tauzero

This has now taken a sharp left turn into the Twilight Zone. All was working fine yesterday (or I thought it was). Today, both pickups work fine individually, but when blended, the G and D strings are fine but the A, E, and B strings all sound thin and nasal. Bartolini MK-2 pickups - are they split like P pickups, and is there a tap point which might somehow have gone wrong? It's as if half the split on one pickup was in one phase and the other half in the other.

Wiring fixed, a couple of terminals on the blend pot had shorted out. It's quite possible that they weren't in contact before and the 140 mile journey along the goat tracks that pass for a motorway system in England had got them moving very slightly.

My new to me Cort Space proved to have some issue as with the blend control in the middle, the sound was quiet, thin, and nasal, whereas at either end the full goodness of one pickup or the other could be heard. I thought that it was a pickup wired out of phase, so I opened it up. Knobs held on with hex grub screws, one Allen key and it's off. Not quite enough wiggle room to pull out just the blend, so also unleashed the volume control. Both pots had a pair of shakeproof washers on. I examined the wiring and it seemed fine, but the terminals of the dual gang pot were very close together and seemed to be touching. I separated them and retested, and all was now well. I added a little insulating tape to try and prevent a recurrence. I reassembled it, tightening up the jack socket nut as I did so, and retested. Silence. I noticed I'd broken an earth wire to the volume pot, so resoldered that and tested again. Silence. And then I noticed that when I'd tightened up the jack socket nut, I'd turned the jack socket, and it had ended up with the tip contact pressed firmly against the body of the rightmost EQ pot. Loosened jack socket nut off, turned it so it wasn't in contact, and retightened. I now got the correct type of noise, so buttoned everything back up again.

Being very under the weather over the last few days, I've only just felt up to starting on the comparison. I'd only given the Cort a very quick play through an amp when I bought it to make sure it made a noise. When I finally plugged it in and started playing it with the blend in the centre position, it was really thin and nasal and low volume. Moving to either the bridge or neck pickup resulted in a vastly improved tone. Having once owned a Burns, the sound reminded me of the Wild Dog setting - out of phase pickups. So I will have to delve in and reverse one pickup's connections to the blend control. That's one for Repairs and Technical. Meanwhile, the other thing I wanted to compare was the neck profiles. They seem very similar, and I got the bendy ruler thing out (on the left in the picture) to try and draw them. They are very similar - the shoulders on the Cort are very slightly wider than the Ibanez. I took the profile midway between the 6th and 7th frets as that's where the frets on the Ibanez would be perpendicular to the strings. Excuse my writing, it's hereditary as my mother was a GP. One other test remains to be completed - the EHB reaches at least the minimum standards of cat comfort, the Space has yet to be tested. I shall attack the wiring on the Cort shortly.

Has the mains plug for the amp been checked? If there's been a cross-connection of live or neutral with earth, it can cause this.

Except for those of us who think that the ideal number of P basses for us to own is zero.

I suppose I'll be able to sell it as "the rare black model" if necessary.

I'm not sure where I got this from, but on my home-made Stomp MIDI switcher, sending CC 72 with a value of 64 is preset up, and CC 72 with a value of 0 is preset down.

Just picked one up, not sure if that will turn out to be a good or a bad move.

I tried that for gout. Absolutely no effect. Old wives' tale. Edit to add: there is absolutely no medical evidence for it being effective.

Something that's true of many walks of life - for example the late Dr Maz Harris of Hells Angels Kent.

Presumably the rock in question is one of crystal meth.

From what you say, your left hand position might not be ideal, although that may be me misinterpreting it. Have you got your thumb roughly central on the back of the neck with your fingers curved over the fretboard? Your teacher will be able to sort that out if your hand positioning could be improved. I've got quite short fingers but I can play a 7-string bass (others may disagree).

They were launched early in 2024.

The control knobs are in a completely different place.

I've got the purple one.

See NBD 😁

That was what I said after trying the Cort Space out at Bass Direct. One came up on Gumtree for a sum not unadjacent to £400, although I had a 280 mile round trip to pick it up. So today I went on that journey, braving the imbeciles on the M11 and A14, and picked up the black Space. The seller didn't get on with 5-strings, so was selling it after just a month or so. I'll be able to do a proper back to back comparison between the Space and the Ibanez EHB1265MS with added Aguilar pickup goodness.

Tecamp Puma 900 - have kept this despite going to a combo for most eventualities. Powerful, flexible tone. GR Bass AT800 Cube - the combo that I went to. Very lightweight and very clean sound so I can inflict my own damage on it. Ashdown Superduperfly (Superfly 1000) - the power amp section could be better, you can get an HF whistle, plus the two 500W power amps can't be bridged. However, the graphic/parametric MIDI controlled preamp is brilliant.

Mrs Zero had no idea that Sleeping Satellite referred to the Moon.

The absolutely dreadful cover of "Hallelujah" by Alexandra Burke is a prime example. Dammit. Beaten to it.

Sadly, both Polly Peck and Poli Tics have completely gone down the Swanee.

I wonder if they'll introduce headless models - they had a headless guitar, the Dullahan, but that's gone (not before I bought one though). They're not averse to making non-clone instruments - after all, the HBZ neck-throughs with a slight resemblance to Peavey Grinds are still going strong.

I thought I'd cheat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artists_and_entertainers_with_advanced_degrees A couple of members of Sha Na Na, and Bill Bruford, were ones that caught my eye.

When the alternative is me playing it, yes, definitely.