Ander87

Aha! so you're the fine folk that stopped me from getting this bass I guess the pickups are down to taste - they do get plenty of praise here, I swapped my PJ ones for an Aguilar PJ set and to be dead honest I felt no difference to it. Traded the Aguilars and sold the bass cause I'm not a fan of PJ's no matter how much I try... I guess we have to take into consideration the £2k for a Nash too which I am sure is an incredible instrument! The chance for custom/semicustom classics just shy into the four figures is great to my liking, and a frigging great option if you snap one 2nd hand! Limelight P Bass with Jazz neck seems to be my thing after however many basses I've owned. Enjoy them both! Ander.

Hm! Whilst he couldn't guarantee weight he did say he'd lookout for a light body...! Pretty happy with 3.7kg, anything over 4kg I just can't deal with.

oh challenge accepted! what's in the works?

... and thanks @bagsieblue for the inspiration ha!

So... Big day today friends - my new Limelight is ready and will be shipped out to me on Tuesday. I will report once in hand, but the spec is alder/maple neck, purple metallic under white, '68 P bass with Jazz neck and some winks to the 57/58s. Lightweight as requested with Goto Resolites at 3.7kg/8.2lbs. Ultra Light relic with weather checking on the nitro. Matching headstock and well, a Nordy Blade P I had around (I'll have Limelight's 70s vintage hot pickup in the tweed case ordered). I can boldly say it is the most beautiful bass I've ever seen - challenge me to that! The experience with Mark has been superb, and I think it shows; the first three pictures are more colour accurate, the ones on the floor show more blue than the bass is - enter Grimace! .... AND LOOK AT THAT HEADSTOCK!!!!! I am already a very happy customer, and will be hunting another Limelight P veeery, very soon! Hope you enjoyed it, will share more detail! Ander.

odd one out (and aware I'm better off on the 'looking for' section of gear on sale). If anyone is thinking of letting go of their Limelight precision, I may be interested - bonus points if not too relic / funky colour / lightweight / jazz neck. I've one on the way but I'm working towards a trio of P's for both my bands! Best, Ander.

Noted! Thanks @rmorris that makes sense. It’s only present in the distortion channel and not higher than any other bass I’ve tried!

John is a pleasure to deal with. He’s troubleshoot a Noisy P bass I had and has given the best advice in what kind of loom to get. I went in for a CTS/Switchcraft rig with a tone switch. The tone switch would be killswitch, bypass, 0.47pf (typical P) and 0.22pf (typical jazz-ish). the thing sounds celestial and very reasonably priced. The tone switch alone is a similar solution to what Stellartone Tonestyler is offering for £115 ish. Will most definitely recommend to anyone and go for more circuitry for the future. Best, Ander.

oh! This is something I want to learn more on! The bass is REALLY quiet now but this could make it zero noise? The gain I use can be quite hissy so maybe that would help yet further although I’m not sure that it can get quieter!

Aha, got it, all clear now @rmorris, thanks! I guess the route to isolate the pickups further would be wax potting etc...

Thaks, will do! Noted - and yes going through it with fingers made sense - as I had never used copper tape I assumed it was harder to work or pierce through. I didnt have to remove/refit but a multimeter would have been easier rather than 'wonder/meter would have been easier rather than 'wonder/hope' it works. I have heard about using clear nail polish for the poles to try and isolate a bit more, thoughts? Having said that the bass is really quiet now, especially by comparison!

Oh amazing, thank you!! Will give that a go. I did think about the strip on the bridge but wasn’t sure if that’d mess things up! When you say another stripe to connect the cavities, I’m assuming you mean over it? Thanks again those are brilliant ideas! Ander.

Thank you and thank you! My first Lake Placid Blue after wanting one for so long!! best, Ander.

