Maude

If there's lots of clearance under the strings then Rickenbacker toaster style pickups are surface mounted, and suitable retro for that style of bass.

Oh wow, in that case I had a bargain. Not sure when I got mine (green) but it was before my daughter was born which was May '97, sure I only paid around the £200 because I traded it in at Mansons a couple of years later for a new BBG5s which I had to add another couple of hundred which seemed a crazy amount to me at the time, young just bought a house and just had a daughter so money was tight. I think those two being my first and second real basses has defined how I like basses to feel/play, which is no bad thing

One of these, or very similar to be honest, was my first proper bass. Mine had a white slab of a neck pickup and the black neck scallops which were printed on, not carved in. I think it was a 'Special'. For a cheap bass it was wonderful. Enjoy 😎

I used to own one and from memory it was volume, pan, bass and treble. Have you got a picture of yours, it might be my old one as they seem pretty rare? They were some bass guitar magazines 'Bass of the year under £500', or something like that at the time. They were really singing their praises. Mine was great but ultimately I don't like fancy woods so sold it on. From memory the only damage on mine at the time was a reasonable chip out of the lacquer on one of the horns, I think, it also had a fairly distinguishing dark 'knot' mark somewhere on the front that stood out. I wonder 🤔

Ooof! I didn't see the prices. Strange isn't it how those basses don't look like £2000 pound instruments and yet I have no idea of the build quality. Absolutely no reason they shouldn't be that price if the materials and workmanship warrant it but they do look like a £500 bass.

Looks like you mix and match what you want 👍

I like the look of the white one, i actively dislike pearloid scratchplates as well and yet that one seems to be working for me.

Absolutely this. I know it sounds clichéd but it really is about the feel. You can play all the right notes in the right order at the right time, but unless you're really feeling it it doesn't sound authentic.

Here's to a speedy recovery and back to playing bass before too long 🍻

I think the one question that matters and hasn't been answered yet is what finish is on it at the moment? To oil it it'll need sanding to bare wood and even if it is bare wood I'd still be sanding it just to remove the layer of dirt that will have inevitably accumulated on it. All this trying to remove the ink and steam the pressure marks out seems pointless. Remove the hardware, a quick sand down and get that oil finish started 👍😎

Had a conversation with House of Tone, they remember doing the pickups (rewinding, not making new ones Mr. Hall) and confirmed that the casing was earthed to the ground wire, so would need opening up and unsoldering and a seperatate ground wire soldering in. Explained that it's very fiddly and said they could do it for me for £20, which I thought was pretty reasonable. I had a look myself and it really wasn't difficult but appreciate that if you're a bit ham-fisted then you would end up needing a new pickup. All sorted now, series and parallel as it should be and relatively quiet. I've just tacked all the connections to make sure it works and there's no shielding so once soldered properly and some copper foil in the cavity and scratchplate then it should be silent. Thanks everyone for any help offered, I got there in the end.

Just as an aside, I emailed House Of Tone just saying I was having issues but did say that I bought the bass second hand with the pickups in and sort of didn't expect to hear back as obviously I've bought nothing from them. I got a reply at twenty past midnight explaining a little bit about the pickups and asking what the problem was. How great is that!? I've just emailed back explaining the problem. While writing my explanation it made even more sense that there must be an internal ground connection in the pickups. If the grounding the bridge pickup doesn't put it back in parallel but the neck pickup does then it must be putting the ground lead direct to earth as in parallel wiring, indicating the casing must be connected to the ground lead inside the pickup. Fingers crossed 🙂

Thanks @adamg67, I'm no electrician but that makes sense to me, it's sort of the conclusion I came to because of the casing effectively switching my series circuit on and off when earthed to the bridge or the other pickup casing. I've sent an email to House of Tone who wound the pickups to see what they say/confirm our thoughts. I'll take the casing off the pickup tomorrow and see if there's an obvious link between the casing and the earth wire. Thanks again 👍

Just to add, if I wire the pickups in reverse then the really loud noise occurs when I touch the treble pickup so it's not a pickup fault.

