Lfalex v1.1

At the £1k price point, it's got some serious competition from G&L, Yamaha, Sire; all of whom offer something similar for less. If you then move away from traditional instruments add in Ibanez and Musicman..

Given that the balance of any given bass is ok, can you tolerate a detuned long-scale bass with a capo? I've recently bought a G&L SB-2 and found the strings too heavy (50-110), so I thought I'd tune it down to D standard. This worked fine.... But it made some songs that use the open E heavily difficult to play. As an experiment, I thought to try a capo at the second fret. One of the lovely chaps on here sent me one for free (!) And I've been using it since. It reduces the scale length to ~30" Whether or not the tone is right, I can't say, as I've no basis for comparison with a true short scale. Issues? Only that the harmonics are displaced. Benefits? Take the capo off and there's a bass in D standard lurking in there. Maybe not the compromise you're looking for, but it does item up a lot of instrument choices that might otherwise be closed to you.

MFD pickups 👍

Klaus Voorman Herbie Flowers Tony Levin

I was referring to coil splitting/switching as I figured that was what you were after. I can't see musch use in coil taps on any bass, let alone a modern one with an 18v active EQ.

Lovely instrument. I miss my SR5. Sort of 🤣

Leaving aside my experiences with my Status, and on a more general note- If you have specific requirements from a build or alterations from the norm to be made in any bass, be very specific, otherwise you'll get the builder's interpretation of what you asked for. Don't just tick a box on an options sheet, discuss how it'll affect the performance of the instrument. In this case, I'd find out from Status how they implement single-coil taps, which coils they use and why, and what effect that has on output and tone. If the manufacturer can't answer that sort of question.. Well, decide for yourself how well tried and tested the modification is. I ended up paying extra for something that was useless based on the assumption that it would work like my previous positive experiences of series/parallel/single coil switching. It worked really well in the aforementioned Stingray5, a Warwick Corvette $$ and (subsequently) an Ibanez ATK derivative (SC with hf roll off and slight mid-scoop, SC, and parallel) * I think I'm going to drop out of this discussion now as I'm concerned that my personal experiences are biasing my views. I hope that your S2 turns out to be awesome, and stays that way.

As long as the pickups have enough (3?) output wires, coil switching for series, parallel and single coil are all possible. The issue you'd face is knowing which single coil in each pickup you'd want to select. By definition, one coil of each will be Reverse Wound/Reverse Polarity. You'd ideally want it to be selectable with its opposite number in the other pick-up (Normal wound/Normal Polarity) in order to give some degree of hum-cancelling (life a Fender Jazz) I'd guess that you'd end up with either inner or outer coils running as pairs to achieve this. You could always have that as a switching option- front coil/parallel HB/rear coil for both pickups on two switches. Don't know whether that'd yield worthwhile results. Last time I had a "good idea", it was having series / parallel switching on my Streamline...

Does the S2 share electrics with the Streamline? I ordered mine with series/ parallel switches on both pickups. Waste of time. They sound too thin in series, and the level boost is quite considerable. The best bass I've had for series/parallel/single coil switching was a Stingray5. Musicman implemented it properly; The series and parallel options are reduced down to match the single coil output, so no volume jumps. Other filtering may also be employed. The pickup has a dummy coil for the single coil setting, so no hum (not relevant to this question) Unless you can find someone to add some sort of compensation to the switching, it's not worth it. I couldn't even EQ out the shortcomings. Different pickups might yield different results, but it didn't work at all well with the soapbars in my Streamline. It was a huge disappointment, and not worth the extra I spent to have it included.

(I don't own any all- tube devices) I believe that common wisdom for all types of amp is that the gain should be as high as possible without clipping or distortion. The idea being that this keeps the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible before it reaches the power stage- preventing the power stage from reproducing said noise. This assumes that your gain stage isn't noisy itself, and that your cabinet can actually reproduce the result clearly enough to make it audible. Into a recording/PA desk via DI or through headphones might be more revealing.

Also useful for bringing double stops back into reach again! Used it on Nutshell (from Alice in Chains' Unplugged album. The Double stop is at D#, virtually unreachable from the playing position for the rest of the song. Bass in D standard, capo on 1st, and the D# is sitting there waiting.. Just what I wanted it for.

And you have flats on the SB-1, do you not? My SB-2 (Tribute, btw) has rounds on it, so very different. It works a bit like the way Jazz bass pickups interact. I end up using the P volume for level and tone/drive, then use the J like a tone (treble) control which also sucks a little mid out, too.

Try it with an SB-2. Two different flavoured pickups that do what you describe above. And then affect/ partially cancel each other's output dependent on their respective volume settings! Just as well they're only V/V!

@Frank Blank sent me a capo for nothing! What a top bloke! Curse the evil coronavirus for preventing me from meeting up with him. People like Frank make BC what it is.

Huge thanks to @Frank Blankfor sending me a G7! Have stuck it on the SB2 (in D standard) to make songs that rely heavily on the open E string or use it as a pedal note. Bingo. Does what it says on the tin! Thanks Frank. This is what BC is all about.

So would it be safe to say that Marc S won't be needing a Marquess .. 😉

The washers aren't even the main issue, it's just another issue from a poorly-made version of a perfectly adequate design. The internals are far worse. The original E tuner that failed had its pinion at the base of the tuning post completely stripped by the worm gear on the shaft. There was a load of swarf left in the case. I can feel the G tuner going- the post is already loose when not under string tension. I suppose that contacting Warwick would be an utter waste of time; they're unlikely to do anything about a 19 year old bass, and if they do, I expect another batch of crappy tuners that'll be ruined in 5 years. Edit- This whole caper is souring both the ownership experience for this bass and my opinion of Warwick "quality". I doubt I could bring myself to recommend them to anyone else, much less buy a new one myself based on 4 original tuners and one original one failing/ requiring replacement. I've only had one bass worse that this; the Amazing self-destructing Status Streamline. That (rightly) went.

Weight isn't much of an issue. It's already very body-heavy, so the odd gram or two won't make much odds!

I think you're right about then being licensed Gotoh units. They're certainly of very poor quality. Finish is okay, but they're too soft internally. I think the Real McCoy Gotohs are about £80 for a 2L/2R set.

Just looked at the prices; Warwick replacements- £8.64 each. Hipshot Licensed- about £16 each. US Hipshot- about £35 each. I wonder why Black Warwick tuners are dying on me? Has the hardware quality taken a downturn since the late 90s? I'm not exactly using heavy strings (45-100)

I made a music teacher cry once when I described one as a "Fretless Trumpet"

Will I have to re-drill the headstock for the screws? If so, expect a headstock like Emmental and even fewer fingers... Maybe I should engage the services of a luthier. Its a nice instrument and I don't want to turn it into firewood.

Thanks for the reply . I've had 2 other Warwicks, both from 1997. Neither suffered any tuner issues. I still own the Fortress V, and it's fine. Both of the others had JAN 1s, and no issues there. Might go for the JAN 3 in brass. The YouTube video made it look like an easy job to swap nuts. I fully expect the job to end my playing career when I cut off at least half my fingers tinkering with super-sharp blades...

And these are the Schaller items from the EUB. These won't fit (too long, tuning post is too small diameter, and the head isn't drilled/slotted) Do they do this design to fit the Warwick?

These are E and A, showing the split/collapsed washers. The E is only 5 years old. The G feels like it's going to shear its post like the original E did. It's definitely stripping inside when turned under load.