neepheid

Two pay days later and I finally did the tuner swap I was bleating on about. I managed to snag some second hand Hipshot licensed Ultralites for a decent price. I don't think they'll make much difference TBH. The stock tuners are pretty light to start with (not because they were designed to be light, they just are light) - the Ultralites are a whopping 9g lighter each. So I shaved 36g off the weight of the headstock - go me! I didn't think the bass was particularly neck heavy to start with and as you can imagine, 36g didn't make much difference to this bassist. If anything it made me think that if you went with something like Gotoh GB707s - they might actually be heavier than the stock tuners, so keep that in mind. I just checked - slightly heavier, but we're talking 1-2g per tuner so we're in negligible difference territory here. If you want to lose the most weight with a 1:1 physical swap then Gotoh GB350 Res-o-lite tuners will save you a further 10g per tuner. I decided against them because I'm wary of the plastic buttons. Full price Hipshot USA Ultralites (not the licensed ones) are 8g lighter than the licensed ones, so at 42g per tuner only slightly heavier than the Gotoh GB350 and no plastic button. But pricey - starting to get into silly territory vs. the original cost of the bass. What I can say is what a difference in feel and operation the Ultralites are vs. the stock tuners - no play, you turn them and they just go where you want them to in either direction. The whole reason I wanted to change them in the first place - very happy and confident that I'll be able to tune quickly between E/Eb/D during a set. I'm too tight to get a detuner - also, a tuner that costs a third of what the bass cost in the first place? No thanks

Also, you're missing the choke in your wiring. Those Sprague orange drops look too new. Someone's been in here I think. So not sure what one of the positions on your rotary is doing now.

Gibson serial numbers before the mid 70s are a nightmare to pin down. By the characteristics of this bass, I can say with some degree of certainty that it predates 1972 (neck pickup is right up at the neck heel), it probably predates 1969 (no slotted headstock). Beyond that, I can't really say for sure. Tuners are replacements - an EB-3 this old would likely have had Kluson tuners, not Schaller. If you remove one of them, the presence of little routed out channels in addition to the screw holes confirms. The truss rod cover isn't original. One thing that's bugging me is how high the crown inlay is on the headstock. That's a really early thing - like 1963 or so after which they made it more central with respect to the tuners. But one thing we all know Gibson are not renowned for is consistency... What have we learned? I'm pretty sure you have a 60s bass. Also would like to give credit to Jules' site Fly Guitars which hosts a wealth of knowlege about Gibson basses. That is where much of this info has come from.

Oh don't get me started on the joys of punters. One gig we had someone bug us to play some Neil Young. So we played Rockin' in the Free World - and she went to the loo. Then complained later that she didn't get her Neil Young. D'oh!

As mentioned a few times before, so glad to reacquire my Epiphone Les Paul bass.

It depends upon the punters' expectations (and by extension the venue and the expectations that certain venues put on certain types of bands). In my experience, we don't do original material with the covers band - it's a risk to pick obscure covers, never mind play stuff that the punters have definitely never heard before! That's why I end up playing the occasional pap song which I dislike - because the punters like it. If the covers band ever did spit out original songs, I'd put forward that it be spun off into another project. On the other hand, the originals band will play the occasional cover in a standard 45 min set on a multi-band bill - it helps to hook in uncommitted listeners and as long as we put our own stamp on it I'm fine with that (you know, like playing Take Me Out with no guitars. That was fun - the nah nah nahnahnah nah nah riff works really well when the horns do it). When the originals band was playing gigs out in the country by itself last year and expected to fill a couple of hours like a covers band would we upped the cover content to about 33% - we appreciate that 2+ hours of completely unfamiliar material is heavy going for all but the most open-minded of gig goers so we adjust accordingly. Seemed to work quite well.

