LukeFRC

Bought a pickup from John, came two days before he said it would - awesome! thanks @oldslapper

It looks like a metal earthing sleeve over the wire. Very clever. Alpher also do improbably clean looms in there stuff. I fixed up a molested ibanez roadster a few days ago and went from spaghetti that didn’t work to spaghetti that did!

mine looks alright - mind you I had a rusted bridge I ended up replacing with a gotoh

Show off! 😛

Anyone any idea if these would work on a helix? https://pasttofuturereverbs.gumroad.com/l/iskwl im after trying to get the tone I was getting from the Helborg preamp I should never have sold - (yes I know that the Helborg was not based on the neve circuit )

? What’s the point of that then, Rockwool in the neck next?

I am genuinely loving this thread - it's something I've half wondered about doing myself... and you are doing all the R&D for all of us!

Have I remembered right that the v type and F1x are variations on the same fender design?

So a part from Spain, and a couple of hours undoing what some idiot had done in the cavity and it works! so because other people will find this thread on google searches… the wiring diagram can be found here and the jack you need is a stereo jack with DPDT switching in it. so I’ve got it back to stock (ish) - the only difference is non original strap buttons (I think), newer knobs, my eq knobs are 4-5mm too small diameter and a dimarzio model p and J vs the ibanez pickups -bad thing is non original, good thing is humbucking. so yeah. It works, need to give it a good bit of playing time in active… I’m not sure what I think about it- oddly the machine heads are some of the best I’ve ever used, not too heavy and generally really high quality construction.

Who was the support? playing leeds later this year 🤔

"well Mr Ball, I've been all over Talk bass and I think I know what will make people like this next bass..." "What is it?" "Tortoiseshell! They lap it up." "Pickguard? that's easy" "Trust me boss, they stick tort on anything over there" "Well we're the Ball family - we don't do things by half- how about we do tort inlays too!" "Oooh lets go for it" "really?" "yes, lets do the binding too" "oh yeah"

there's very little around that doesn't reference the blueprints laid out by Leo Fender or Ned Steinburger

I’m betting the neck @funkle is currently using is a typical flatsawn fender style…. im guessing if you end up making him a new neck it will be closer to Wal stiffness

I was going to ask - a maple neck with softer wood laminates would be stiffer than a maple neck if the grain was arranged correctly?

Look, the email made specific promises on the lengthening effect and the man’s gotta check he’s getting his moneys worth

Facebook would have a "care" emoji

I just had the thought that a yamaha bb might make a good platform for experimentation as there are some similarities in neck construction… maybe.

You can divide it into two camps though... there are some players who typically will make their income from playing and know *exactly* what they want. I've a guitarist friend and any new guitar would go to a luthier to get the neck reshaped to his preference and his preferred pickups put in. It's similar to a builder preferring Makita over Dewalt or a designer preferring a Mac to a PC - not nesessrally "better", but their preference... Then you get the GAS fuelled gear monkeys (erm most of us lot?) who want to try things, might buy and sell a fair few instruments and have justified to themselves that £400 on pickups makes a big difference. The phycology of it seems to be both posting on forums telling other people how great their £400 pickups are, and then want others to agree with them when they come to sell.

@three is comparing to his own collection...

less than a neck with no headstock!

There is audio similarity between John East's uni-pre and the ACG EQ-01 pre, there's something in both preamps which is a brilliant clean, clear and lovely sounding... it's one of the nicest preamp out there by my book, I loved the ACG in my streamer and the Uni-pre has transformed my Lakland... There was something on some really geeky audio forum I heard where they were comparing their bass passive into a load of high end preamps... and they threw the recording with the Uni-pre ... and a few people commented that it sounded as good (if not better) than some of those fancy preamps... However it does not sound like, say a Sadowsky preamp which feels less polished and to my cloth ears at least the Wal's I have tried preamp were closer to this kinda sound. My theory of the LPF Wal sound is something todo with a slightly more primitive preamp than ACG, and also something about how the resonant peak at the cut off point gives some kind of phase or group delay around that point making it sound rich and almost like a very specific slight chorusy thing going on. My ACG equipped Streamer in recordings had a similar thing going on if I boosted both resonant peaks to the righht amount... but interestingly I didn't notice it when playing and it was only when recorded I noticed it. Be interesting to see how the Lusithand does - my guess is it will be closer because it's more likely to be a closer electronically, and not being dismissive on whoever makes them, but John and Alan knew what they were doing when they designed the ACG pre and designed something lovely to fit that need, using all of their combined skills... and they probably went beyond the Wal preamp in some ways...