lemmywinks

http://guitarz.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/your-guitars-andys-pew-bass-andys-done.html Winner.

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1393332695' post='2378778'] Awesome. [/quote] Make a goat head bass out of a church pew! And then stick a Fender decal on it and stamp it with a '68 serial number...

[quote name='Jazzjames' timestamp='1393331124' post='2378745'] 5'48'' [media]http://youtu.be/xXhhkwG6NTs[/media] [/quote] His opinion is no more valid than anyone's really, perhaps even less so as he has financial (and emotional) investment in old bolted together basses. The thing is that this whole "vintage sounds better" debate is a testable claim - you can easily transplant parts from Fenders and do double blind tests to find out exactly what differences there are (or maybe aren't), in fact if there are any differences you could switch parts around and find out exactly what was causing them. Nobody seems to want to do this though, perhaps the Talkbass tonewood test has made them a bit shy? Probably easier to just keep on prattling about vibrations and resonation on YT videos than actually find out if you're talking bollocks or not. Personally I think there actually is a difference, but not due to some magical harmonic musical relationship developed between two pieces of wood over the last 60 years. The pickups will sound a little different, stick them in a slab of wood, bolt a neck on and I bet nobody would be able to tell. Actually, surely an old reclaimed piece of wood from an 1800s church pew would have more vintage mojo than anything those young upstarts at Fender have produced? All those years of choir singing and repetetive chanting will still resonating through the grain don't you know.........

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRKFb8g_QbM[/media] Low action and some sort of dampening device before the first fret.

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1392930089' post='2374457'] Yeah well it is said he does likes them young..... guitars I mean. [/quote] [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1392931032' post='2374486'] Plenty of YouTube footage featuring him giving them a damn good thrashing, and so on and so forth. [/quote] All in the name of research!

Acoustic instruments will differ as they age though, that is without question as they are reliant on the properties of the wood to produce sound. A Fender plank with a neck bolted on and a pickup wired in? Not so much.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1392911306' post='2374097'] Thanks, Steve. Presumably the 'R' model is a precursor to the 'L', then? Though [size=4]I see that neither cab features on Jorg's website any more. [/size][size=4]What I do know so far from just playing it at home is that it's pumping out a lot of SPL for such a small box...[/size] [/quote] Yeah the R has normal ceramic magnet drivers, it's still quite light and I can lift it with one hand. Tbh it only seems to have gotten heavier since I bought a featherlight mini cab for rehearsals and home use. It's all relative I suppose!

Still using my old 1212r, it's a huge sounding cab. I eq the excess mids out on my LMII and boost the bass a little (never past 1 o'clock), wind in the tweeter just a tad and it's spot on, have never really wanted for anything else apart from an EAD212. Would someday like to A/B it with the neo L version as although the cab sounds as good as the day I bought it 6 years ago it doess seem to have gotten heavier! Congrats on yours though, that's a great price for some quality kit.

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1392907553' post='2374030'] In the 70s no one cared less about a bass made in 1960 and most musicians if they could afford it would have bought a brand new shiny 1970s one. All those vintage basses and guitars were left for the poorer musicians and the roadworn ones were placed at the back of the shop or refinished so they could sell them. Where did this mania of 'old is gold' come from? [/quote] +1 Tbh I find the fixation on particular periods of music and the instruments associated with them incredibly boring, I like a nice Jazz bass but the obsession with "vintage" Fender styles is a little weird to me. There's tons of cool basses out there in all different shapes and sizes yet if you have a knackered old plank with a fag burn on the headstock that looks like it's had a tub of paint stripper thrown at it and dropped down a flight of stairs then you get immediate kudos. Still, makes all those unfashionable 80s and 90s basses a little cheaper for everyone else!

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1392857272' post='2373677'] The whole 'old Fenders sound better' thing was more of a reaction to the takeover of the business by CBS than anything else - big corporations just weren't cool. I can remember people stating that '70's strats are sh*t', but 40 years on and people are raving over those same strats. Interestingly, it seems that the majority of people who can 'hear the difference' between an aged Fender and a new one are those who have just spent £14K on an old one... difference or self justification? Not an easy one to answer without p*ss*ng people off. [/quote] That's basically it. It would be interesting to do a similar test to this only with a current MIA Fender and a vintage one, just swapping out the electronics: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f8/scrap-lumber-bass-vs-alder-bass-can-you-tell-difference-743932/ I think the results would be very telling. Mind you then all the guys who get chubbys over vintage basses would say it isn't a fair test as part of the unique tone is in the 50+ year old lumps of solder..... I also wonder how many of the owners of vintage Fenders who extol their virtues are actually playing fakes. Placebos are indeed funny things!

The detail work is great but I think the back looks way too plain, looks like he's also used a cheapy neck off a VIntage or Aria or something.Still looks cool though, not sure I'd cough up £1.4k for it mind. The pickup placement puzzled me too, I quite like a MM about 2cm from the bridge but that looks almost touching. Wouldn't mind hearing it though.

