JPJ

Good to see Elvis helping out with quality control 😎

So quite a few years ago I became what began as an enthusiast but quickly became an obsession with the SWR sound. Over the years various SWR amps, cabs, and combos have passed through my hands but I think I’m currently at the most heads I’ve ever owned. As it was a typically miserable British bank holiday weather wise, I decided to spend the afternoon ‘testing’ and sorting my current stable. I think I’m sorted for now, unless someone tempts me with either a Baby Blue or the even rarer Spellbinder 😎

So being the impatient bugger that I am I couldn’t help contacting James for a progress update. He confirmed my body was fully sanded ready for finishing, so we’re roughly halfway through the wait 🤞 In the meantime, I’ve stripped and sanded the neck ready to refinish it with some of Rothko & Frost’s aged tinted nitro which I’d better get a move on with or the body will be here before the neck is ready.

So after a bit of shopping around I’ve gone with the Aquila Black strings, and after the usual couple of days of tuning instability that these rubbery strings suffer from they’re settling in nicely and most importantly sound good.

Oof that’s beautiful 😍

Recently played through an old skool peavey 2x15 in a rehearsal room. Trouserflappingly fantastic.

Based on what I’ve been reading in the Build Diary’s section, I’d be tempted to throw a Sims Super-Quad in there for the best of all worlds solution.

So here I am having a bit of a slow day so I thought "Ooh I know, I'll play a little bass" so I took out my little bass (Harley Benton CLU fretless) and low and behold the 'E' string has snapped. The strings were Aquila Reds and it looks like the string has snapped where it sits over the bridge saddle. No problem I thought, there's plenty of meat left around the tuning peg so I started to unwind and the string snapped again. Looks like the rubber (or whatever they are made out of) has perished and gotten brittle. Not wanting to invest in another set if this is going to happen again, I got to wondering what options there are for alternatives for these great little basses?

Your bass is like a little sister to my five string. Great bass as you say and easy to get to work in a band setting. Mine doesn't get much playing time these days as doubling gigs are rarer than gigs themselves.

Thanks for the reply. I’m about a week and a half into ‘the wait’ but busying myself so that once the body arrives I’ll be ready to assemble. Did you go for the finished or unfinished option?

General rule is you get what you pay for, and my own ‘workshop’ (shed) is equipped with a variety of tools sourced from Axminster. That said, I’ve recently purchased a small palm router from eBay of all places that is a direct knock off of the equivalent Makita unit which appears to be very good value and should be perfect for working on scratch plates etc.

So the donor Bass has been stripped and I’ll hopefully get some time tomorrow to begin the refinishing process for the Mighty Mite neck. I’ve also invested in and taken delivery of one of Kiogon’s excellent looms (two stacked vol/tones so the bass will look like a regular P bass but I’ll have full control over the volume and tone of the P & J pickups. My plan is to start off passive, but if this doesn’t work for me, I can always install the excellent John East BT01 and Mid-sweep I’ve taken from the donor Bass.

Stoneham Amplification have the YI200 which I can personally attest is a piece of sonic beauty. https://www.stonehamamps.co.uk/product/yi200-head/?

My minimalist bass board. The Radial is on there for those rare doubling gigs and wired so that the DB just goes via the Thumpinator. I’m a recent convert to the Sansamp and I’m loving it!

Thanks for sharing this. The comms with the company were spot on, but you never know. You’ve gone along way to allaying my fears.

I've just taken a punt on a fully finished custom P bass body from G&B Guitar & Bass Builds https://guitarandbassbuilds.com Can't attest for their quality yet as my delivery might be as much as 45-60 working days 🤔 so I will not see mine until mid/end of September.

Very nice😎 “My 2nd, and last, project bass” of course it is………………😂

Bartolini five string P pickups are in equal sized shells for those of us who suffer from OCD 😎

So before this last week my lovely black Sire V7 has mainly been used at home, either plugged into an iPad/iRig combo or into my interface. But last week I plugged in via my pedal board and noticed the bass picked up quite a pronounced 240V hum when near the pedalboard power supply. Not deterred I still took the bass to my gig on Sunday safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be as close to my pedal board in a gig situation. However, during sound check I noticed the Bass was also picking up the same pronounced 240v hum from my venerable old SM900 amp head. My normal gigging bass is an Overwater 5 string J bass with DiMarzio ultra jazz pickups and a John East J Retro preamp and I’ve not experienced this hum from either the pedal board or the amp head when using the Overwater. My suspicion is that it’s the Sire pickups or the preamp. The bass has no shielding but as it’s active I’m not surprised by this. My question is have any other Sire users had this problem and if so, what did you do about it?