Obrienp

I didn’t notice that when I had my TMB35 but I did shield it thoroughly with copper tape and replaced the electronics with Alpha pots, etc. I have had similar clicking with another bass, when I tried latex finger cots to protect blisters I had developed on my first two picking fingers. It didn’t happen when I played it with a pick. It also didn’t happen when I used the finger Cots on my Nordstrand Acinonyx, which has metal covers on the pickups. I can only guess at what was causing it: did the latex temporarily interfere with the magnetism when in contact with the strings? Could that be happening with your pick? Is it made of an unusual material? Sounds a bit tenuous to me but maybe worth trying a different pick material?

Yeah. I think that might be my issue. Light touch in practice and rehearsals and a month’s gap since the last gig. I normally have longish finger nails as well because I play finger picking style acoustic but I had to cut them before the last gig. I’m practising with a pick this week to give the blister a chance to recover and hope I will be able to tough it out during the gig. If not, my pick technique might be a bit better, so I will have it as a fallback.

First gig for my Nordstrand Acinonyx on Saturday evening. Not an auspicious start as my monitor, that had worked fine at rehearsal two days before, was DOA. I must have had a premonition, as I had taken a spare active pa speaker, which can be used on its side in monitor mode but we didn’t have the right cable to daisy chain it to the mini monitor used by the main vocalist. We had to do the whole gig with just the PA speaker between him and me. Fantastic monitor tone but not the same short range dispersal as a wedge. I couldn’t hear my backing vocals all night, so I was probably flat as a pancake. The Acinonyx was great. Lots of useful preset tones to call up at the press of a button. Those buttons aren’t just a gimmick. However, the tension of all the hassle setting up must have made me hit the strings extra hard and I had developed a large blood blister on my forefinger by the end of our two hour set. Just in time for two gigs coming up this Saturday at the Dereham Blues Festival. No monitor and I might have to play with a pick: it never rains but it pours!

Apologies if this has been asked before, I couldn’t find the thread. I need to tap the hive mind for this. Background: I have a Vox Starstream H1, which is the passive single MM style humbucker model. The original pickup was very good but because of the 30” scale length (I suspect) the strings didn’t line up well with the pole pieces, particularly on the bass side. Consequently I decided to fit a bar magnet style replacement that could cope with the slightly narrower string spacing over the pickup. I found a Kent Armstrong that was about half the price of an equivalent Bartolini. The OEM electronics in the Vox worked pretty well. A simple push-pull volume for parallel/serial switching and a single passive tone. However, the tone had very little effect in parallel mode and the pots were tiny. I decided to replace them with full size CTS pots and an orange drop cap. There were no markings on the original pots and cap, and no guidance with the pickup, so I assumed I needed 500k pots and a 22 cap to go with the humbucker. These are mounted through body in the Vox. After a little difficulty with the new CTS circuit board style push/pull pot, I got it all wired up and working. The set up works pretty well and I am getting more even string response than with the OEM pickup but I still have the issue with the tone not doing a lot in parallel mode. Thinking about this, it dawned on me that parallel mode is like having two single coils in one body: a bit like a Jazz bass with the pickups very close together. Conventionally single coils are wired up with 250k pots and 47 cap. This could explain why the 500k pots and 22 cap are making parallel mode very bright, and providing little tone control effect on my bass. Now I have never owned a Stingray style bass before but I understand the classic MM sound comes from the coils in parallel. Is this what they are meant to sound like? My question to the hive is: what should the standard potentiometer and capacitor values be for a passive Stingray pickup? How do they cope with the different values required for parallel and serial wiring? I have previously wired up a bass using a humbucker and single coil into a single volume and tone control, with a telecaster style selector switch. To cope with the different values required for the two pickups, I used a work around I found online (StewMac I think): I wired a resistor in parallel to the hot wire of the single coil pickup that makes the pots look like 250 K to the pickup, even though they are actually 500K. It works well, in that the single coil has calmed down in tone and volume, and the tone control does have an effect. Is this what MM/Sterling do for their passive basses, or is the parallel into 500k pots the classic Stingray tone?

Just watching the coverage of Glastonbury on the Beeb and they had a clip of Caribou. I think the bassist was playing a Talman 5 string shorty (TMB-35), unless there is something posher that looks very similar and comes in that mint green colour. If it was a Talman, that is quite an endorsement for a bass that costs a bit over £200.

Anybody eventually get one of these? Are they any good? Particularly, is the tuner good (probably the component I will use most gigging).

+1 for the DiMarzios and I put mine in my Squier SS Jag when I had it. They are good and the 4 wire thing allows you to play around with wiring options that give you a few more tones.

I now have serious bass envy! I am trying to be zen and tell myself I have this space covered by my Vox Starstream H1 but it is not working too well. Enjoy!

So, I have had my Acononyx for a bit over a week now and have been able to give it a reasonable try out, although not with either of the bands I play in. It really has got a good range of useful tones available from those buttons. That bridge pickup is really usable on its own too. At the moment I think I am going to keep the round wounds on it. I feel it would be too dark with tapes or flats and I like that bit of growl they are giving. All in all, I am very pleased with it so far.

