Maude

I only use a floor monitor in that band so my ears are only six feet from the source. It's very very minor, but as a test if I pull a string and let it slap back against the frets I can definitely hear the string/fret noise before I hear the amp reproducing that sound. One digital pedal and the wireless BTW. As said, it's a very small amount but it's enough to make me not bother using it, it's no biggie. 🙂

I think some of what I'm playing shows it up more, Mirror in the Bathroom, for example is consistently repetitive sixteenth notes at over 170bpm with virtually no let up, the slightest latency will be noticeable. Longer notes, slower playing or more melodic stuff would be less noticeable. It was only a couple of times I noticed it but I don't need to use wireless so there's no point persisting.

That's very nice indeed 👍

Excellent use of emojies.

All back together and set up. The chrome is all fairly pitted and I've left all the damage in the paint, just tinted the bare wood chips and polished everything. The neck and frets have cleaned up nicely. And I sanded the mirror backing off the TRC and painted it white, the lettering isn't the best but it'll do for now. New strap buttons. And the screws I had to put in to pull the tailpiece down, not ideal but the action is now nice and low and it plays great. I've scrubbed the case and it's also come up nicely, just need to fix a couple of bits inside and everything will be finished.

Or as @gary mac said, do what makes you happy. If you don't mind playing what someone wants then get stuck in. But it sounds like it's already niggling you. Have a word with him and dicuss it. Or walk! 😁

Boring answer time but I've always looked at mine as a different instrument in the bass register, and requires a different approach to playing in the same way a doublebass, or indeed any other bass instrument does. It's just another type of sound. You can make it sound, and play it like a 'normal' bass but you may as well use a 'normal' bass in that case.

Here it is in place, it's not amazing but it kind of looks the part. The bridge isn't quite straight either but it's been like that for forty-three years so it won't hurt now. edit: yeah I know D string isn't sat in the saddle groove it is now 🙂

The little thumbrest I've put on it makes it less obvious but the hole is definitely off centre, but it looks OK now its on. Like I said I allowed room for the wire as I didn't want it shearing off if the pickup needed raising through the aperture, as it happens now it's built up it doesn't need the space. I didn't know until it was finished. It's not quite right but it is just a copy of a shonky wonky Rickenbacker. 😉 I'll put some pictures up tomorrow when the light is better.

I've made the bezel. I might make another as I cut the pickup aperture longer on one side to accommodate the wire from the pickup as it leaves the coil at the top, I assumed the pickup would need to poke through the aperture but after a trial mock up I don't think it needs to. I can't tell until it's strung and set up. If it doesn't poke through then there's no need to have an off centre opening, I'll see if it bugs me enough. This'll do for now as I just want to assemble and play it. 🙂

Could some sort of cam lever arrangement be used for locking the sliding pickup? Two rails could still be used to stop any twisting motion making the pickup snag when sliding, but only one need have the cam lock. Lift the lever to release, slide the PU and push the lever down to lock. Similar sort of thing to quick release bike spindles.

All the bits to finish mine have finally arrived. Nothing major, mainly replacement screws as the scratchplate ones are really rusty and hardly hold in the holes. A pair of the newer style strap locks, I wasn't happy with the security of the bottom original one, it was kind of tight but the threads were all but stripped so I've plugged and redrilled the holes. I've also got some mirror acrylic to make a pickup bezel, I like the Rickysounds chrome one but it replaces the whole original bezel and it would look too new, I prefer the style of their black one that just fills the cavity but would rather chrome so I'm going to make my own. It should all be finished by the end of the weekend.

I love my BEX4, simple but really versatile, punches through a band like a Precision but with a touch of hollow airiness. This is the only other Yamaha I have at the moment, a '99 BBG5s owned from new.

Are the pickups a lot lower in the new one?

Ooh this looks interesting, although John Hall has said that RIC will never put the 4005 back into production we can still dream.

Last week at rehearsal my doublebass fell over, a bit of a story as to how it fell but that's besides the point. It fell face down with the G string touching down first on the rounded edge of an old granite step making a mess of the string and putting about a inch long depression into the fingerboard, about the same depth as the string. It also knocked the bridge across about an inch an chipped the upper bout edge a little. The bridge is easily sorted and I'm not too worried about the chips, a touch of wax will sort them, but the big dent in the fingerboard right under the G string would certainly hamper playing, and we've got a wedding to play in two weeks, so I was a little anxious. I haven't got any pictures of the fingerboard but this is the string so you can imagine the damage to the fingerboard, it didn't scrape, just a direct impact. Anyway the point of this post is that I thought I'd try steaming it out, not knowing if it would work at all with such a sharp dent and it being in very hard ebony. I've never done it before but wetting the dent with warm water and then placing the edge of some wet folded kitchen towel on the dent and working a hot soldering iron slowly over it has worked wonders. It took about half an hour of repeatedly wetting, steaming and cooling but the dent has come out completely. A little rub afterwards with some 2000 grit paper wetted with lemon oil has made the repair completely invisible and to be perfectly honest I'm quite pleased with myself. If you've got any such dents in wood I'd thoroughly recommend giving it a go as it worked a lot better than I though it would and was very easy. 🙂

Black pickup mounting, and I had reservations about this, the tailpiece has the classic Rick tail lift, only slightly but it's only ever going to get worse, especially as me and light strings don't get on, my string of choice is D'Addario half rounds or flats. Even if I go with rounds they will be heavy gauage and as stiff as I can find, so I've drilled and countersunk two holes at the rear to pull it back down or at least stop it getting any worse. I know I've now ruined the genuity of what a virtually unmolested vintage bass, but if the tailpiece keeps lifting it's only fit for the bin anyway. I'll get a pair of decent stainless steel screws so it looks as good as possible. I want to be able to use this bass in anger so it has to be done really.

Fair play though, I've never seen a band do even part of it before. 👍

Please tell me you yodel 👃

The pickup is fixed now, cleaned the blue (white) tack off, hot glued the bobbin back in place and I've given it all a coat of satin black as without the PU cover it's all visible and looks messy, I'll black the inside of the cavity as well. I didn't take the magnet off the base plate and realign as it's not tooooo bad and I didn't want to risk cracking the magnet prising it off, a bit of didn't work.

This one will end up like that without so help, I thought I'd stabilise it with hot glue as then it can be removed fairly easily if needed. That's a shame if you sold a genuine pickup without realising. And I see your magnet is on the slant too.

I'm not sure if it's both as I only played it at the chaps house before stripping it. When I noticed it I tapped around the body and both pickups everywhere made the noise, but it could be one pickup picking it up. It's kind of how an acoustic guitar sounds, any body noise gets picked up.

Well it's all had the clean and polish of it's life and is going back together. I'm sorting a couple minor issues in the process including this pickup which is held together with what looks and feels like bluetack, albeit white. The bobbin in held to the magnet with the white gum and isn't very secure so I'll lift it off, clean the gum off and hot glue it in place a bit more securely, also while I'm at the hot glue I'm going to remove the magnet and align it properly as it's not horizontal and it's bugging me, I'll also graphite paint the cavities as all the wood in the bridge pickup abyss is on display without the cover, so the black paint will tidy it up and a bit of shielding can't hurt. Talking of shielding and unwanted noise, the whole bass is quite micriohonic (if that's the right term) not just tapping the pickups but it you tap the big bezel or even just the body the sound comes out of the amp quite loud, is this normal with these basses?

Have you twisted them putting on maybe, quite easy to do if the tuner end is already all coiled up. Sometimes a twist in the string will made it sound dead. The flat fret spots being on top would point to this being the case.