Hellzero

Except that this is absolutely not what this thread was about, but as it's a deaf and blind people world, why not continue talking about something else.

A friend of mine in France is selling his original very very very rare Vigier Arpège 5 series I : https://www.zikinf.com/annonces/annonce-1996126

I owned and sold a Sivcak OSC II 5 strings which was an excellent lightweight bass, but it had been modified by the first owner who bought it brand new and did the mods immediately !?! I put it back to its original design by removing the pickups and preamp installed. They are really excellent basses for the money.

I guess they should work for free like you certainly do for your day job...

You don't need to, BassChat wouldn't be BassChat if there were no derailment. 😉

I'm also an artist, I'm getting tone out of woods that aren't tonewoods, but woods producing tone when you'd expect they won't as they are tonewoods known for not producing tone, but sine waves you could see on an oscilloscope meaning that it's tone. I love being an artist.

Try any nickel strings, they are way smoother than stainless steel ones. The Fodera strings are also excellent. The Alembic strings are really super smooth, but super expensive.

Wow, superb build and wonderfully looking guitar (allowed by the gods), congratulations !

Reverse the black and white wires on the blend as you're putting the hot output to ground the way you are wiring it. 😉 The B schematic for the blend doesn't correspond at all to the very blend you're using. The first one is the good one, but not with your red annotations that are completely wrong :

I'm Leduc addicted and also endorser (Christophe is certainly still asking himself why... 🤣 ), but I've tried almost everything on the market and have always come back to my faithful Leduc basses. That said my Le Fay Remington Steele 6 RHT CC CAP Big Block (what a name 🤣 ) is also amazing. And I love AER amps, currently owning a BassCube and a Basic Performer, both of the first generation.

And don't forget the Excess series, which is the first series with a bolt-on neck and there was also a fretless Delta Metal model, that I bought brand new when it was released and stupidly sold a year after... 🤦🏻‍♂️

Right @LukeFRC. The series 3 (III) Passion has the 90/10 neck (90% wood / 10% carbon). The exact name of this series 1 (I) is Arpège. 😉 There's also the "new" series IV with a bolt-on 90/10 neck, when all previous series were neck through, except the series 2 (II) that have set necks.

For polishing the Delta Metal, I've always used the good old Sidol. If you're still looking for the right strings, the Elixir's are the best suited for metallic fingerboard. Very nice one you manage to buy, even if the preamp has been changed and the pickups upgraded. 👏 I love these fretless Delta Metal Vigier's.

Clearer than this schematic is impossible as everything is exactly stating what it means. Sorry, but if you don't understand it, don't start using a soldering iron or it will end up with a disaster. Go to someone understanding it and the pickups will be fitted in no time, especially as EMG is using connectors since at least 25 years, so there's no need for a soldering iron, except if you are mixing old and new items... The red wire on EMG's is always the + battery wire. The white wire is always the hot output of the pickup. The braided shield is always the ground of the pickup. The ground is, ... well, the ground. The output is where it goes to the next stage, which can be the volume, the preamp or the output jack, depending on what you need or want. The black wire here is the ground of the pickup (= braided shield).

Otherwise, there is this, but it will become quite expensive : http://www.glockenklang.com/en/products/bass_systems/impedance-transformer.htm

If you make a total copper shielding with each parts interconnected and the whole to the ground, you'll be amazed by the silence of the original single coils pickups and the loss of the typical Fender buzzing when not touching the strings. People buying my basses are always amazed by their silence, but it's really simple to achieve.

Calling @Bassassin !

You must be... 😉

This brass (or sometimes copper on the reissues) strip must be soldered to the brass (never copper) plate of the bridge pickup as it's the grounding of the bridge. Check if there's a grounding wire under the bridge if you want to remove it as it might be purely aesthetic. That said, it wasn't centered on the original pre 1962 Jazz Basses as it needed to run between the screws of the damping system, so I guess this one is an add-on to look like the original. It was abandoned when Fender started putting 3 separate knobs (volume, volume, tone) instead of the 2 stacked knobs (volume, tone for each pickup) of the early Jazz Basses.

@BELA, here's a good way to check if your pickups are too close to the strings and therefore attracting them so much they will generate false harmonics as the issue you describe. Simply press your string at the last fret on the treble side and check the gap (distance) between the bottom of the string and the top of the pole piece and then repeat on the bass side. For such a pickup, I would recommend 2.5 mm on the treble side and 3 mm on the bass side for the bridge pickup. For the neck pickup, start with 3 mm on the treble side and 3.5 mm on the bass side, so both pickups will have balanced outputs. If the neck pickup is really close to the ... neck, go for 3.5 to 4 mm. Use Allen keys (as they come in these exact dimensions) to check the gap, it's fast, easy and accurate.

If you open an original Trace Elliot, you'll find a sticker with the date on it. As easy as this.

When music sucks, you've got to find a way to attract the fools...