neepheid

Spent a few hours on it this afternoon - changed the tuners, oiled the fretboard, general polish up, new strings (my beloved D'addario XLs of course) and a tweak of the setup (intonation mostly). Also, found some hidden treasure on the neck heel - no serial number, but model number confirmed and other mystery letters...

Member #16, joined on 16th May 2007, reporting for duty! I'm an interloper - I joined Bassworld like possibly weeks before the move to BC and happened to be online around the time of initial go live of BC. I know very little of the "before times".

I have an idea regarding pickups which does not require breaking out the router. Hardware will be staying chrome (for reasons which will eventually become apparent). But yes, the strings will be going - amusing as they are, I'm a die hard D'addario XL nickel round user. First job will be to change the tuners - I suspect someone in the past has nicked the Gotoh GB7s it would have come with and replaced them with some generic units which aren't great to use - quite a lot of play in them and jarringly clanky play at that. I have the tuners which came off my Epi Les Paul bass which are decent so will reuse them.

This is the bit which makes me chill about these strings from Amazon versus ones off eBay... No third party involvement - so Amazon take full responsibility if something is wrong. I genuinely believe this decidedly bonkers price is a result of massive buying power. Call me naive if you like.

I have got to keep my neb out of Facebook Marketplace. But it was too sparkly, and only 2 and a half hours away in the car. May I present this Burny (Fernandes) LSB-80 I just bought, simply because it was there, and I fancied it. I have plans for this bass. It's had a life, and it's been modded already (active stuff it would have originally come with is long gone, for example), so I'm going to be making some changes. It's not bad as is, but I think I can make it more to my liking. It plays really well (previous owner did a banging job of setting it up, recrowning frets etc) and it seems solidly made. Developments to come, stay tuned...

Well, I'll let yous know how I get on this time around - got a few sets on order, awaiting delivery...

Not so - last time I took this deal, the points codes worked (and no, I didn't return the strings).

Owned MIM and MIC Fender basses, and I've played a few MIA Fenders at bass bashes and other junctures (such as going to someone's house to buy something), so you can trust me when I tell you with 100% certainty that they're... basses.

Yeah, bass players, know your place... at the back.

I did, but I didn't want to bother him, seems like he's a busy man.

Most of the time, when I was gigging it, it was used in conjunction with a RedSub BT5110 combo, so it was getting its full 250W because it's a 500W amp at 4 ohms and this was dealing with half of it. Have also shoved the TC Electronic BH250 on it in the past, but that's a 250W head at 4ohms and TC are rather tightlipped about what it does at 8 ohms.

I replaced the large, white resistor a few years back, because it actually physically broke apart - it ejected its legs. I briefly discussed it here - https://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=294776 and I quote Bill - "When it broke off the only result would have been the tweeters shutting down." That leads me to think that it's the red square - if the main driver was connected at the purple square, when the resistor broke apart, it would have taken out everything, no? If not red square, then maybe above it - can 3 wires fit in one hole of the connector block? Now that I think about it, there's a vague memory of swearing and trying to get three to play nice, but I might be misremembering...

Aw no, that's too bad! I wish I could remember how it went, it's been a while since I was in there. Where is the other wire from the speaker going to?

Great, merge Evri (formally MyHerpes) with D!ck Heads Limited. What could possibly go wrong?

Another Markbass user here - specifically the Mini CMD 121P IV combo on top of a New York 121 cab. Best rig I've ever owned. I don't know about the "high end rolloff" been mentioned - the NY121 has a tweeter, and it's controllable, so if you like some highs, crank up the tweeter? Fair enough if you're chasing some purity of sound and 1:1 unfiltered, uncoloured output, you do you. Me, I just want a "good" sound - I define what "good" means to me and I just crack on with it. The rig I have sounds "good" to me, it's eminiently portable (can take one cube in each hand in/out of the venue) and they both fit (just) in the boot of my relatively small car. Happy as a pig in sharn, I am. I've also gone the opposite way round and used a few different heads with the Markbass NY121 cab (specifically a Tecamp Pump 900 and a TC Electronic BH250) and the cab handled them both with aplomb (obviously I didn't crank the Puma 900 up to its higher power capabilities - 600W into a 400W cab doesn't sound like a great idea to me!)

Doesn't take much to make you crazy, does it? You might want to get that checked out.

Pfft, you guys and your "green" rooms. Next you'll be telling me you get to play on stages.

All 4, and thanks for the offer but I'd rather muller some Musiclily knockoffs than some OG knobs because I'm going to be making press fit knobs work with solid shaft pots

Well, that'll explain the "not even close" comment I think these ones look pretty similar to my untrained eye. Bit of a square pin in a round hole situation, being that they're press fit and the Glockenklang pots are solid shaft, but I'll see what I can come up with...

I'm maybe being silly here - do the OG knobs not look like this? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick completely? Have I gone snowblind by looking at many pictures?

SGC Nanyo owners - would you say these knobs are close in appearance to the originals? https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08GBTLFN6

I use silkless strings, one less thing to worry about (if I was worried about it - which I'm not). They're not going to line up by you doing anything specific - if it happens, it happens and it's just luck. Strings stretch over time (especially when they're new), and they all stretch differently. As long as you have enough wraps on the post (and on a typical Fender/Squier 4 string headstock, as many wraps around the A that you can manage) then it'll be fine.

Path of least resistance, innit? Plus one of the things that tickle me about these basses is the fact that they installed the E and G tuners "upside down" to facilitate this - that's attention to detail I enjoy. Coming with me to the SWBB? Oh yeah - you know my modus operandi - "go big or go home"... at the NWBB last weekend... 12 basses, 2 amp rigs, ironmongery, cables, a BFM Omni 10 cab in a Mitsubishi Colt and I could still see out the back window...

Having let the new strings/setup settle down, I had another razz on it last night, this time using the TC BH250 into a decent set of headphones. Sounds good to me! One thing I noticed is that with the Glockenklang preamp, passive with the tone all the way up sounds pretty much identical to active with the treble all the way down and bass at neutral. Dunno if that's how it's supposed to be but I found it quite amusing - a sort of "huh" moment of realisation. Still unsure if I like the sound of it better in passive or active - won't know that for sure until I play it with a band. Concerning weight/lightness, I find it odd - I weighed it on the bathroom scales and came back with 3.4kg/7.5lbs. Now normally I'm not keen on how anything below about 8lbs feels (insubstantial/throwaway/toy-like) but this one doesn't feel that way - there's heft or substance there which shouldn't be and it feels both light and serious at the same time. Brains are soft and squishy and very suggestible, dunno what else to tell you.

But look how accurately it follows the shape of the pickguard. That's been put on with attention to detail that has.