tauzero

Assuming I have the nomenclature right... Went up to Nantwich today to pick up a Ray5 bought on Ebay from a seller in Liverpool who kindly came halfway down to meet me. It seems that people can't give them away nowadays. Good condition and the attractive natural walnut, which is what I wanted. Action was high enough to get a bus under - rather too much relief and the saddles were raised so far that the grub screws were completely inside on the B string. Back home, a few turns of the truss rod (literally, I think it took two and a half turns) got relief down to near flat, as I like it, and I got the saddles lowered nicely too - the G string saddle is flat on the bridge and just right, so at least I don't have to shim the neck. Although the strings are 40-60-75-95-125 they feel stiffer than my normal 40-125 Elites so I'll change them at some point in the not too far distant future. The bass and treble pots are OK but the volume pot is rather iffy, replacement on order. The pots still have the protective sheet stuck under them. The pickguard has been off at some point, a couple of the screws are slightly mangled but I have replacements in black which might look better. First impressions are that the neck is a little on the thick side - not terribly so, though, and I am comparing it to Seis and Antoniotsais. It is comfortable to play. Fretwork seems OK. It seems to be quite high output. Needs Schaller-compatible straplock buttons, which is the next item on the agenda. Machine heads feel a little gritty, for want of a better word - I think a bit of dismantling and cleaning is in order. They're perfectly usable but could be improved. This is a candidate for defretting - decision to be taken fairly soon. Photo from the Ebay advert.

I've gone for yet another bridge unit which is quite cheap. The guitar equivalent is used on the Jamstik Studio MIDI guitar. 4 and 5 string variants are available. This is the one I bought: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007488329170.html If you look at the photos in the body of the posting rather than the ones at the top, there's a diagram showing all the dimensions. 16mm string spacing on the 5-string but I don't know what the 4-string spacing is as there doesn't seem to be an equivalent diagram for that. With the Riviera one, you need to drill potholes into the bass body to accommodate the mechanism. The ALP travel bridge just sits on top of the body, only holes for fixing screws needed. String height adjustment seems simple - I think there's one grub screw to alter the height and a second one to lock it. Intonation is a bit annoying as you need to get the string out of the way to loosen and tighten the anchor screw.

No, while the wolf's not at the door, I'm being cautious with funds, plus I'm not sure how many body parts Mrs Zero would remove. Plus I'd like to try one before buying one. There's a $500 coupon for custom instruments (ie 5-strings) and also an early bird $200 coupon EARLYBIRD24 for orders placed in a range of dates which I presume are in the stupid American date format, 7th to 12th November (otherwise it's 11th July to 11th December which seems unlikely).

There's a couple of coupon codes that they've sent out so you can get $700 off the price.

On the 30th of November we're doing a charity fundraiser for Amicii Dog Rescue that our singer does work for. It's at Tirley, fairly near Gloucester and Cheltenham.

Have you done a comparative experiment with bagpipes and accordions?

I know it's easy to project one's own experiences but it might be a manufacturing issue with the pickup - if one magnet has been put in the wrong way round, you'd get that. Happened to me with a Cort Space, which has split magnets and I can only assume that one magnet was put in the wrong way round - the consequence was that with the blend set to both pickups equal, the B, E, and A strings were very thin and nasal, the D and G sounded fine.

Email Dunable and ask their advice.

@SamIAm has. I'm in the very early stages, if it starts looking successful then I'll give more details.

That was perfect timing. If I still played 4-strings I'd have hung on to it, but I have a pair of 4-string Thumbs so it was somewhat surplus to requirements. Pete Trewavas has used one with Marillion so it gets the seal of approval from an excellent bassist.

Cort GB4 or GB94 Custom - HJ rather than JJ pickups, lovely neck. Obsolete now so second-hand only.

Certainly a lack of aesthetic sense. There's a BB2000 showing up in the "Similar items" bar with identical PJ layout and a switch (presumably neck/both/bridge), and the jack socket in the side. Would have been far better if the modifier had put the (presumably) blend pot in the switch location and left the jack socket where it was rather than moving it to the switch position.

Even better, Cadwell Park is just up the road.

Maybe you could try aversion therapy. Smack him in the mouth with the microphone at regular intervals during rehearsal (say, five times after every song).

However, if you put a new neck on, you're out.

They will work together if the bass is wired the appropriate way round, battery negative to ring and ground to sleeve, and the transmitter caters for it (which both the Boss and the NUX appear to).

Were it not for the fact that I already have three six-strings that I very rarely use, have an aversion to buying Fender/Squier, and think that the headstock is probably heavy enough without the pointless testicle dangling from it, it would be quite tempting.

Black metal, then get black tuners and bridge, so you have black pickups, knobs, tuners, and bridge. YKIMS.

Lekato.

He does use a pick so that would affect things.

As it was bought with the intention of upgrades, and it's potentially a minor improvement, I think it should get a pass.

I suspect that the Nux is designed to work with active basses when the ring and sleeve are wired the normal way round (battery negative to ring, ground to sleeve) and some basses have this the other way round. This certainly applies to the Boss WL series. https://www.boss.info/uk/support/by_product/wl-50/support_documents/eade711c-1f5a-4951-988b-e8e863611c64/ "*1 The typical TRS output jack wiring of guitar active circuit is audio to tip, ground to sleeve, and battery ground to ring. In rare cases where ring and sleeve are wired reversely, the guitar active circuit doesn't work properly with the WL-T." So an alternative to the small extension lead is to do a little rewiring and swap the wires to the sleeve and ring of the jack socket.

Pete Trewavas plays a load of different basses - Warwick Thumb is what I primarily associate with him, but also Ibanez soundgear (don't know which) and a Cort GB4 Custom.

Buy once, never buy again. 😁