Obrienp

I did this recently too. I would stick with your series/parallel/single coil idea. There is plenty of tonal difference IMO to make it worth doing. My preference is for the front coil but it’s all personal choice. I tried 500k pots first and it was a very loud bright and not particularly pleasant sound. I swapped out for 250k pots and in a moment of madness a 0.1uf oil in paper cap. That cap was probably a bit too dark and I changed it for .047 that rolled off enough top end without going too dark and muddy. The 250k plus .047 gave a much more pleasant, less brittle sound than the 500ks at the expense of a little volume but still plenty loud enough. I tired both a Kent Armstrong and a Warman pickup. Both were powerful enough to use in a passive circuit. The Kent Armstrong had more finesse to my ears and the added bonus of covered pole pieces, meaning you couldn’t inadvertently touch a pole piece and get that horrible buzz.

Plus one for Guild NS Starfire 1. I just got one and I am seriously impressed with it. It seems to cover both vintage semi boom/thump and P Bass. So far I just have the original 45-105 D’Addario roundwounds on it, which I think gives it more tonal range than putting flats on. There does seem to be a noticeable jump in the transfer between A and D string, which I put down to the Light/Medium strings, as the split pickup is set fine. I might just put a set of D’Addario 45-100 roundwounds on. Build quality on these Starfires is excellent. I honestly can’t see any imperfections and the set up was pretty good straight out of the box. The split P bass style pickup might seem out of place on a semi but it really works. I think a conventional humbucker would remove some of the tonal flexibility and make it a bit muddier. I love the Jazz bass style neck too and the short scale length, plus light weight make this an easy bass to play for extended periods. Downsides: it does seem sensitive to electrical interference; E.g. if you have your mobile in your trouser pocket. I might try spraying some graphite paint onto the inside of the back through the sound holes. I can’t get perfect intonation on the E string. It could do with a bit more travel in the saddles on the tune-o-matic style bridge but I am using the original strings. The binding can dig into your forearm, where it rests on the edge, after a while of playing. I have cured this by sticking some of that foam edge protector stuff (to stop toddlers braining themselves on tables) on the front top edge where my arm rests. It may look a bit odd but it pays off. I would prefer the strap button to be on the top horn, rather than on the neck heel. This is pretty common on semis though. It doesn’t so much want to neck dive as to swivel to the horizontal when you let go of the neck. I am wondering whether to just screw a strap button onto the horn but I am a bit worried the ply isn’t strong enough. It would be better if it had a reinforcing block there. It may do, or at least kerfing: I haven’t tried putting a mirror inside yet to have a look.

I have the same question. I have seen a Guild hard case advertised, I think it was on DV247 but I have heard some stories about buying from them.

I use bits of credit card as shims but I have to admit, I have never accounted for the effects of inflation.

I think they were more likely to be SAE sizes. There is a lot of common sizing between SAE and AF Imperial inch based sizes.

Yes, I get what you are saying. I need to try that. WRT the gear; nothing was actually damaged and it was only the leads that got tossed off the stage but I agree, I would normally return said leads neatly coiled to their owner. Anyway, first world problems: at least nobody is dropping bombs on me! Sorry, I’ve taken so much oxygen on this everybody.

@rwillett Thanks Rob. You are absolutely right. Thank you for the therapy.😀 I must have a masochistic streak and I have to say very low self-confidence when it comes to my prowess as a musician. I’m going to have a chat with the other guys and decide what we are going to do. I can see the other guitarist taking his side and the drummer is so laid back he probably didn’t even notice. Perhaps our keyboard player will be able to come back soon (his Mrs is having radio and chemo therapy at the moment) and fill the gap left by the lead guitarist.

I know you are right and our original drummer did bail for this reason. I think maybe not as easy to get as good a guitarist in our age group in Norfolk. Also I think of the hours we have invested in this band over the last 5 years and wonder if I want to throw that away, and start again, especially with gigs lined up. Like everything there is another side to the story. We are getting on and do have a tendency to ease up. The world would be perfect if everything was around 120 BPM 😀 but generally I think we do pretty well, if we are all relaxed and enjoying ourselves.

