Stub Mandrel

Mostly Fender and Stagg, which are good quality for the price with excellent jacks*. Best lead I have was a noiseless one bought new around 1980 for £££ and still going strong, I bought one for my brother too, and he still uses it for gigging! Wonderfully limp and soft after all the years, the strain relief tails have long gone, but as the cable is held in a long collet that is tightened by the two-part body this doesn't matter. The jacks have 'WK' on them, does anyone know what brand it might be?. *Except that loudspeaker cable.

Mains hum of the kind described is often an electromagnetic field (low frequency radio) effect. If the strings are unconnected to the guitar earth, they act as a very inefficient antenna and the current that flows in them transmits hum to the pickups. One solution is to put the guitar in a faraday cage - this works for the pickup connections when you shield the cavities of the instrument, but this is a small effect. This shielding also stops capacitative noise. The practical solution is to ground the strings, bridge etc. to the signal reference point i.e. the ground connection of the instrument. When the noise stops on touching the bass, this is because you're effectively helping ground the signal. Also, it frequently varies as you rotate the instrument - radio waves are directional. Another source of interference is magnetic fields. These are weaker but are picked up by large loops (e.g. ground loops when both PA and amp are grounded AND have their grounds connected via the signal lead. This can be cured with a ground lift switch on the SIGNAL line only). Small multiple loops (e.g. pickups) pickup this sort of interference as well, hence humbuckers.

Actually, I'd go further and say mineral oils are generally less biologically active than plant oils. Baby oil is typically 98% mineral oil and 2% perfume, a bit like fingerboard oil.

A proper Bass 🙂 But getting rid of the original stack knobs? Weird?!

As above, usually a poor connection for or missing ground wire to the back of the bridge. Pop the bridge off and see if it has pulled out.

One band I was in recorded a demo after I 'left'. They made sure to give me a writing credit for the song I helped pull together, which was fair.

My experience with instrument leads is that if they have a conductive plastic sheath inside the outer copper shielding they should be noise free. Capacitance issues causing loss of highs are more affected by cable length than anything else.

I bought a Stagg jack to Neutrik speaker lead and the jack is about 1/16" short, so it doesn't latch in place and can vibrate out.

I'm (not) surprised that no guitars were sprayed with British Leyland 'Limeflower'.

These days if the design is done well with parametric CAD you should only need to change one variable to the appropriate number of strings and that should propagate to the dimensions for body and neck and even create a purchase inventory for all the other parts and dimensions for the blanks etc. Possibly part of the reason why a Harley Benton Marquess-5 costs £2 less than a Marquess-4.

Too much analysis. It's simple enough where I'm sitting. The tone of the advert gives the impression that the person posting it may be difficult to work with. Simples.

On the one hand, you may believe the accessory manufacturers are paid to distribute guitar-killing products by the manufacturers in order to help promote future sales. On the other, that's something like white spirit to make the oil absorb quicker and dry faster. Unless you are concerned about releasing high levels of VOCs into the atmosphere, in which case you should go to the beach and pick up 127 micrograms of microplastics as penance each time you use it.

But not My Herpes. Best avoided for intimate use.

This is correct, I've checked data sheets for a few fretboard oils and they are light mineral oil with some essential oils for scent. Pure lemon oil would be bad for a fingerboard as too much causes skin irritation. People dilute these oils with a carrier for massage etc.

I bought my fiver in Guitar Guitar Edinburgh. It's definitely a niche instrument, fun and you can play differently, but for most people it's like having a pickup that they never put anything in the back of.

The Tung oil I am using at the moment says 'store used cloths spread flat to prevent combustion'.

Pure light mineral oil (e.g. sewing machine oil) has evenfewer additives than 'fretboard oil' and I have been known to use it, but like housewives with delicate hands I've fallen for the lemon-fragrance schtick... "Now hands that play basses can be soft as your head!"

Perhaps post the link, if we all commented saying 'I'm interested, is it OK if write you an application letter?'

I want 21-minute epics about Goblin Kings AND punk.

Rickenbacker 'glo' colours that have noting 'glo' about them...

Personally for that price I would want the pickup-per string PUPs to at least try and line up with the strings, if only for aesthetics.

Try playing along to the radio, or a playlist on shuffle. You must already have something of a musician's ear, it shouldn't take you long to start anticipating the changes. Until you get an ear for distinguishing major and minor chords (it becomes intuitive) use the 'cheat box' root, fifth, minor seventh, octave. Sounds fine over any chord 🙂 Also if you miss a note, just walk up/down chromatically to the right one. It's called Jazz. People will be in awe of your skills.

I see you have Squier Jag. The excellent Indian laurel fretboard on those comes up a treat with oiling.