NancyJohnson

I've soldered the black and yellow together and run the red and white wires as per the Jazz diagram that Dave posted. I have sound - better sound - but the output [of the bass] is very woolly, a bit distorted and somewhat farty...there's not a lot of output either. It's very quiet. Both pickups are working independently now, in as much as I can turn the volumes up and down. The tone control works, but only really goes from super-woolly to woolly. On the upside, the earthing is fine! Not a buzz or anything. I'll have to put this on the back burner for a day or two - busy over the next two nights. Any further suggestions appreciated! Best P

Cheers for the replies...soldering iron will be on in a couple of hours - I'm just back from Italy and haven't eaten anything in about 20 hours. Must get some food in me. P

Can I just bump this if anyone can help. Cheers to Dave for the Fender schematic - already had that one! Cheers P

All Jim Dunlop for me. For bass the blackie 1mm, on the 12-string bass the grey .88mm and for guitar the white .46mm. +1 to misrule for Sharkfins - I used to use these with my acoustic guitar. I didn't know they still made them. P

I've been throwing together a Jazz style bass and as the existing body routs were kind of big, I bought a pair of Wilkinson MWM4C MusicMan clone pickups; the pickups came raw - no packaging or schamatics. A bit of honesty here too... don't actually know whether the pickups are active or passive (this only just dawned on me a few minutes ago); I paid until £25.00 the pair so I'm suspecting passive, which is fine. Everything on this build has been going quite smoothly until it came to actually getting some noise out of it! I'd like to run these is much the same configuration as a Jazz (V/V/T), but I can't find a schematic anywhere that will allow me to do this - I'm really not so worried about what the pickups can achieve when wired a certain way...I'm a straight rock player, so generally all the onboard bass controls are generally full on Anyhow, the pickups. They have four wires coming out of them coloured a (thick) black, yellow, red and white. The black and yellow wires are/were soldered together. I don't really understand the whole hot wire thing, so if anyone has a simple diagram that will help, or (if you're in a say thirty miles radius of Reading), I'll happily drive over and buy you a beer. Finally, I'm away now until the 13th. No PC so I can't post until I'm back. Thanks for any help P

Thanks for the nice comments. Paint job all mine. I have some nice enough gear, but I'm no purist when it comes to DIY. The body was a transparent blue colour, I rubbed it down a bit, sprayed it white - a couple of coats - rubbing down with 240 grit paper between coats. Taped up the body with 3mm and 18mm Scotch/3M tape and sprayed it dark blue. I was quite happy with the results to be honest. Rubbed down again and applied two coats of clear coat. Deepened the neck pocket and attached the neck and it all just kind of worked. I shimmed the neck with a small bit of card and the action is great. The rout for the neck pickup [i]is[/i] enormous, plus there are screw holes in all the wrong places, so I've angled the pickup a little and it looks fine. With all this in mind, I need to locate a wiring schematic...the two Wilkinson pickups aren't wired right. I've e-mailed Trevor W. and hopefully he'll come back to me. I'm off on holiday tomorrow, so no updates for ten days. P PS/edit...With my graphic designer head on, I've done a headstock logo - I've christened it the Frank Einstein - Modern Prometheus Bass. Heh. Go look it up. Can I copyright that?

I'd just thought I'd share the following. I've been sourcing gear from all over the place for the last few weeks to create a Frankenstein Jazz. I just wanted a Jazz type thing that was dirty and a mess, something I could bastardise when the mood took me and doesn't need to go in a case every time I leave the house. I also wanted to get an end result that had a bit of a Van Halenesque/80s metal vibe. Costwise, the body owes me £4.00. Yup, £4.00. That said there was a massive rout under the old scratchplate, which probably helped me decide what to do with it from a pickup perspective. All the hardware came in at about £60, pickups (a pair of passive Wilkinson MM clones) £25.00. Neck came from the US (Mighty Mite b-stock) was £40.00 including shipping. Paint and everything else I had already. I've just first fixed it and everything seems OK, except I need to chop out about 3mm on the neck joint as the neck sits way to high. Visually, I think I've got what I set out to achieve; I've got to put some clear coat/lacquer on it and install the electrics. It's also a nice alternative to having a load of black/rosewood basses. Best P

