Bassassin

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1480598457' post='3185725'] Well, I've learnt something today. [/quote] Likewise. Never knew there was a passive SR. I suspect they're quite rare.

Back home and had the opportunity to look at additional pics Jeannette sent and do a bit of digging. I think it's an early 70s Moridaira build, with Maxon pickups. Neck style (round cornered inlays to the 17th fret) point to early 70s, as do the pickups. It's a bit neglected and needs a new nut & the bridge sorting out. Can't tell what else it might need, so suggested Jeannette could pop it into a local music shop and get it looked at. I was in Portugal last week - if Jeannette's anywhere near Lisbon I could have had given it a once-over myself!

1991 catalogue: I think it's passive. Controls are described as vol, tone, balance, pickups are not described as active, whereas they are in the specs of the others. I had the identical SR800 to the one pictured above the SR600, it was definitely active!

Jeannette has PM'd me about the bass, but at the moment I'm away from home & posting from a temperamental mobile device so I can't do a great deal of meaningful research! I've asked her for more & detailed images but can tell a few things from the pics she's posted - however not enough for any definitive identification. More to follow once I get back 'ome...

I'm another DiMarzio Model P fan. I'd also recommend trying 500k pots - if your Squier's fitted with 250s (which it probably is) it's throttling back a lot of the output from whatever pickups you're using. Earlier in the year I picked up an old Daion Precision clone fitted with a late 70s DiMarzio, I wired this with 500s and a push/pull tone pot for series/parallel switching, all of which makes it very versatile. And loud. Some pics and a bit about the wiring [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/278129-nbd-yep-its-a-beat-up-40-year-old-mij-precision-clone/page__view__findpost__p__3018567"]here[/url].

I remember these, at this time (1984 or 5) pretty much every manufacturer had a black/red binding range. Marlin were cheapos and despite the optimism/hubris of some Ebay sellers, they're still seen that way. Might make £100 if you're lucky. Or just keep it for its oddness & novelty value (like I would).

I suppose they were trying to do something different & give their "Studs" an identity rather than leave them as straight copies. All of them had the same headstock.

I'm sure it'll come as a massive surprise to absolutely no-one that I'm quite familiar with Ampeg's range of amusingly named early 70s MIJ guitars & basses. There were 2 basses in the lineup, the other being a P copy called the Little Stud. Wonder which one sold better?

[quote name='ZilchWoolham' timestamp='1479404012' post='3176317'] There's also the interesting question of why the Roadster series' successor was called Roadstar II. There is no Roadstar I, nor is there a Roadster II. That's Japanese brands for you! [/quote] Anecdotally, it was a simple typo - the Roadstar range was meant to be called "Roadster II". Would make sense if it was true, and odd Japlish mistranslations are not without precedent - if not for a similar spelling error, Nintendo's platform-jumping simian videogame mascot Donkey Kong would have been boring old Monkey Kong. Which realistically would have been a bit less confusing.

Serial number (L plus 5 digits) checks out as post '81 Tokai according to the Tokai Registry page - so that's what it is. Unusual model with P/J pups, don't remember seeing one before. Shame it's been abused like this but I think if it was mine, I'd consider a refret & give it a Danish Oil refin. I've also seen repro Tokai decals online.

Those tuners are MIJ and appear on several Japanese-built brands from the late 70s & early 80s, most notably Tokai. I'd look at old Tokai, Fernandes & ESP catalogues to start with. Maybe this? Tokai TJB-55.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1479326179' post='3175712'] They just look like a bitsa gone badly wrong to me. [/quote] Oddly enough, that's precisely what the project I'm planning will be!

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1479249247' post='3175135'] Jon (Bassassin) will be along later and your questions will be answered with confidence. [/quote] Thanks for the endorsement but I'm afraid I'm no authority on MIK Arias! I can speculate a bit, though. I'd hazard a guess that the S99 suffix on the serial points to Samick factory, 1999. The date would be about right for an MIK Aria, and I've seen the same prefix on Samick-built Ibanezes. Having owned a few later Arias I can confirm they are good-quality instruments and great value for money. And that's the downside, certainly as far as valuations are concerned, because for some reason they don't sell for much - I'd think £150 is about what I d expect this bass to sell for. Very nice bass, I've always had a bit of GAS for its Matsumoku forerunner, the PB-1500.

Dunno about "cool" (whatever that is) but I like them. I've been waiting for years for a suitably cheap lefty/maple/pearl blocks J neck to come up for a project I have in mind. Haters are at liberty to hate but if anyone's got a neck like that under the bed - PM me!

Good luck with that then. Not even an MIJ version

I think it's intriguing, would love a shot on one. IMO the model in the video's pretty ugly, but there are a couple of different styles available. [url="http://stashstainlessbass.com/shop/stash-stainless-model-e"]This one's much more like it[/url], IMO.

[quote name='DarkHeart' timestamp='1479038684' post='3173436']pushed the boat out though, ive bought a Gotoh 201 for it, [/quote] Sincerely hope you're going to plug the original holes & re-drill - you've got string alignment like a proper 70s CBS Fender there! Very pretty bass.

Thanks Geoff. Would scale length be an issue?

Simple fret dress & setup will have it looking & playing like new - if that's the worst bit, that's really very little wear for 30-odd years' use. Some hamfisted oafs (such as me!) can achieve worse than that in a month!

