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Dean Fartin

Leach Boys

Feck!

Kid Sock

As some of you might have known, I had devised a project to build using only new parts a "giggable" (my definition) bass for £150, using only new parts. Unfortunately, the bass upon which this project was to be predicated was on back order from Bax, and last week they went bankrupt. Womp womp. So I had a bunch of parts (Entwistle PBXN neodymium pickup, Guyker bridge, comedy knob) with nowhere to go. This irritated me, so I had a quick poke around on local FB Marketplace ads last week for something cheap and not boring. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a 2005 Epiphone Embassy less than an hour away - a bass which shares almost nothing with its 60s namesake or the modern remake of it. I quite liked the look of it, it's a bit more interesting than a typical P copy - reversed pickup, 22 frets, angled headstock with matching finish. So I took a punt. Well, it had had a life; it was pretty grubby, the bridge was rusty and the tuners felt (and sounded) like they had sand in them when you turned them. Time for some TLC! I stripped it down, cleaned and polished the body and headstock, polished the frets then oiled the fretboard, serviced the tuners (as in dismantled them, cleaned them, tightened them up then regreased them) and then fit the new pickup and bridge. The original bass I intended to put these parts in had a single volume control, so I bought a stupidly big knob for it, because I'm quite mad. Unfortunately, this bass has a tone control as well. I thought about getting another oversized knob to match, but someone on Lowendlobster's Discord server gave me the idea of having matching knobs, but wildly different sizes. I thought that sounded hilarous so I managed to snag a 16mm knob to match the 45mm one. Enough chat, here are some pics... I am very impressed with the Entwistle pickup - it's a punchy beast and frankly ludicrously good sounding for its measly £36 price tag. I'm really happy with how this has turned out. A cheap, throw around bass which isn't worth enough to get precious about, but sounds great, isn't too light or too heavy, and has a little personal touch which makes me chuckle every time I see it. I was worried about the tuners, but they have responded well to some love being shown them so hopefully they'll be passable - because the holes are 12mm so I'd have to ream them out in order to fit any replacements worth considering.

100% bending, of course. 😇

2dB more

There is no real benefit in using a 4 ohm cabinet, and they are not that common. A good single 10 will more than suffice as long as it is sensitive enough,

They come as standard with the 734a and BBPH, probably a few others too. Really good quality, I use it for all my basses.

Enabler

NBD - short scale Graft Plus. Latest addition to my growing ACG collection. My 32" SLG is amazing in every way, but I still had an itch for a short scale that needed scratching! NBD was actually Thursday, but on Saturday a set of La Bella Low Tension Flats went on, and I thought I'd take it along to the gig! It plays beautifully and is so light and comfortable.

Hard Stare...or a commendation for lawyerly rule bending?

How the choice of a tant indirectly brought down a company. Probably.

Oh wait I've misjudged. The 1966 Daphne Blue Mustangs also had pearloid.

The service sheets I'm seeing don't seem to specify the cap types - just capacitance values. Will have a look later to see where in the circuit it seems to be. Ahh the old tants vs elects controversy not so long ago while doing some other work on a Neve preamp copy I replaced the electrolytics with tantalums as per the original Neve design - whilst crossing myself and facing mecca and consulting a psychiatrist.

Traditionally, tants were used for coupling as they could take small reverse polarity volts better than the electros of the day. Nowadays they're used where electros cant do small enough size/low enough esr/high enough capacitance all at once. Theyre a last resort at the last place i worked. They do flame quite amusingly when they lose their tempers though.

Even when they do spec the fr, I don't believe it https://www.musicstore.com/en_GB/GBP/Ampeg-SVT-810-E-Box-800W-4-Ohm-8x10-Speaker/art-BAS0000443-000