Chiliwailer

Years back I did this to a 95 Ray, though I now have it back as a single H. At the time I had a standard EBMM Stingray pickup in the neck. IMO the aftermarket MM style pickups are quite different to your original pickup, so they won’t technically be ‘something identical’ as you mentioned. The newer pickups tend to have a different tone and better string to string balance, including the G string pole position being corrected. I now have an Aguilar in mine, which is more compressed than the original, sounds sweeter, and feels ‘tidier’ to me… just my opinion. (It also has flat poles, so not raised on the A and D like the original). A potential issue of using 2 different pickups is they may now blend well when on together. This happened when I once tried the Aguilar with the standard MM pickup. It just sounded wrong to me, compared to a usual MM sound with 2 pickups on. Not sure if that helps regarding going traditional or not, that’s about all my experience right there 👍

It’s the neck profile, or perhaps the myth of it being a more ‘comfortable’ profile if being cynical. But there is a difference between the years, 59 is narrower. The next factor in price for a 59 is usually the depth of the flame top, more pronounced flame being more desirable and costly. Not sure where the prices are at now, but I remember one hitting £250k about 15ish years ago. That gap of Gibson not producing LP’s for a period during the 60s being to blame.

Was a pleasure to finally meet Jo after some friendly emails prior to a bass deal. Deal with full confidence folks. Enjoy the bass pal!

A pleasure to start this thread because Seva ( @realmasslove) sold me a bass tonight and made the deal super smooth and easy. Bass is just as described and it was nice to have a chat during the meet up too. Buy with confidence folks. Definitely wasn’t expecting to get a bass this week, but glad I did now. cheers Seva 🙏

Absolutely, I have TI’s on my P Bass too, the tension is so low that the gauge is deceptive. Your Smoothie will be a low end beast when they break in 💪 And now back to the porn…. Loving the East preamp on my ‘95 Ray, which was a 2 band. With the middle at centre, the middle gets taken out the circuit so it’s like a 2 band in terms of the depth compared to a 3 band. The high boost switch is very handy too.

They sound great with fists. I’ve had Thonastik, GHS, and EB Group iii and iv on mine, all sounded good but the Group iv have stayed on for ages now. Such a killer bass.

Yeah, typical Ray tone is parallel. The latest Passive Rays have a high output neodymium pickup. The USA short scale has a 500k volume and 100k tone. The Joe Dart has just a 100k vol pot. I put an alnico pickup in my short scale, with 250k (audio) for both (like my P Bass) - my supposed logic being that the albino is not as bright as the neo, and on the USA short scale 500+100 is 600, so my use of 250 + 250 is near that 600 total but less bright perhaps. It was good, but I found the 100k seemed better for hearing a difference in tone when adjusting through the sweep. For me, the 250k needed to be much near the end of the sweep to be useful. Just food for thought rather than advice.

+1 - the depth and breath in each note still astounds me on mine. Quite like that passive vibe, but still with the active clarity and punch.

Phew…. No bad news coming your way then 😀 Looks lovely 👍

Have you been told it’s original finish? Edit - Also, here’s the pots that came on my old one. Note the neater soldering too, which is typical. I wonder if your pot is original and/or desoldered at some point. The lacquer line on the back of the neck looks far too neat too, perhaps the head was resprayed and had a new logo?

It seems fine, I once had a near mint condition and 100% original 1966 Precision with a ? on the neck too.

Sold a pedalboard to Gaf - easy deal and friendly comms. Cheers 👌

Sold a bass to Bernard, easy going sale with no issues. Cheers.