The Les Paul was wearing TI Flats in that photograph but they're all on rounds these days. The LP started off as a regular, passive, VVTT instrument thus: I replaced the pickups (guitar sized humbuckers with chrome covers) with EMG-HB pickups (fit directly into the pickup rings of the LP). That was better, but I still thought I could improve it further so I crammed an EMG-BQC 3 band EQ into the control cavity. Because I needed concentric knobs for the BQC, I used some black John East knobs. To finish off the modding, I found out that the routing for a pickup selector was there, they just didn't bother adding one to the basses at the time. So I added one to it to finish off the proper Les Paul look, and because I like a switch. I got the bass back in 2009, I sold it locally years later but regretted it so I tracked it down and bought it back from the guy I sold it to. Whilst it was away from me it had Shaller straplocks added. It's the bass I did my first proper gigs with: Pictured here during a gig at the Lemon Tree in April 2009 with my first originals band Panda Eyes in a partially modded state (its got the EMG pickups but not the EQ - the knobs got changed from to barrel ones with abalone tops because the EMG pots are solid shaft so the original amber knobs wouldn't fit (press fit) and I was feeling fancy). And I think that's all the shaggy dog story to tell about this bass

I was surprised to find a lack of a dedicated Epiphone gear thread in this forum so here it is! Makes sense for me as at the moment I'm all Epiphone in the fleet just now. Here they are: 2007 Jack Casady Signature 20th Anniversary: 2020 Embassy Pro And the daddy of them all - 2004 Les Paul (not so) Standard My first bass was an Epiphone EB-3, have also had a Thunderbird and 2 other JC Signatures (a gold one and a blue royale one). Time for you to show off your Epiphones now

Were you holding it the right way round? Only kidding - each to their own!

What, and Gibson make people happy? Are you new?

Not keen on plain boards, just looks unfinished to me. Dots at the minimum, crown inlays if I'm feeling fancy.

I think it's shocking that Epiphone don't include a gig bag with what is their flagship instrument. They managed to do it for the 20th Anniversary model after all. I have had good results with Warwick's Rockbags for semi hollow bass. I think they're intended for their Star bass but fit the JC well.

My wife is supportive of my musical endeavours - she has attended gigs, puts up with late dinners twice a week due to rehearsals and when it comes to gear acquisition she has been known to utter the phrase in the guitar shop "if you like it then you should get it". It makes me sad when I hear of people with unsupportive partners, tales of hiding new basses from them, suspicions of cheating just because they're out playing a gig and other stuff. It's vital to me to have a supportive partner because frankly I'm a weak, passive person who would probably quit playing to keep the peace.

Varying amounts of treble.

I would save a lot of time and get an Epiphone Jack Casady Amp would be tricky - I am very happy with my amp which is no longer available.

Badass II?

Do you particularly want to go semi-hollow? Seems like a big change all at once in addition to the change of scale. If you want things to stay familiar as a P bass player, then I'd say the obvious place to look would be a Mustang. The Player Series Mustang has a 38mm nut width (the rest seem to have 41.3) : https://www.fender.com/en-GB/electric-basses/mustang-bass/player-mustang-bass-pj/0144052547.html

What kind of bass is it from?

Please stop making a new thread for each stumbling block you find, just add to one you've already made. If you looked in one of those, you'd have found this:

My first bass was an Epiphone EB-3. I added a Hipshot Supertone bridge to it. Sold it a long time ago and not bothered about finding it again - unlike my Epiphone Les Paul Standard which I did sell, regretted and thankfully managed to track down and buy back from the guy I sold it to

You can hear it a bit better than a solid bass if you're just picking it up for a quick noodle and you CBA getting the amp out. Beyond that though, I concur with the assessment above.

Are you trolling now?

This is the relevant page from the big document I linked you in another thread: With thanks to Cadfael. In both schematic and wiring diagram form, it can't be made any simpler than this in my opinion. Also, why are you using 250k pots and expecting the same results? You have fundamentally changed something about the circuit by using 250k pots instead of 2.5k. I'm not surprised it's on/off - the zero point is fine but you hit 2.5k very quickly on the sweep of the 250k pot and anything beyond 2.5k will result in no change to the output of the circuit. That's why you're experiencing on/off type results. Once the pot hits 2.5k resistance, the other 247.5k of resistance isn't going to block the signal harder, after 2.5k it's just blocked from going to ground/through the tone circuit. Only a hundredth of the pot's total sweep is going to have any effect. That's why it's on/off.

Excellent Chinese made instruments exist.

There's no such thing as an "idiots schematic", it's just the schematic. That's like asking me to write something in idiots alphabet. I already linked you a pdf chock full of both schematics and wiring diagrams in which the JC is featured. Even told you which page it is on. I can't make it any easier. If you don't understand schematics and you don't know how to troubleshoot electronics then as I said in another of your threads about this, it's maybe time to take it to a tech.