Yes, the volume drop thing with a P/J set up wired in parallel seems unavoidable. I have no idea of the physics behind it. Every P/J I have had (5) suffered from that whatever pickups I put in them. The only way that I am aware of to avoid that is to wire them in series, in which case you get a few DB volume boost and a sound a bit like a Music Man pickup (I guess it turns them into a big humbucker). I like it but I wouldn’t use it all the time, so I tend to put a push/pull on the volume to switch between parallel and series mode. I have done this in combination with a blend, instead of a second volume: pretty complicated to wire up and as you don’t solder, you would need to get somebody else to do it for you. Somebody is bound to come up with another solution: watch this space. I guess active pickups might not suffer from the volume drop? You can deal with the Jazz pickup hum by shielding the cavities with copper tape. Link the cavities with ground wires and make sure it all goes to ground via the earth terminal on the jack socket. Also make sure the copper tape makes contact with the metal control mounting plate (if it is not metal, put shielding tape on the inside surface). It is not as complicated as I made it sound.

Thanks for this tip. I have done exactly the same with mine. If only the tuner was a bit quicker and a few cents more accurate.

NBD. Well finally, here it is, still with the protective plastic. It’s in Lake Placid Blue that turns out to be a bit lighter than I was expecting but still looks good IMO. It got the thumbs up from the other half, so it must be good. After a very quick plug in, I am pleased to report that it seems pretty quiet for dual single coils. Lots of useful tones, although I can’t imagine wanting to use the deep treble cut that often but I’ve only tried it through my practice rig: Warwick Gnome and a Barefaced One10, so it might be more useful at gig volumes. I was surprised to find it pretty much in tune: did it come all the way from the USA without going out of tune? The only QA issue I have spotted is that the jack socket retaining nut was loose.

How about tone wise? Is the Cat better with flats? Difficult to answer I guess because tone is subjective. UPS are meant to be delivering some time today🤞 But I have to be out for a fair chunk, unfortunately. Sod’s law!

How are you getting on with the LTFs on the Cat? Fingers crossed I will be getting mine in the next few days; Bass Gallery got it yesterday and I paid the balance, so I am hoping they will send it before the Bank Holiday. I’ll give it a run with the standard round wounds but I suspect I might be wanting to go down the flats route in the not too distant future.

It shouldn’t be the Babicz bridge, any bridge really, if the string height is set correctly. The Babicz bridge is pretty top stuff. I have one on a shorty and it really is excellent. I would be looking for something else like too much tension in the truss rod making the fretboard convex. There needs to be a little relief in the neck. If that is OK, is the nut cut too low? Are there any high frets? Is the rattle all over the neck on every string, or is it just in certain places, or strings? If it really is bugging you, I would be inclined to get a proper luthier/guitar tech set it up. In my experience it really is worth the cash when you can’t sort it yourself.

Funny the blurb on Project Music website says they give it a setup in their in-house workshop. Obviously forgot on yours, or is it just cursory? This has cured my GAS anyway! Project Music website says they still have a Daphne Blue one in stock, so it might be worth sending yours back now to bag the other one.

That’s very disappointing because it’s not exactly the cheapest in that general price sector! I am glad I saw your post, as I was having serious GAS for the remaining Daphne Blue one at Project Music. That has cured it, so thanks! I wonder if the general quality of these SS Rays has gone down since they were released. All of the reviews I have seen online, which are all from a couple of years ago, say how well it was made. At that point it was retailing for a couple of hundred quid less I believe. I think I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a secondhand example. It might have had some of the issues ironed out and if it hasn’t, a bit of remedial work on a £400-450 bass is acceptable but not when it’s near £700.

Thanks. Some more good ideas to follow up on people!

Thanks for that. I’ll give them a go.👍

I was just going to place an order until I found out the shipping cost: £12. About 5 times the cost of the pot.

I wasn’t that impressed with the side markers on my EHB1000S at first but I got used to them and it didn’t cause me problems gigging it. Admittedly I tend to play pub gigs rather than dark stages. I never really tested the effectiveness of the luminous markers. I thought the locking jack socket was great. It was a little tricky to operate when I first got it but after a few weeks I was releasing the cable one handed without even looking at it. Perhaps it eased a bit with use, or I just got used to it. I think it is a great little bass that you can play for hours. It balances well on a strap, is ergonomically contoured and light weight. I only sold mine because I had a long term order for a Nordstrand Acinonyx about to come to fruition (as it happens it still hasn’t arrived) and I am having to operate a one-in, one-out policy.

Thanks. That looks promising.

Thanks Mate! That sounds really interesting. Yes, I was wondering about having to enlarge the hole if I sleeved the threaded collar. I really don’t want to have to do that. I have put the project to one side for the while as it is my main gigging bass and I have a few coming up. Once the Acinonyx, that I ordered months ago, finally arrives, I will have an alternative solid bass to use and I will be able to crack on with it. I was kind of resigned to having the control cavity routed out a bit more. It’s got to go back to the luthier anyway because it has some fret sprout. Apparently the woods available to luthiers these days are not what they used to be: not seasoned enough and consequently subject to shrinkage but he thought this was one of the better blanks. Anyway, if there is away of avoiding routing it would be great.