings, they are light gauge and of a standard that you would expect form a £150 bass. I will do a full review in the reviews section later. However here are a few things:

 

The hardware, bridge and machine heads seem OK and the machine heads are better than the stock ones on my Marcus Miller M2, a bass almost twice the price. The frets are smooth and reasonably well rounded, no sharp edges. The finger board is flat, 15" radius and the edges are not rounded. It is also a P bass width, 42mm at the nut. While I like a thinner neck, it is not a big problem. The neck is fatter than both my Aerodyne and M2 but its not a baseball bat like some P basses I have tried. The pickup is OK and the tone control does go from bright to really soft/dull.

 

As with the neck, the body does not have the curve that the real Aerodynes have but that does not really detract from the look. It also means you can choose a traditional bridge without modding the body, although whether there will be cosmetic damage showing from the exiting individual bridge pieces, I do not  know.

 

As I said earlier I could gig this bass if the strings were changed but all  in all a remarkable instrument for the money. Is it a Harley Benton beater? It is about the same standard. I have HB guitars that were good but not perfect and like them this has one small issue, the end of the fingerboard is not perfectly finished. However a coupe of strokes with a nail file should sort that. I will put lots of pictures on the review but I will add a few here later. One comment on the finish, it is lighter in colour than the G4M website picture as can be seen on the pictures above of the bass I returned.

[mrbacco]

too much beauty in each post and overall in this thread ... fantastic basses all of them guys!