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Obrienp

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Everything posted by Obrienp

  1. Obrienp
    Wow! £170 from Andertons! Not cheap. I have to turn the input gain on the amp down when using most of my passive basses at jams, because they start to overdrive the preamp. I guess it just depends on what pickups you have in your basses. Most of mine seem to have a lot more grunt than your average Fender/Fender clone, if the jams are anything to go by. That includes my Maruszczyk Elwood (Jazz clone), which I always use in passive mode.
  2. Obrienp
    I hope this works for you and that you don’t regret it later. I am not sure that being 60 years old should come into it. I’m 70 in a couple of weeks😱 and I have absolutely no intention of stopping playing in bands. Perhaps you have been unlucky with the personalities in the bands you have played in? There could be a really fulfilling experience waiting for you, with the right people. Just a thought anyway. I wish you all the best for however it works out for you.
  3. Obrienp
    Agree with all the views about this being unacceptable. My experience of commissioning a custom bass, which was also a bit of a prototype for the luthier. He was having problems with his spray booth at the time. He made several attempts to get the vintage sunburst right. Showed me the second iteration, while saying I think this is too orange isn’t it. I was about to say actually it’s not bad and he said, I’ll strip it and start again. Third time round, it was spot on as far as I was concerned but he wasn’t entirely happy with it. He had other orders backing up and I said I could live with it but he insisted on giving me a 40% discount! In the end it came out about the same price as Fender were charging for a MIM Mustang P/J. That was with Babicz bridge, expensive machine heads, etc. Later, when I said I was getting a bit of hum (despite the whole thing being shielded with copper tape), he identified a possible phasing issue with the pickups and rewound them for free. He also gave it a free after care service at the 6 month point: dressed any sprouting frets from the fingerboard drying out, set the action, etc. In my view you should be looking for all the issues to be sorted and a hefty discount for the inconvenience. The luthier should pay for any return shipping costs as well.
  4. Obrienp
    I have no experience of buying Retrovibe gear but the basses look interesting to me. If you don’t have the energy to source the parts, put them together and sort out the problems that arise, they are probably reasonable value. In defence of the parts they sell, you can’t really expect a small operation like Retrovibe to be able to commission Chinese manufacture of their own designs. They don’t shift enough units to put in a sufficiently large order. I noticed that their Mudbucker, for around £45, looks suspiciously like an Artec unit you can buy on Amazon for around £25. I suspect that there is some factory in China that churns out these units and puts them in a catalogue for resellers to put their own brand on. Artec probably put in much larger orders and therefore get a bulk discount. Caveat emptor I guess.
  5. Obrienp
    I had a ‘51 P pickup that comprised two coils side by side. It was made by a guy in Spain: Jess Loureiro. You could wire them in series, or parallel on a DPDT switch, which I tried. It was pretty pointless TBH. It sounded thin and horrible in parallel IMO but great in series. P.S. Now I think about it; not totally pointless because it was pretty hum free.
  6. Obrienp
    Yes. A 480 in walnut would make me look but still, probably not for the money they are currently asking.
  7. Obrienp
    Streuth! Two steps backwards: Quick march!
  8. Obrienp
    Shades of Spinal Tap “The End Continues” but it should be a cheese sandwich.
  9. Obrienp
    Good call. I had the EHB1000S for a while and only sold it because I had a Cat bass incoming. It obviously didn’t sell well enough for them to continue the 4 string version and the new 5s are beautiful but expensive. The neck was a bit wide to be ideal for me and if I wasn’t looking at the fretboard constantly, I often ended up playing two frets out. The ideal Ibby for me would be a short scale version of the SR500 but without the neck getting too wide at the 12th fret. I say that because the Mezzo was actually wider at the 12th than a full scale SR and the my Talman had a baseball bat of a neck, as well as being a boat anchor.
  10. Obrienp
    I would call that medium scale, which puts it right in my bag. I love all those ‘80s medium scale basses from Japan. That one is pricey though. I guess there isn’t sufficient market for them to consider reintroducing them but I’m surprised they haven’t jumped on the short scale band wagon. Shorties seem to be riding a wave of popularity at the moment and a well designed Yamaha SS would surely sell well.
  11. Obrienp
    Yep, I guess it is meant to be retro, or something. It means that I can reuse it with the P-127 set. I have to though, because they cut a big hole in the top to accommodate the extra width. If you want shiny P-bass pickups, I guess the DiMarzio Billy Sheehan Relentless middle set would do it. £122 from Thomann, plus delivery!
  12. Obrienp
    At least that one is walnut, so presumably light by Ricky standards but the price is eye-watering. I doubt it will hang around for long though. Somebody will have the cash. I’ve just discovered a mate has a band saw, table router, drill press, band sander and is just completing a CNC machine in his garage/workshop. He’s one of those folks who makes valve amps for fun and has built his own Moog-alike synths. I am wondering if we could tackle a Rick-alike shorty together. I am sure it would come in a lot cheaper than the 4030S.
