Osiris

Paul popped round to collect my old BC Rich Mockingbird, a round trip of a mere 300 miles or so from his home town He's an absolutely great guy to deal with, chatty and friendly and paid in full on the spot. What more can you ask for?

My vote goes to my old Trace Elliot 1215 SMX combo. I bought it new in the early 90's when I was still new-ish to both bass playing and earning my own money. I think I was taken in by the hype at the time, still being young-ish and somewhat impressionable. The band I was playing with at the time were gigging regularly so I needed something reliable, which to me at the time meant expensive. I also bought a 1153 cab for a 2 x 15 setup. I owned the thing until it died about 10 years ago. In that time as I came to understand what makes a good bass sound and what I wanted my sound to be, I realised that the Trace was incapable of both. At best it was gutless and underpowered. If you wanted that slap bass overpowering top end then all was fine (I didn't and still don't) but if you wanted anything else, well, you could forget it; These things have a million different tone shaping options, but unfortunately none of them made any useful or usable difference to the sound. Crank the low end up on the eq? It still sounded thin and toppy. Back the top end off? No, you still sounded tinny and thin. Dial in the valve for some warmth? Nah, nothing. Everything was so subtle as to be pointless. Even the dual band compressor, which seems to be highly praised was too much. Even backing it right off the tone seemed too squashed to my ears - and I'm a big fan of compressors. No matter war you did to it, it still sounded like a tumble dryer full of cutlery. I thought that maybe mine was duff, but reading through this thread it seems I'm not the only to have been underwhelmed by TE gear. When it eventually died mid-gig about 10 years ago, my first though was "Thank fork for that". It cost a fortune new and I was determined to get my money's worth out of it so was reluctant to sell it no matter how much I came to hate it over the years. It was definitely the amp that was the turd - after it had died I bought a Mark bass little Mark 2 and ran it through the TE speakers and it sounded deep, warm and punchy, everything the TE wasn't. Never again.

I recently bought a Nordstrand MM4.4 pickup from Dave and it couldn't have been easier. He was fast and friendly in his communication and posted the pickup off quickly once I'd sent the payment. In short, Dave's a great guy to deal with.

Try dropping Thunderbird (Paul) a message. He's just the man for the job and has very reasonable rates. He's about 15 miles down the road from Kettering so if you have your own transport I'm sure he'll gladly help you out (he doesn't drive, unfortunately).

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1431420869' post='2771003'] It could be the pots, it could also be a leaky capacitor allowing DC into the audio circuitry. You could do a reasonably cheap replacement with an Artec SE3P-A giving you the same number and function of controls - [url="http://www.axesrus.co.uk/SE3PA-3-band-EQ-system-p/se3p-a.htm"]http://www.axesrus.c...em-p/se3p-a.htm[/url] has them at £36. [/quote] Thanks for the input, tauzero, but I took a punt on a 2 band Glockenklang pre-amp at the weekend. My 2 Sandbergs use them and they are great sounding, very natural and organic tone. It certainly wasn't as cheap and cheerful as the Artec, but having already spent a fair bit of money on trying to get the bass back in order I thought it wise to get something that I know will do what I want it to. At least by replacing the whole circuit it will (hopefully) eliminate all and any duff parts on the old one, whatever the cause of the problems, and the bass will finally be back up to earning its keep.

The pots certainly seem secure enough on the bass body, the casing doesn't move when they're turned and you can clearly see the spindle rotating when the stacked pots are turned.

[quote name='PlungerModerno' timestamp='1430956249' post='2766368'] As simple / silly as it sounds - I'd try turning the noisy pots back and forth 100+ times to see if that lessens the symptoms - often pots just need plenty of use to clear up noisiness. Unfortunately the stack type are sometimes trickier to clean. In general - unless there's clear signs of damage or loose wires - if electrics are noisy, my first move is to roll those pots back and forth a whole bunch of times... after checking they are turning internally, not the whole pot with wires whipping around and snapping off in the control cavity . [/quote] Thanks for the suggestion, but alas, I've already done it many times. It certainly helps in the short term (we're talking minutes rather than days or weeks) but it no way 'fixes' the issue. For example, the last time I gigged it 2 or 3 years ago, the stage was booming so I tried backing the low end off a bit but it killed the output all together - I'd rolled the pots back and forth several times during soundcheck and it seemed to be OK. Fortunately I had another bass to swap over.

Having looked inside the cavity earlier, the 2 stacked eq pots each have their own mini circuit board with what looks to be 6 closely packed solder points for each pot. So with my limited soldering skills, swapping the pots out isn't as straight forward a task as it might initially seem. Factor in the fact that the bass has already been to a couple of different people to fix and has had a fair amount of money chucked at it (one so-called reputable luthier had it for 6 months, bodged it, tried to palm me off with some half arsed excuse and charged me £80 for the pleasure ) I'm really looking to get this sorted for once and for all. Needless to say I don't really have much faith in the electronics that are currently in it so although I thought changing the pots could have been a possible cheap fix, it's not a simple as I first thought. And although it may have resolved the issue, it may have been another potential bodge too if it's a fault on the circuit board! I'd rather spend a bit more money on it and know that it's going to work. Now that a couple of other factors have been eliminated from the list of likely causes, I'm trying to figure out if changing the pre-amp will solve the issue? I think that it will, but I'm no expert on these things. Do you agree with it being the right thing to do?

Forgot to add, the battery box has fixed terminals at one end, not a floating clip so I think we can cross that off the list too.

Thanks for the information. I've just given the cable a heavy handed wobble about in the jack socket and the signal was fine, no crackling, static or other nasty noises so I'm as sure as I can be that that's not the problem. Unless there's a more scientific way to check? The pots on the other hand are a different story. The volume and pan are OK, just OK. A bit noisy in operation but when left untouched for a few seconds seem settle down. The 2 stacked eq controls are noisy and each cuts the signal when touched. These, I'm sure are the culprits. I don't have time to whip the plate off the back of the bass right now as I'm off to rehearsal in a minute but I'll take a look tomorrow to see if it's feasible to replace the pots. If they can't, and you think the Barts need a pre-amp, then I'm going to have to replace the stock model.

I have an Ibanez RS1000 Prestige that my good lady bought it for me as an engagement present in around 2006. After about a year or so, the output has been temperamental or intermittent - if you move any of the controls (volume, pickup balance, stacked bass and treble and a stacked parametric mid) there's lots of static type noise and more often than not, the output cuts right out. It's been to a couple of luthiers/repair men over the years with mixed results, but the long and short of it is that it's still unreliable. It has also had copious amounts of switch cleaner squirted into the pots on numerous occasions too. Much as I'm tempted to burn it, this was an engagement present and one can only grow ones pips back a finite number of times .... So, would I be right in thinking that the pre-amp is at fault here? (The pickups are Bartolini 'custom' soapbars but I have no idea what the stock pre-amp is). In terms of getting the bass up and running again, can I get away with just having the pots replaced? Or am I looking at a new pre-amp? Is there any reason why I couldn't just rip the current electrics out and go passive? Or do the Barts' need a pre? Any help greatly appreciated.

A couple of quick question for you guys that have bought and fitted these; How do they shape up after months of playing? Are they still as good as new? Do they show signs of wear? Has anyone tried removing one? Did it leave any residual glue or make a mess of the fingerboard in anyway? I'm tempted to get a set of these as it's a tad cheaper than buying bass that comes fitted with the real thing, but I don't want to end up regretting it, especially as I'm thinking of fitting them to an expensive bass. What are your experiences, folks?