The previous owner had problems seeing the frets / rails, so he put a piece of white tape before every single one. I don't really like the look of it, but until I can actually play the thing, i am not sure I don't need that, so I have yet to take them off, apart from where he put doubles, which was just confusing.
Hopefully I will take them off soon.
All the railboards have villex pickups and filters. If you plug them into phantom power they are active, otherwise they aren't. But it is stereo and the filters are supposed to work both ways (tbh, hard to hear much difference).
And that is where things got complicated. When I got it I was puzzled why the melody side was lower pitched than the bass side and after a few questions I found out that it was in dual bass reciprocal, where one side is a bass in 5ths and the other side is a bass in 4ths.
But I don't want that, I have basses, i wanted standard stick tuning so I have faffed around changing the strings, (i had some spares) as the gauges of the strings are like a closely guarded secret, but I didn't work it out and broke one. Why didn't I think of the d'addario tension calculator which lets you work out exactly what the strings should be.
Anyway, I am going to have to get some new strings, so i have the option of getting them from america for $50 + $23 + import and vat, + parcelforce benevolent fund fee, or go to everyones favourite Lancashire based string purveyor for a fair bit less!
Much against my real wishes I am not taking it to a gig tonight. I am sure I could work out mustang sally on it easy enough, but maybe that isn't the point