neepheid

The lightest bass I have in my current arsenal is the Danelectro Hodad. Any Danelectro will be light - they're masonite (hardboard) top and back on a plywood frame A surprisingly light bass from my past was the Traben Chaos. I had the Attack version.

That depends - what kind of sound are you wanting?

Could fit a Schaller M4S - check the technical diagram here: [url="http://bass-machine-heads.com/hp135297/Bass.htm?ITServ=C75066bd5X12cc6457d8cX7b65#tab_tz"]http://bass-machine-heads.com/hp135297/Bas...d8cX7b65#tab_tz[/url] I'll see if I have a photo of the back of the headstock of my Gibson Victory Artist, it uses Gibson branded M4S tuners. EDIT: there you go:

Because I mostly buy second hand basses, I only change the strings if they're no good.

Using a brand new battery?

Is something on the board touching copper when it shouldn't when it's assembled? Does it work fine when the board is lifted free from the body and plugged in?

I flirted with lipstick pickups before when I put one in a Squier Bronco I had at the time. I liked the tone but one on its own was always going to be a little low in the volume department. I've also toyed with the idea of trying out a Danelectro, but I'm not playing short scale basses any more, and their long scale ones always looked a bit meh to me. Until I stumbled upon this: the Hodad bass. Now this is a different proposition altogether. A lot of the Danelectro basics are there - lipstick pickups, semi hollow construction (plywood frame, masonite top and back, "binding" tape round the sides to hide everything) and quirky styling but it's a long scale neck, it has a bridge with individual saddles for more accurate intonation and there's a flexibility here - all 7 combinations of 3 pickups are available. The controls are as follows - there is a 6 way rotary switch (called a Select-O-Matic) which gives you the following settings - 1: neck/bridge, 2: neck, 3: neck/middle, 4: middle, 5: middle/bridge, 6: bridge. The switch next to it bypasses the rotary switch and gives you all three pickups. Finally there's a concentric volume/tone. I'm going to reserve judgement on the sound, when I got it the concentric pot was bust and I replaced it with what I had to hand (a 250k/500k) but the bass actually needs a 100k/1M pot which I have procured and will be fitting shortly. This may or may not affect the tone of the bass. Suffice to say there is a good variety of tones from the various settings. I'll update this later, perhaps with some sound clips. The finish is very hard to photograph, it changes colour from almost black to blue/purple sparkle. I've managed to get some blue out of it in this pic:

Many quality alternatives exist. Assuming you're replacing a 5 screw Fender bridge - as well as the Schaller 2000 (also the Schaller 3D should fit a 5 hole Fender), other direct replacements include the Gotoh 201, the Hipshot A-style (Fender mount) and of course the Badass II.

I seem to recall having teased everyone with talk of switches but only provided a spurious, blurry phone camera photo as proof. You would be well within your rights to disbelieve that. Well, it isn't the Loch Ness Monster, but it is a monster:

[quote name='Bassmonkey' post='981478' date='Oct 8 2010, 11:28 AM']Hi buddy, bass looks ace. Just bought an Antoria LP and looking to replace the PUPs. Did your EMGs just fit the standard humbucker pup surrounds? The EMGs look great. Sound good? Andy[/quote] Sorry, I just saw this because I was trying to remember when I bought the bass. Yes, the EMG-HBs fit straight into the surrounds on my Epi Les Paul with no modification. As far as the sound goes, it's a very clean, modern sound as you would expect from EMGs. Quite unexpected considering what they're mounted in. I've recently been experimenting with taming the modern sound with a set of TI Jazz flatwound strings, but I might go back to rounds - it's just one paradox too many!

[quote name='merello' post='1047795' date='Dec 4 2010, 09:41 PM']Can you turn up without a bass as I'm shy at my Yamaha 414? (Obviously I'd buy a ticket!)[/quote] There's no snobbery at the bash. Take it - I wouldn't mind a go on a Yamaha BB414, I bought a 614 off eBay once but it arrived damaged so it had to go back. Always liked the shape of them - a round, larger body like my Gibson G-3.

Number 2 for me - I like that it doesn't cover too much of the bass and flows nicely into the chrome control plate.

Welcome to the forum

I'm thinking of hinting at one of those Planet Waves string winders with the built in cutter. A very comfy strap to help me bear the weight of my Gibson Victory Artist might be a good idea also. Maybe a gigbag - buying and selling of basses in the last year has left me with only 2 bags and 1 hard case for 6 basses.

[quote name='sambassman' post='1044949' date='Dec 2 2010, 12:46 PM']would you say that the neck on a tribute has a similar feel to a stingray neck? theyre quite chunky[/quote] Can't tell you with any certainty on that one. What can I say with certainty? "Not a Jazz".

I hope the USA guys can align tuner backs in a straight line, they're a bit off on my Tribute. It's just the little bits of attention to detail like that which you'd hope the extra wedge would cover. The only other difference is more choice of finishes on USA G&Ls, choice of neck profile (the Tribute L-2000 only offers a quite chunky P bass like affair, which is fine if you like that sort of thing), other misc options like body binding. Oh, and as far as I'm aware, you can't get a factory fretless Tribute.

Today I have found that I find allegations of pre-amp noise in G&Ls almost as annoying as blanket "Gibson basses are crap" statements.

I've used Artec SE-2 and SE-2A preamps before. Liked the SE-2, still got it in a project bass of mine. Unfortunately I've had bad experiences with the SE-2A (the concentric one) - had two of them crap out on me, both times the concentric pot has gone from working, producing horrible pops and thumps if you wiggle it.

[quote name='jonthebass' post='1043553' date='Dec 1 2010, 11:23 AM']Also the difference in neck widths is only a few mm so surely that won't make that muck of a difference?[/quote] You would think that, but skinny necks feel weird to me to the point where I find it distracting. It's not simply width - I can get along fine with Jazz width necks (38mm at the nut) as long as they have some depth to them (like a Warwick Rockbass Corvette I had many moons ago - narrow but deep) - I can't explain it.

Welcome to the forum

Bah, out by 2! Well done though, and what a great idea.