So - finally got around to nailing this thing back together, and to be honest it doesn't look a whole lot different: [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Crack%20Converters%20Headless/CCHfinal01_zpsge66owt5.jpg.html"][/url] [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Crack%20Converters%20Headless/CCHfinal03_zpsplsv9cmt.jpg.html"][/url] [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Crack%20Converters%20Headless/CCHfinal05_zpsq9rgrfge.jpg.html"][/url] What [i]is[/i] different is that the tailpiece now fits & isn't falling off, the fretboard's no longer peeling away, the neck twist is largely gone, and the whole thing plays & sounds halfway decent. I've replaced pretty much every screw apart from the neck screws, and after leaving the neck untensioned for a fortnight the initially alarming twist is now negligible, and I don't think affects its playability at all. And it does play surprisingly well - I'd intended to level & dress the frets as a matter of course but after realising there might be irrepairable neck issues, decided to just sling it back together & see what the neck was like with string & truss tension on it. Turns out it's solid, neither the strings nor that alarmingly off-centre truss rod affect its stability and as a bonus, the fret job's halfway decent, meaning it's perfectly playable without any work. Definitely could be made better but playing-wise, I'd happily gig it as it is. So after a bit of bodging the bass is certainly worth what I paid, and I still think it looks cool as feck. Of course, there's a "however"... And that's the whole bridge/tuner assembly, which, in addition to being pointlessly complex & heavy and absurdly over-engineered, is moronically ill-thought through to the point of making it borderline useless unless you're prepared to mess around and struggle with the thing. One of the advantages of a headless system is to make string-changing & tuning quick and accurate - but the design of this thing conspires to achieve the exact opposite. [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Crack%20Converters%20Headless/CCHfinal08_zpsildqyn73.jpg.html"][/url] The strings wrap around narrow brass winding cams, which are drilled through the centre in order to thread the string through - so broadly similar to conventional tuner posts. Now as any fule kno, you need to wind your string around a couple of times in order to make it secure so it doesn't slip or pop out under tension. Here the problem is, as soon as you do that, the string wraps over itself, effectively increasing the gearing of the tuner, both making it awkwardly inaccurate and increasingly stiff as the string becomes taut. To help compensate for this, the tuners are designed to pop out to make them more accessible - and presumably allow room for the mole-grips you'll need to turn them! [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Crack%20Converters%20Headless/CCHfinal09_zpsws3nchua.jpg.html"][/url] OK I may be exaggerating a bit for comic effect but it took me a lot of faffing & string-trimming to get these to work reasonably easily - and I wouldn't relish the idea of being onstage with this thing & trying to tune accurately & quickly between songs. As it is, the E & A have [i]really[/i] stiff spots, and the winding action is the opposite of more conventional headless systems, making the whole thing annoying, counter-intuitive and awkward. And it doesn't end there. The sockets for the ball-ends on the headpiece are tiny: [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Crack%20Converters%20Headless/CCHfinal06_zps8scqojwg.jpg.html"][/url] If I opened the holes out enough to accommodate standard-size ball-ends, there wouldn't be enough metal left to hold them securely. The strings on this are the second set I tried, the first set had half-wound sections on the E & A which ran over the saddles - the ball-ends were exactly the same. Thinking about it, I'd expect strings wound with silk would be pretty useless on this. Anyway, 'nuff moaning - aside from wondering if I could put a Hohner type bridge/tuner on this I'm now pretty happy with it. Dunno if it's a keeper - I have way too many basses & no gigging band, so have zero need for any more - but pretty glad I picked it up. One way or another I think I saved it from going in a skip!

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1478807668' post='3171855'] That's OK Jon, the builder clearly couldn't place them either. [/quote] Pretty sure they're not original - they look from an entirely different era to the rest of the thing - so an ID wouldn't tell us much anyway.

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1478789170' post='3171653'] Pickups look a little like Maxon humbuckers from the '70s but painted black. [/quote] Same sort of layout but they're a different shape (longer), the adjuster screws are on the tops rather than tabs, and the pole pieces look to be cross-head. Plus they probably are 'buckers - which the Maxons ain't! [sharedmedia=core:attachments:69930] Odd pickups - they do look familiar but I can't place them.

I still think it's Eastern European, or (at a pinch) 60s Italian. Hardware's weird & unidentifiable, string spacing is that strange narrow, parallel setup that Rickenbackers or early Italian & Soviet-era things always seem to have. Pickups I would say are swapped - their design looks much more recent (80s?) and the strings are nowhere near the poles as a result. The whole thing's had B&Q emulsion slopped all over it and the headstock "decal" (over the paint) is so inept the letters aren't even lined up.

I don't know if I'm in a band or not any more. I have just pressed "indefinite pause" on the band I started with my partner/vocalist about 17 years ago, effectively to try & get back some sort of control over the music we write together. Looking back over 15+ years as an "active" band, it really feels like 99% of everything we've done, or tried to do, has been to satisfy the needs of various people whose only contribution has really been to learn songs if they could be bothered/liked the music enough, and to turn up for rehearsals or gigs if they happened not to be otherwise occupied. That sounds terribly bitter - and on a personal level it's really not because all the people we've worked with have been genuine good friends and fine musicians. However I am left feeling we've let ourselves down, and neglected the most important part, which is the music we create. It's always been on the table for band members to get involved creatively but no-one (even three different guitarists, believe it or not) has been interested. It's all been about playing live for them, and with a couple of exceptions everything we've recorded has just been the demos that the two of us create. We've played hundreds of gigs over the years and I'm gutted that's over. While the live band never really properly represented my vision of how the songs should sound, we were good, always made a big impression and I loved every minute of it. But gigging relentlessly has been at the expense of being creative and developing creatively, which is really what it was supposed to be about. I dearly hope there's a future for our band but I really don't know right now.

Lacking (as I do) any knowledge of the formative era of the Birch brand, I wouldn't dismiss it entirely. However if I judge it solely on appearance, it looks like an emulsioned, dessicated and abused bit of Soviet-era Eastern European junk with Letraset on the end.