Shades of similarity with @stewblack’s post above: Friday evening fund raising gig with the covers band in the hall that we rehearse in. This was a freebie, as one of our guitarists is on the committee and we get to rehearse there for free. We just used the little house Stage Pass PA but the drummer brought a sub to reinforce the low end. Our lead guitarist /vocalist is a difficult person. Extremely good but very intolerant of other peoples’ errors and has absolutely no filter in his comments. We think he is mildly autistic and generally just try to tolerate his behaviour. I knew it was going to be one of those gigs when he declared he wanted to use one of his new songs for the sound check, which involved standard tuning (we normally play a semitone down to aid other guitarist’s vocals). It also involved him playing a 12 string acoustic. I fetch backup bass which I keep in standard tuning. Then 12 string can’t be heard. Why? He is not going into front of house like the rest of us, because he brought an amp without a DI and didn’t bring a mic to put in front of his amp. I go and fetch a DI box from my car. Then there is interference from his wireless system. I fetch a spare guitar lead. We finally get the DI working. By this time I need to retune back up bass. Next thing I know, lead guitarist disappears with his 12 string and puts it in his car. I turn to the others and ask what’s up: “I guess he doesn’t want to do it after all”. Friends of ours do the support session first. Acoustic Americana using AER amps and a Bose PA column set up in front of the stage, cahon for percussion,etc. Julie’s voice is fantastic and they blow everyone away, doing a well deserved encore. We come on. Lead guitarist does Blackbird solo on an acoustic and then we go into Here Comes the Sun. All good so far. Next up Call Me the Breeze, which I have pointed out is 168 BPM in the original, not 187 as per Lynyrd Skynyrd. However, lead guitarist has decided to go for it. From then on he is speeding us up on everything, shouting at us that we are slowing down, giving us evil looks, etc. He actually screws up majorly in several songs (wrong key, doesn’t stick to our arrangement, etc) but it’s all our fault. We play for two hours without a break because he doesn’t want to stop. By the time we get to Gimme Some Lovin (penultimate song) I know I am flagging (I actually set the metronome on my headstock tuner to keep me going). I am spot on 147 BPM most of the song but I can tell I am slipping a bit towards the end. I put this down to being really tense due to lead guitarist winding us all up. We get to the end of our set, with an encore. Lots of punters come up and say how good it was. We have since had emails reinforcing that. Back stage lead guitarist says to me that it was absolute sh!te and tempo may not be important to me and the drummer but it was to him. He packs his gear up and legs it without saying goodbye, stopping to help the rest of us, etc. I have to retrieve bits of the gear I lent him from where he threw it. I feel completely undermined by the whole experience. I get home and I am questioning my abilities as a musician. The other guitarist, who is a peacemaker by nature, is posting copies of the appreciative texts he has received on our band WhatsApp group. No response from the lead guitarist. Apparently he said “I don’t know why we bother practicing and I can’t go on with this” when he left, so it remains to be seen whether he turns up to the rehearsal on Tuesday. We have paying gigs lined up, so I am wondering whether we will have to let people down at short notice! Bands eh!

I live and learn. The drummer in one of the bands I play in uses an electronic kit; Roland I think. It looks more like scaffolding than a drum kit. The actual “drums” are pretty small and certainly don’t resemble their acoustic equivalents. It sounds pretty good though and it can be turned down 😀.

Result! Precious screw. Don’t drop it between the floorboards.

Have you tried lighter fluid? I have found it useful to remove marks, including glue residue, without it affecting the finish, even nitro. However, as Andyjr1515 said, try it on an unseen area first.

Are those not acoustic drums in the clip? Great singing BTW. I am in awe of musicians who can sing and play bass at the same time.

Sorry Daryl. Not trying to be patronising. I worked for two huge US corporations and I learnt not to assume my reference points would be understood. It didn’t stop the management communications being liberally sprinkled with Baseball and American Football references. Us Brits/Aussies just about understood most of the time but they often meant nothing to colleagues in Europe!

I wrestled with how to make a passive switch on a Mezzo, which is also active only OEM. The trouble is you have to build a whole separate passive circuit, if the preamp isn’t set up with a passive option. Easily checked by removing the battery and seeing if you get a decent signal at the jack, or not. In the end I gave up on the standard preamp (which was crude anyway) and got a Glockenlang with a built in passive option, including tone control: much easier in the long run and much better than the OEM. As it happens I am selling the Glockenlang but it’s only two-band, so won’t be of interest to you. There are plenty of 3 band replacements, which offer push/pull active passive and sweepable mids, with various numbers of knobs (some using stacked pots). A lot less hassle in the long run but I suspect you like the challenge 😀.

I just did a search on fleaBay for bridge saddle screws and quite a few posts came up for bridge saddle height adjustment screws. I can’t work out how to send you a link but worth trying doing the search yourself.

I find this, retune and after the first song they have gone flat, so I retune again. I put it down to temperature changes caused by friction and body heat: after all we are in contact with the back of the body, as well as the neck. Then I have to go through the whole procedure again after the break between sets. I did think the going flat thing might be caused by the strings binding in the nut slots initially and then slipping free but I have double checked them, and had my main bases set up by a competent luthier, plus I always use a lot of graphite (pencil lead) to lubricate the slots when I change strings. Conclusion, it’s caused by temperature change.

Never a bad thing to replace cheap and nasty pots and wiring with decent quality parts but as has been mentioned, this won’t stop the hum. What you had, as commented by several above, is a live component in contact with your shielding. I have taken to always putting insulating tape over any shielding that could conceivably contact the pot tabs, cap, etc. it’s a really cheap fix and a lot less expensive than what you suggested.

Interesting thread. I have been thinking about changing the 250k pots in my medium scale P bass build, to 100k (or even 50k) to compensate for its excessive brightness. It’s a medium scale neck in a full scale body, so the pickup set is closer to the bridge than is ideal. It’s more like where you would have a Stingray pickup (because the bridge is further into the body to get the 32” scale). This would take the top end off a bit wouldn’t it but it’s not going to give me more low mids and bass? Am I just going to end up with a rather odd sounding mid centred P bass?

Good luck! Our experience was super awks (as the kids say). The only people who appreciated it were the drunk oldies who kept asking for Mustang Sally 🤣.

Absolutely with you on that. The blues band I play in got booked to play a wedding! It’s called Checkmate Kings and I can only imagine they thought we were a ska band because of the checker board thing (Two Tone). Guess that reference might not mean much to you in the States. Anyway, it was a disaster for all concerned. Pretty well cleared the marquee for the duration of our set 🤣🤣.