I don't mind the headstocks, although they make it look like a cash in on the old Japanese ones which I don't like as the later IGBs are good basses in their own right, I really like the more modern styling. It's just that horrible faded red colour - eurgh! There's also a more tasteful dark blue one on there as of today too, offers around £90 so still a good price. Could get a brace of early Korean Integras for not much over a ton!

Dunno if this has been mentioned but I was reminded of this build when I spotted this bass on eBay: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bass-guitarCustom-Hand-built-Horned-Hell-by-Robin-Jupp-of-Deadlight-Designs-/301101191864"]http://www.ebay.co.u...s-/301101191864[/url] Time to cash in Rich!

Spotted this: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/aria-pro-ii-bass-action-needs-some-attention-good-strings/1048870220#photo-content Looks like a nice cheapy, think this is an early 90s Korean Aria (may be wrong) so should be a good bass for £50 and would have scored it myself it it weren't for the colour (I hate red basses).

Due to most pubs having an extra hour (or more) of serving time landlords usually ask us to do 9:30 - 10:15 and then 11pm - 12am. Suits us fine, punters seem to stay until the end and the bar is always busy right up until closing time. One recent gig we played we asked the landlord what time he closed and when he wanted us to finish, his reply was "when I feel like it and as late as you want". Seems ok to me, plenty of time for a few jars and a bit of socialising (not that bass players should be doing that last one mind).

A less well dressed version sold for a snip recently: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/aria-pro-2-bass-guitar-/350995653524?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item51b8f8a394&nma=true&si=l5Znottrv8vvdyygOQi4mlaxbLQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

The only bit that confused me was she mentioned the hot wire from the pickup as being grey (which it is), then said connect the capacitor from the 9v feed onto a white wire. I assume she actually means the grey one coming from the pickup. Still not sure what the actual pickup assembly is in one of these, some people say it's a piezo but Soloette say it's a dual mic. Suppose they should know as it's their pickup! Tbh I just really want this bass to be up and running as it's a great little thing.

Also if I was wiring this as in mono rather than stereo would I need different a value resistor and capacitor? Am I right in thinking she means wire the resistor to draw power from the 9v + and then connect this to the hot wire of the pickup, then solder a capacitor to this connection and wire that to the input?

Just had an email from the very helpful Soloette (who Aria licensed the design of the bass and pickup from) and she said the following: [i]"[font="Arial"][size="2"]I apologize for the delayed response. We don't think this preamp will work as is since it doesn't have power going to the pickup. P[/size][/font][font="Arial"][size="2"]ower has to come to the pickup from the 9v battery. You can use 10k resistors from the 9v positive side of the battery to each microphone in the pickup. The gray wires are coming from the microphones in the pickup. Unsolder the white wire from the preamp first. Now that's it's sticking up, you will add the 10k resistor coming from the 9v+. Then add to the same junction a .01uF capacitor leading back to the input of the preamp. T[/size][/font][font="Arial"][size="2"]his will power the microphones. Do you understand? Let me know if you need more details or take this email to a tech for help. "[/size][/font][/i] So the pickup actually needs powering directly before hitting the preamp? Like I said I'm rather clueless with stuff like this so if anyone could explain it in kiddy terms that would be great. Gotta say Soloette have been very helpful while I've been trying to sort this, I messaged them a while ago and they were really god even though they didn't make the bass. Class company I think.

A Markbass with the Compressore, a tuner and a mute switch would get a sale from me straight away.

In fact I have a small mixer I don't use any more as I replaced with an even smaller USB powered one, I got it given to me off here (cheers ahpook!) so I can send it to you for the cost of postage if you like. One of these: It has the power supply and a cloth bag, you'll need a cable to plug your mp3 or whatever in.

Just get a small mixer. Also has the advantage of being a mixer too so you can use it for other stuff. If you want to use your PC then software like Guitar Rig might be of use.

Dunno about the photo on the site, maybe they just knocked something up to show what it looked like? The parts I received match the description. IC has LM358N written on it and 6F008030, the parts list just says LM358.

R1 (the top one in the picture) is 1k, the other three are 100k. The three identical 100k ones were taped together in the kit to seperate them from the 1k one. In the component markings section R1 is labelled as brown, black, red and R2 to R4 are labelled brown, black , yellow. The instructions are actually really clear and easy to follow, I just don't understand why it doesn't work!

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1391826578' post='2361853'] Ah. In which case, two things that I'd double check as a matter of course would be: 1) Did you put the capacitors (C1 and C2) in the right places - you said one of them was different to the picture? 2) Did you fit the electrolytic capacitors (C3 and C4) the right way round? [/quote] The ceramic capacitor which is different to the picture is actually listed in the manual and described in the component marking section. C1 is supposed to be a 1u polyester capacitor, C2 is supposed to be a 100n ceramic capacitor with 104 written on it. The two electrolytic capacitors are in the correct places and are the right way around, the -ve side is markd out on the board. Here's a pic: Excuse the screw terminals, I wanted to fit someafter I first discovered it didn't work so I wasn't soldering to the board all the time but couldn't find any 2 way ones with a 4mm pitch so I had to improvise. There is electrical tape around them and nothing is touching, I'm getting some proper ones next week so these are only temporary.