neepheid

John East <mic drop>

Ahh, the Auld Alliance isn't what it used to be then?

Ach, you don't need to justify it, it's just not a phrase you hear every day and couldn't help myself commenting on it

You bought a Rickenbacker 4003 "for a laugh"? Nice position to be in

As some of you will know, I recently took ownership of a prototype Harley Benton HB-50, and as outlined in the NBD thread, the bass is ergonomically, structurally and aesthetically sound but the wiring leaves much to be desired. I had this mad idea of getting a 5 or 6 way switch to do all the things one can do to a single humbucking pickup. Then I had a word with myself and thought "what would I actually use some of those settings for?" Am I just doing it for logical completeness, or showing off? In the end, I think I'm just going to fit a 3 way rotary and do simply parallel/single/series and be done with it. I'm on the fence as to whether or not parallel and single sound that much different from each other as well. Fitting the Freeway 10 way switch to my Reverend Triad made more sense with the 3 pickups (not to mention it's a super neat mod that requires no modification to the bass other than the wiring), and I do actually use some of the combinations it offers (like the series options), but what's the point of out-of-phase, even in series? Just making work for myself to no obvious benefit. I dunno why I started this thread really, maybe to spark some discussion about the whole "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" type thing. Over to you...

I could have bought my current car six times over. Perspective.

Oh, the humanity!

Rude, innit?

Just as well none of my menagerie were for sale...

That's fighting talk! Don't make me invade again, I've only just got back!

So, would a £100 note from a Scottish bank be out of line?

If I want a drumstick thrown at me, I'll suggest playing to a click track...

Interesting mod. For my semi-hollow/hollow thinline basses, I opted to mod myself rather than the bass - with an elasticated wrist sweatband pulled up my arm to where the contact point is.

Nah, I don't like flats - I've got a tone knob

Ahh, sorry about that! Thomann put it up for £199. What that means for a price in 2024 I don't know, all I know is that it had better be more than £199, beta testing costs money!

I like the ergonomics - it has got a chunky neck, good fret work, balances fine. Dunno the weight, scales need a new battery. Doesn't feel excessively heavy. Sound is fuller and I don't need to turn the amp/practice device up as high now.

I suppose I should let the cat out of the bag now. This arrived last Thursday, but I wanted to keep it a surprise for the SW Bass Bash. So there. I was speaking to some folk on LowEndLobster's discord server and someone shared a video of some coverage of Harley Benton's stand at the recent Guitar Summit show in Germany. They were showing their prototype stuff, not set to release until next year and this semi-hollow beastie caught my eye, the HB-50. Looked nice, sounded good when the guy in the video played it. The conversation moved onto whether or not it was long scale and how it might compare to Harley Benton's extant semi-hollow bass offering (the HB-60) so I idly went on to Thomann's site to look at the HB-60. Lo and behold, listed next to it was a B-stock HB-50, only a single piece of stock, hadn't even been photographed. I quickly realised that this was Thomann selling some of their show demonstrator instruments. Long scale indeed, semi hollow, looked like a great mod platform, so... tae me! Enough effin' preamble... First impressions - Good - "light signs of usage" means fingerprints (phew!), looks great, very well made, doesn't feel cheap, fret ends are inboard of the neck binding so absolutely no sharp edges, 22 frets, uses a standard pickup shape (MM) so easily modded, tuners feel fine - turn easy with no play, plays really nice. Bad - pots are garbage (taper is dreadful, like only the last 10% of the turn does anything), pickup switching is lazy and pointless (north coil, both in parallel, south coil - the differences are imperceptible to all but the pickiest of listeners and I'd challenge any of them to hear a difference in a band mix), pickup is too far from the strings so it's a bit quiet and it won't go any higher - screws just come loose. I intend to rewire this. I think the pickup sounds fine - according to the specs it's an Artec of some kind - I wonder if the finished pieces will have their frequently used Roswell pickups instead? But it needs rewired. New pots obvs, but thinking of replacing the switch with a rotary of some kind for series/parallel options. Fixed the pickup height issue tonight - there were a few paltry squares of foam under there, but nowhere near enough to push it up to where I want it. I had spare springs from my Epi Les Paul black and gold nonsense, so I put springs on the screws, now I can have the pickup as high as I want it. Seriously, it was at least 5mm lower than this when it arrived and unable to go higher.

Gee whizz, where to start? Let's limit it to currently owned basses... Epiphone Les Paul Standard bass - well, it's on its third configuration. Obvs it started stock with 2x Epi humbuckers and VVTT. Then I EMGed it out the wazoo with 2x EMG-HB pickups and and EMG-BQC 3 band EQ (and fitted a pickup selector switch to it). Then I went "meh" on active basses in general so I revamped it with 2x DiMarzio X2N-B pickups, rewired back to VVTT (but with push-push pots on the tone controls for series/parallel, and gave it a black and gold makeover, so it got gold Wilkinson tuners, a gold switch (with a custom "poker chip"), black pickup rings and a gold Babicz bridge (because I couldn't find a gold three pointer for a sensible price and Gibson/Epiphone wouldn't sell me one, despite continuing to use them on the Allen Woody sig. D!cks.) I'm done with this one now. G&L Tribute LB-100 - the initial idea was to swap out the stock pickup for a split MFD to make a cheapskate SB-1, but I ended up liking the sound of the stock pickup. I did change the tort pickguard for a white pearl though, after a year and a half of humming and hawing about it. Reverend Triad - stock 5 way switch replaced with a Freeway 10 way switch, for extra pickup options like series and parallel combinations. Future plans - The Harley Benton prototype HB-50 that I snagged recently is getting an electronics makeover. That will be an upgrade in the genuine sense of the word, because the pots in it just now are garbage (not so much the feel, but the taper is useless!), and the switch is pointless (north coil, both (parallel), south coil - why bother?) There's heaps of stuff gone before, like swapping the black hardware on a Gibson NR Thunderbird for chrome, changing the series/parallel switch on a G&L Tribute L-2000 to a 4PDT on-on-on switch to give series/single/parallel, adding an Artec preamp to an OLP MM3, I could go on - I'm an inveterate tinkerer!

Thanks for asking - I made it home in one piece. Just want to echo what has been said already - thanks to our organisers/instigators-in-chief, to our wonderful providers of food/tea, and thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. I had a lovely day, got my hands on some tasty basses and had some great nerdy chat with a bunch of you. Now, bed! Good night!

Right, I'm in Taunton. Kinda. Anything happening tonight?

England, consider yourself invaded...

I'm invading anyway. You'll have to try harder than that to keep me out.

That's not an amp problem, that's a lack of roadies problem...

Well, that definitely makes me vintage then... not that I was fooling anyone anyway