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='531095' date='Jul 2 2009, 09:22 PM']I hate to sound like i am pointing out the obvious but are you sure the tuners will fit if the bushing holes are too small?[/quote] The tuners fit the bushings and the bushings now fit the holes. I installed both while downing a nice cool beer (or three) on the patio about two hours ago. P

[quote name='neepheid' post='530285' date='Jul 2 2009, 09:42 AM']Unless you have the holy grail of drill bits which is exactly the right size, I have found it best to drill as close as you can (smaller) and then sand the hole out slightly with the Dremel until the bushings fit. Screw fit bushings for the win. I'm fed up of this crap [/quote] I used the 18mm and used the wiggle it a bit method. Sorted. P

I'm putting together a bass from parts and am fitting a Mighty Mite 2909 maple Jazz neck. I've bought some new Fender parts, specifically a set of vintage bushings (Fender part number 0019509049). Needless to say, the holes on the headstock are way too small. I've looked around on the web and the consensus seems to be that the holes need to be 11/16th of an inch - I tried a hole on another piece of wood at 1.8cm (which is a shade over; 11/16ths = 1.746cm) and it's still too small. They need to be snug and at the same time I don't want to crack the headstock. Anyone have an idea of the right size? Otherwise it's down to either filing out the hole or using sandpaper in the existing holes (and the temperature in my workshop was over 40 degrees yesterday). Cheers P

Not taking the offer tabled from Hodder. I had an agent who said he could get more. Stalled, went back to Hodder and they said no. Long story (literally). P

[quote name='Musicman20' post='520669' date='Jun 22 2009, 12:40 PM']So is the Geddy closer to the bridge or not? Thanks[/quote] No. The Geddy pickups are in exactly the same place as the current US models. ONLY the 1970s reissue has the pickup closer to the bridge. If you look at my original photo, I've just layered the current 70s reissue over a Geddy Lee model. Look at the bridge pickup. P

[quote name='Musicman20' post='520062' date='Jun 21 2009, 05:03 PM']Hey I was just drooling over the Geddy Lee Jazz. Gas is far to high this month. With the pickups...are they positioned differently to how a 'modern' jazz would be? Do they sound less aggressive? Just wondering....price tag aint so bad. Cheers! (PS I searched and found load of reviews which made me GAS more!)[/quote] I've just Photoshopped a Geddy, the current US Standard Jazz and a Mexico 70s reissue. The pickups on the Geddy and the current US model are in the same place. On the 70s reissue the bridge pickup is closer to the bridge (which is correct) - it's about 1/2 to 3/4 of the pickup width closer to the bridge. For the benefit of this, result attached. Don't quite get it when people ask about the aggression! There's so many factors; amp, speakers, technique. I've not changed anything and it's got plenty of thump and output. It's very hot. I'm running it into an amp (Tech21 Landmark) that shares the same pre-stage (Sansamp) that Geddy Lee uses...if you ramp up the gain and play it hard enough expect elements of that tone I suppose. Last week I put it through an Ashdown ABM setup for a couple of minutes and it was just horrible. I lugged my gear in and used that. Best P

Just sold a Badass II bridge to Josh. Top bloke! Cheers P

At the top of each page you get a root directory locator/linked page hierachy (>Basschat.co.uk>"The Local">Site News>Site Issues) - would it be possible to repeat this at the bottom of of each page of the thread? Between the last post and 'Fast Reply' buttons maybe. It would make navigation easier than using the browser back button or scrolling up to the top of the page. Also, is there any way of displaying more than about 20/25 posts per page? I guess most people are on broadband now so 50 or even 100 wouldn't really cause a connection issue. Cheers P

Yummy. Love Bongos. I think if I could shift my Precision I'd be up for a 5HH. P