shoulderpet

I had one very briefly and it was a solid bass but I ended up returning it as I just did not gel with it. For me there were a number of minor issues that irked me once the new bass glow had worn off *Although it sounded fairly good, there was a brittleness to the highs that I just could not dial out *20mm spacing, only slightly wider than 19mm but enough to be noticeable *A couple of areas QC wise that were they had dropped the ball a bit *Uninspiring to play, it was mostly solidly built but it just felt a bit "Meh"

Just done some upgrades on my Mustang bass, new pickguard courtesy of Gig.ink @TimAl and Duncan Quarter pounder P pickup

I stick mine in a tub of hot water with a tiny bit of washing up liquid, give them 10 minutes then pour out the hot water, rinse them quickly to remove any suds and dry them with a towel, gives me another few weeks of life to my strings. The tub method works better than boiling them on a stove which is too hard on the strings and doesn't last very long.

Ok thanks, it does have a strange smell almost like brasso to it so that would make sense that it is something like white spirit

Ok so another query, my Daddario fret board conditioner says it contains Petroleum distillates, should I be worried about applying this stuff?

Ok I have just seen that someone has already posted the link to the forum post referenced above so I assume it is ok to post the link https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/fretboard-oiling-your-one-stop-guide.2154768/

If you have been doing it for 35 years with no issues then that pretty much says it's ok to me, I'm in my forties so I will probably not be around for longer than 35 years

I have a couple of basses that look like they could do with an oiling of the fretboard, I know oiling the fretboard too often is a very bad idea so its always a once in a blue moon kind of occurrence for me, however a post by Terry Mcinturff of Mcinturff on another forum (not sure if I am allowed to post the link so I will omit it for now) had me thinking that maybe it is a bad idea to oil a fretboard, specifically the below from his posts , "When a fretboard is oiled, it is not possible to prevent that oil from seeping-under the fret. Especially when using a non-drying oil, this can result in an accumulation of oil under the fret which causes true harm to the guitar. Here's how: - Can soften the wood in the vital fret slot region (non-microbial "rot") - Can provide a microbial environment (oil/substance-dependent), encouraging microbial activity that will actually digest the wood under the fret (microbial "rot") - Can lessen the fret's "grip" on the wood....frets can pop-up causing buzzing/dead spots - Can complicate refretting; the wood is infiltrated with oil and fret replacement is compromised/more difficult 5) How do I know if an oil is safe to use on my fretboard? Wipe a streak of the oil on a pane of glass. If after 3 days it's not hard...or clearly getting hard....use it for something else, or dispose of it. Do NOT use any oil on your fretboard that "stays wet". Ever. If you've been doing-so, stop now for the health of your guitar. For reasons explained above, any oil that does not dry, which stays wet, is an enemy of the integrity of your guitar. Repeated use of such constitutes harming your guitar." Interested in hearing what others think about this, the above posts are by someone that builds guitars but I think it would be naïve of me to just assume that because he builds guitars it must therefore be true after all there is a world of BS out there that is perpetuated by "experts" and to me the bit about how its impossible to avoid oil seeping below the frets sounds a bit dubious to me after all most of us use fretboard oils in tiny,tiny amounts

When I owned a Fender Rumble amp I always found the tone a bit Meh and the EQ section a bit strange (10khz for treble, really??!!) but its saving grace other than its light weight was the built in overdrive, when I was gigging I rarely had a completely clean sound I always had a bit of overdrive going on and im not really a pedals kind of person so being able to get that from the amp was great

I'm not saying that Squiers are not not good instruments, some of them are really good but imo overall Fender basses will be more consistent than Squier. I'm not hating on Squier but Squier, MIM Fender and MIA Fender are all built to different price points and Fender has to make sure they are sufficiently different to avoid people buying there cheaper instruments when they would otherwise buy there more expensive instruments