  13. Obrienp
    They are really good basses. Much better value than any Squier IMO. That’s not saying Squier bad, it’s just Sire seem to have hit a purple patch in terms of design, features and manufacturing quality. I have the fretless version of the U5 and I can endorse everything you say about them. It is the first value bass I haven’t seen the need to upgrade; even the machine heads are standard but I use a grippy strap to counter any neck dive. I have put black nylon tapes on it but that is just to make the fretless experience even better.
  14. Obrienp
    First instalment of what I hope doesn’t become a saga🤞. Checked the existing pups under the covers. Pictures below. The originals have fixed plastic covers and the lugs are marginally bigger than standard; see comparison of a Tone Rider cover and the OEM pup. They have foam rubber pads stuck underneath with embedded springs (old school and good). They are slightly longer than usual. Perhaps intended for Jazz pups. Anyway, that was encouraging enough for me to pull the trigger on the DP-127. £105 plus £10 postage (!!) from Thomann: can’t see any in stock with UK outlets. I’ll have to do a complete re-wire now, so will put a full size CTS pot in for volume and a Pure Tone jack socket. I already have an Artec varitone style control in place of the original tone pot. I had a really nice varitone made up by my Humble Workshop but I couldn’t get it through the f-hole. Anyway lots of fiddly fun to come😏. I’m just a little worried that the aperture in the OEM chrome covers might not be wide enough to avoid contact with the blades in the DP-127. I might have to get my metal files out 😰. Further report to come.
  15. Obrienp
    I just found this thread. Funny; I have been wondering about replacing the pickups in the Starfire 1. In my view it is crying out for a great big humbucker like the Bi-Sonic Guild put in the original and the previous reissue. Unfortunately, that would mean significant surgery that could not be reversed and I would need to make up a pickup surround to hide the gaps (the existing set is wider than a bi-sonic, or mudbucker). It could devalue the resale value big time. I then thought about an alternative P bass set that would get closer to the humbucker sound. Up to now, the size of the covers has been putting me off trying but I was looking at it carefully today and came to the conclusion that there are standard P bass pickups underneath (as per the comments on the Guild forum mentioned above). I am going to take one side out tomorrow to have a look. If they are standard, then I might order a DiMarzio DP-127 Split P set to replace the stock parts. The DP-127 is essentially two humbuckers in a split P bass pickup configuration. As far as I am aware, this is the only humbucker replacement set for P bass…..unless of course, someone knows of another one out there?
  16. Obrienp
    PM’d you.
  17. Obrienp
    I would love to play in a band, with a brass section, doing those old soul/R&B numbers. I get to dep with a band at NYE that does quite a lot of old R&B but they don’t quite reach that level. Nice one @Bernardo👍. Nice basses as well. I have had a Starstream but not Aguilar equipped and I still have a Cat. Matter of interest, have you got rounds, or flats on your Cat?
  18. Obrienp
    For those of us not in the know, what is it?
  19. Obrienp
    Yeah, not quite sure why I wrote that. I should check it before clicking post. 🥴
  20. Obrienp
    Latest iteration of the Heartwood Satellite: I can’t help but tinker. It’s now got a DiMarzio DP145 Will Power humbucker in it with a coil tap switch. I think it looks the part and sounds huge.
  21. Obrienp
    Well folks, thanks to all the advice, I have done it and I am inordinately pleased with my work. I actually cut the main shape out with a power jig saw that has a scroll setting so that you can change the direction of the blade. I marked the shape out on the reverse of the blank using the original scratch guard and pre-drilled the screw holes so I could attach the blank to a sheet of 10mm ply before cutting. Cutting out the aperture for the pickup was a little tricky but I eventually used a bi-metallic blade on an oscillating multi-tool to get the straight lines. Once I had the basic shape I used an assortment of files and sandpaper to get it more uniform and put the 45 degree chamfer on the edges. The end result:
  22. Obrienp
    Gregor in the Bass the World video said that the Satellite bass would look really good with a big humbucker in place of the precision pickup set. I guess he thought more in keeping with the 60s bass vibe. Anyway, that has been eating away at the back of my mind and I happened to have a DiMarzio DP145 Will Power in my last remaining long scale bass (a three pickup bitsa I put together). Long story short, I decided to try Gregor’s idea. It meant making a new scratchplate to accommodate the different pickup up shape, which was a challenge but it’s done now. Result in the pictures below. I think it looks the business and it sounds immense without being too muddy. I wired it up with a DPDT switch to give a coil tap option. Tapped it sounds a bit like a Jazz front pickup but not quite as woody. I’m pleased with the result. I may leave it this way.
  23. Obrienp
    Funny, quite the opposite for me. 38mm much preferred but we are all different.
  24. Obrienp
    Interesting. Of course, a Squier Sonic Bronco costs less than £170 (new, less used) and that gives you a neck and a Mustang-alike body. However, this neck may be better quality.
  25. Obrienp
    Unfortunately, I can’t manage a full scale Rickie these days: the necks are too wide and the overall weight is too great (even the rare walnut ones), so that severely limits choice. The old 3000 series SS look like proper shorties, although they were not a shrunk down 4000 series, which is what would have appealed to me about 4030. However, I’m sure I could get my local luthier to make me a custom Rick-alike shortie, or even have a go at it myself, for much less than the 4030s are likely to sell for.
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