Thanks @adamg67and sorry for the late reply, I couldn't be arsed to look at this until now as, one I've been busy, and two it's peeing me off. 🙂 The wiring is as the diagram above and is functioning correctly, I've tried all sorts of different ways in case something was wrong out of desperation but as per the diagram gives me the correct series/parallel circuit and everything works as it should, apart from the horrific noise. I am testing earthing the pickup housings by using an old string on the casings (I haven't got a proper earth connection on them yet), earthing them to the bridge. The pickups in a 4005 are guitar toaster style with metal casings. With no casings earthed the guitar makes a lot of noise when nothing is touched, is quiet when the strings are touched but deafeningly loud when the bass pickup is touched. If I earth both pickups to the bridge the bass is noise free, but the series switch is bypassed, it goes back to the parallel sound. If I just earth just the treble pickup then the background noise goes away but it's still horrific when I touch the bass pickup. If I earth just the bass pickup then it goes back to parallel. If the pickups had an internal connection from the casing to the earth wire would that cause this problem when trying to earth the casing? Also, I may be over thinking this but if the casings need to be earthed seperate from the signal circuit, where would I earth them? Wouldn't all the earths be ultimately linked to the jack socket? It has to be something really simple but I'm losing the will to live. Sorry for all the questions 🙂

Right, all these money saving tips are all well and good but shall we cut to the chase? It's a sad fact and 'The Management' ain't gonna like it, but just delete your Basschat account and never visit the site again. You all know deep down that before you joined here you got by in life with one, or possibly two if you were feeling particularly extravagant, basses and an amp, and maybe a multi or a handful of individual pedals. Now you're not really sure where to put all the basses you've bought, let alone all the other 'essential' gear. Justify it all you want but you don't need all that gear and nobody else can hear, or care about the subtle differences. Now be gone with you you money saving, little bass soldier, play that one bass and play it proudly 😂.

As everyone has said, they chose you and I'm sure they will be happy with what you play until you're fully up to speed, so don't worry. I was in a similar position with one of my current bands, they'd been asking me to join for a couple of years until I gave in after another band folded. I had around fifty songs to learn in a month, about ten of them being originals which they wanted me to write new/better basslines for. Quite intense but I got there, with some of them not being bang on but good enough to gig. A little story, if I may, about that situation which has always bugged me. The band is a Mod/Ska/Northern Soul band with a reasonable following and we suddenly had a request to support Neville Staple in Brixton in two weeks time, a proper result for a little band from Cornwall and Devon. Our singer turned it down as he didn't think I'd be up to speed with the original material despite me assuring him it wouldn't be a problem. I'd never supported a known artist at the time so was really quite miffed. Anyway good luck with learning the material and don't let it get to, it's supposed to be fun 👍

I'd also say a larger tablet or even laptop is easier to use than a phone or 7" tablet. Some of the buttons can be quite small and the sliders easy to over adjust if the screen is small.

We use the XR18. We run a wired laptop on stage and our soundman use a wireless tablet (android) outfront, so we're covered if one way or the other packs up. We do our own individual mixes with our own wireless tablets, if you wanted (soundman doesn't need to get involved in that). I just use a wedge monitor now, no amp. One thing that is really handy which I don't think has been mentioned yet, apologies if it has, is the ability to save venue settings. If you play a fairly regular rotation of venues you can save a venue once your happy with the sound and recall it next time you're there, particularly useful with problem venues where it's a pain getting a good sound. It's as complex or simple as you want it to be and probably does far more than any pub/club would ever need it to.

There has to be a joke about cereal numbers in there somewhere 🤔😁

I have absolutely no idea what question you were thinking would be asked. 🤘METAAAAAL!! 🤘

I work with my hands anyway so they are fairly tough. I haven't ever had calluses as such but the ends of my fingers are quite thick. I play electric hands with a heavy touch and play doublebass, although this uses different parts of the plucking fingers. I do get sore fingers from time to time but it feels more like bruising. I never get blisters but if I get particularly enthusiastic the whole thickened pad on a plucking finger can kind of let go deep down in the finger, it the takes three or four weeks to grow out.

Right, I've had enough of this now! Last night I wired in the series switch, one silly mistake aside it works, and the pickups in series sound great, getting that mid push I was after. The problem is I have a massive earthing issue, huge noise when touching anything and an actual 'crack' sound when I touch the neck pickup. I spent hours checking, double checking, desoldering, resoldering, adding extra earth's between everything in desperation, even took the bass apart again and soldered the earth to the bridge instead of it just being trapped underneath. Nothing would sort it. Had another look this morning with a fresh brain, tried some different things but nothing will fix it. In the end I have clamped a wire on the outside of the pickup housings linking them together (metal toaster style) and the noise vanished, but so has the series switching. When put in series mode I get the added mids, but with noise if I touch the bass pickup, until I link the two pickup housings when the noise goes but it goes back to parallel sound. What's going on? I really like the series sound, it's exactly what I was after so don't want to give up but I'm at a loss as to what to do. Help! 😟 Edit. I'm also guessing that if I did away with all the wiring needed for switching between parallel and series and just wiring it in series I'd still get the same problem if it's something inherent in the design of the pickups?

I think Happy Jack was being a touch callus with his post 😉

Aren't they the 'Lightshow' ones or something like that? If so I'm sure young Mr. Entwistle owned one.