Hi all, Thought I'd share a good story. I recently bought a P bass without a pickup as I had a couple of spares. I installed the first pickup (BKP '58 P) and noticed noise unless I'd touch the strings. I went in again after being unable to sleep (it be like that sometimes I guess!) to change for another pickup (Herrick split '58 P) in case it was a pickup issue... And funked up the electronics further; since my soldering was poor, I somehow made the volume pot work from closed to fully opened in half the run of the knob - further than that there'd be no sound whatsoever. Some would optimistically say I upgraded the knob to a kill switch almost, but let's face it, it was a mess. I got a quote for my technician for adjusting repair swapping pickup and electronics and with the help of this forum diagnosed that if the noise disappears when touching the strings, it may be a shielding issue, especially considering this bass had none whatsoever. Ordered copper shielding tape just to entertain the idea of doing it myself for £5 - it arrived this afternoon and with the whole evening ahead I decided to try myself. I AM IN NO WAY AN EXPERT BUT THOUGHT I'D SHARE WHAT WORKED FOR ME! I removed all parts of the bass including the bridge to review the grounding/earth connection (a first as well): Stripped the whole thing down: Started easy with the reverse of the pick guard - the point is making a Faraday cage, so it needs to be a copper tape covered enclosure: My first tip: use the tape on top to rub on the edges of the pick guard so that you know where to cut, take half a millimetre or abouts in so that the tape won't show over the pick guard from underneath once installed. Second tip - don't underestimate an actual pen/knife cutter! I did it all with scissors and whilst it worked okay, it would've been easier for the holes specially. I was thinking of doing half the thing but the top is easier which is what I left for the end so since I was on it I shielded the whole thing. Moving on to the cavities. Again, I started with the most difficult part, the controls cavities. My take was to cover the walls first, this time allowing a millimetre or two extra so that it would fold over the face of the bass (careful to not offer too much lip folding over as that may show over the pick guard! 1mm or 2max is safe tough. Once you have the walls covered, doing the base of the cavity is easier than I thought. Then once you have the gross covered you'll have to invest more tape in covering the irregular (non square parts) of the cavities. One annoying thing about copper tape is that it curls up the moment you remove the reveal the adhesive part - advise online would say to remove the non-coppery bit instead of the copper but in all honesty I couldn't as the paper is thicker than the copper tape. What I did would be holding both edges of the strip as I remove the paper cover so it wouldn't curl up. Another tip - I was initially neurotic about holes (screw holes, cable holes in the body etc); I was thinking covering them would mess up my chances to reveal those holes in or that I'd have to push them with the cables when installing again - silly, I know. Just get a paper clip or a pair of tweezers and feel through the wood to pierce them. This is much easier than making cutouts and trying to avoid the holes etc, and also ensures 'the cage' is covered all around. I then moved onto the pickup cavity: Job done! I'm aware I could've documented strips here and there but I wasn't initially planning for this post even, sorry! From then, solder back, screw it all in and throw a quick prayer to Jaco that it works. I spent some extra time cleaning the soldering as the ground soldering was a bit messy on the pots thanks to my previous attempts. Sucking out the extra lead with a tool was really useful and cleared things up. Another note, I should've bought/had a multimeter at hands reach to check for continuity of the layers of copper foil. It all worked but in hindsight I would've preferred that over praying it works, even if it's Jaco we're talking to. As mentioned, I closed all in, plugged in et voila! all working as it should and the noise is nonexistent in clean, and a slight bit present on distortion (but this is distortion at 2 o'clock on a Darkglass microbes anyway with the compressor up, understandable). Also the cleaning of soldering did pay off as the volume pot is back to normal operation! This has been a good learning that sometimes we're too scared to touch things up - the quote I would've gotten in most luthiers would have been £100+: £20 pickup install, £20 review electronics, £40 shielding, £45 general adjustment... £125 altogether! It has been a good 2/3 hours with The Walking Dead in the background and £5 for copper tape - probably not my fastest job but believe me, the beer after tasted glorious. I have been the kind of person that has constantly taken guitars and basses to luthiers/technicians at the earliest chance for adjustments and anything else - bass after bass I've realised that those guys that said 'learn to do it yourself' were right all along! Personally I find that small tweaks on each bass that came through my hand has offered me more insight into how to take care of my gear. To think I was terrorised at the thought of touching a truss rod! I have since done adjustment works for friends and acquaintances and been praised for the results, so I hope this post helps encourage people to take up on it, the satisfaction and the savings are worth it! Best, Ander.

haha that was my inspiration indeed! I opened for a jazz neck though! that p bass is the sexiest I’ve seen in ages!

Absolutely stunning @Dunk I’ve something like this in the works myself!

Gorgeous! What are the differences between them?