I have mixed feelings also, I brought a CV Jaguar bass and sent the first one back because the neck was about five different shades of red, it was literally pillar box red around the 12th fret so it went back, shame as it played well. The replacement did not have a day Glo red neck but it had the worst fretwork and fret buzz I ever heard and buzzed on every fret, the people in the factory obviously knew it was a lemon as they cranked the action way high to try and offset the buzz, I briefly thought about having someone look at the frets but then by the time I spend the money to do that I could get a used Mim Fender so I decided against it. There may be some great CV Squiers but I had 2 lemons in a row so unless I can play the bass in person or it is used (and only if on this forum) and the person can vouch that it is not a lemon then I am done with CV Squiers

Im not generally a fan of bass solos or bass solo arrangements but I will make an exception for this [Youtube]

Yeah I played a gig that started out like that, it improved later on in the evening when more people arrived but at the start of the gig there was all of 3 people at the venue and in the space between songs it was dead silence, noone clapped or cheered, the first hour of that gig was horrible, thankfully it improved but that is a situation I never want to have to go through again

Just had a look at the video and was reminded of a trick I have used before to spruce up a dry light looking fretboard which is to rub kiwi shoe polish into the fretboard, I am wondering if this something with similar ingredients to kiwi shoe polish

Fair enough, will probably get a tin for my fretboard

|Nice, I may have to get some of that, any idea if it will darken the back of the neck, I have a bass that has quite a pale maple neck, thinking this may work well for it Also how do you use this? Is it a very light coat rubbed in and then you wipe the neck down a day or two later or do you layer it on a bit thicker ?

[Youtube]

Well generally what happens as a pickup is wound hotter is that you lose a lot of the highest frequencies and the remaining highest frequencies that are audibly output are lower in frequency, the midrange content also increases which further increases the perception of less treble

No not really, just a different tone, some will like it and some will not, one of my basses has a Duncan SPB-2 in it which is wound to 22k and it sounds great imo, due to being so heavily overwound it has a tonne of mids and fairly rolled off treble, its definitely a meaty sounding pickup

I would contact the seller and try and get a discount from them, as it is a fundamental aspect of the bass that is not working they should give you a sizeable discount. Not to be patronising but I assume that you checked that the battery is not dead? When I got mine there was a horrible clipping sound and I thought the pickups were to blame so I lowered them and lowered them some more and then some more and only then did it occur to me to check the battery, replaced it and the clipping went away. Regarding the pickups these basses really benefit from some dark, mid heavy pickups as they are really bright sounding and the preamp (although I know yours is seemingly kaput) is very bright and scooped

Nice, lovely colour Great basses but a couple of things to note *Tonally they are very bright basses, I think possibly due to the maple fretboard , I have found that they benefit from a darker voiced P pickup, you might like the brightness just fine but something to consider *The stock preamp is junk, at the centre detent the bass and treble are already significantly boosted, I found the best tone with the stock preamp is to roll off the treble completely and roll off the bass to about 9 o clock, they sound good like this but I found the biggest improvement was when I ditched the preamp altogether and went passive

And following up on my post now that I have a PJ Mustang again it is surprising how good they sound, the P pickup on its own sounds how a good P bass should sound and both pickups on brightens up the tone nicely and gives a bit of scoop, I am going to swap out the P pickup but that is not because the stock pickup is lacking in any way (it is in fact head and shoulders above other pickups I have heard on other basses in this price range) but more due to my own personal preferences being for a more aggressive tone. To add more to what I said about the Sire I was initially impressed with the Sire but once the new bass glow wore off I ended up feeling rather Meh about the SIre. It had a bright tone to it which was initially pleasing but the more I played it the more I started to notice a brittle kind of quality to the high frequencies in the tone, this also made it quite unforgiving in terms of technique as the frequencies it seemed to be strong in seemed to be the "string noise and fret buzz" frequencies, I found a similar quality in my Ibanez Mezzo before I swapped the P pickup to Duncan SPB-2 so I think maybe it a tonal quality inherent to basses with maple fingerboards. I also found that once the new bass buzz wore off I just didn't find myself gelling with the bass and that was why I ended up returning the Sire

Hi After listening to lots of pickup comparisons I have decided to go for something completely different and go for a Duncan Quarter pounder, if anyone on here has one they want to part with let me know