Doctor J

The P is a humbucker, you shouldn't be getting a big level of noise at all. Wire the pickup straight to the jack. See if there's still buzz. If it's clean, add in each pot at a time. Questions: is the new shielding connected to ground? Do you have dimmer switch lighting? Have the terminals of the pickups had the solder touched up?

Electric Gizard Dinosaur Sr Mantera Sacred Reach Overfill Sweep

A badly cut nut is the obvious culprit. How much of a gap is there between the bottom of the string and the top of the first fret? Are the other strings the same height off the first fret and showing the same problem? Have you tried a different string?

It's a scarf joint, very commonly used in tilt-back headstock designs. The headstock likely came under some forward pressure which overstressed the joint.

I believe the placement is the same but the Sterling has ceramic magnets as opposed to the alnicos in the Stingray

Piezo pickup,I would think.

For almost every Precision with a Jazz neck, there is one of these unloved puppies looking for a home.

Just move on. If the singer attended the audition for the new bassist, she was in on it, too. This was going to happen sooner or later and was not purely a musical decision, it would seem. They've done you a favour in not wasting any more of your time. Cut your losses and put it (and them) behind you. Your life is richer with these people out of it.

The prices have little to do with tone or a perception of tonewood.

To be honest, I'm lost at this stage. If the tonewood thing isn't that a wood has a recogniseable tone though audio alone, then I don't know what it is. But, sure, I'll sleep soundly either way.

Nothing to do with tonal superiority, just addressing the perception that different woods have recognisable tonal characteristics.

Happy to provide audio samples for anyone who wants to call out the wood types in a blind listening test 🙂

I would normally say go with the Moon, for sure, but that one appears to have a neck pocket gap you could fit a cheese sandwich into.

It's pretend flame. It comes off with the current finish. OP, paint it the colour you prefer. I'd say Monaco Yellow but that's not much use if you don't like Monaco Yellow.

Pffff. He could make it sound brighter just by using lighter coloured lego for the body.

Pshaw

Stuart Zender - Forgotten but not gone

The neck has been stripped, hence no black, hence no logo.

Another vote for monaco yellow but it would look much better with a black scratchplate. I made a strat with that combination and it's a great look. The only bit I don't get is putting a Fender decal on something which isn't a Fender.

Or a fretted piano?

I'd design it in such a way that you could take it apart easily to make one 3-string and three 4-string basses out of it.

I'd go for string-tree functionality over adhering to aesthetic tradition any day. On the 54 style I built, there was never a doubt I would use a 3-string tree to have continuity over the break angle across all the strings. The only people who would notice are a moniority of bassists and they're the ones you wouldn't want to be stuck in a lift with 😉

The amount of basses not on a settee in this thread... puts the number of apostrophe police arrests to shame.

Do they have a red wire going to each pickup? If so, they're active. It's possible the preamp in the pickup took a shit and died, I've seen it enough times in EMGs. MECs tend to have a gold logo for active and silver logo for passive, or at least they used to. I suspect they're active ones in that bass, so you'll need a like for like replacement. The Warwick serial number decoder is usually very good at giving you the specifics of your instrument and Hans Peter is excellent for replying to questions.

Why not just buy something good and not upgrade anything?