Obrienp

Interesting thread this. Personally, I think over-playing is a problem when you move to bass from guitar (it may be a problem for people who never played guitar too). Like others have said, it is a different instrument with a different role. Somehow I have ended moving back to bass from guitar over the last 6 years or so. Originally I overplayed terribly, because my reflex was to put tags and fills in every time the singer paused for breath, and to get as busy as the guitarists during solos. Now that may be fine, if you are good enough to hit root exactly on time to maintain the groove and move with the chord changes but if it causes you to be late on that beat, or chord change, you are sabotaging the band. Better to pedal on root than miss the groove and changes. Also everybody in the band tagging, filling and twiddling frantically makes it really hard for the audience to follow: there is just too much going on and it may not all be pulling in the same direction. I think the line up and genre of the band also influences how the bassist should play. If you are playing bass in a band with keys, brass, guitars, etc, your job is to hold down the groove with the drummer, the mix is already full enough with other instruments . If you are in a power rock/blues 3 piece, you have got to fill up a lot more of the mix, especially when the guitarist is soloing. That is not to say you compete with the guitarist’s solo but you need to fill that space underneath them where their chords were and match their dynamics. I was listening to the remastered version of Led Zep 1 & 2 the other day and you can really hear how JPJ was doing this: it was a master class. I now play in two bands with rhythm and lead guitarists (and harmonica in one of them). I have learnt to keep it simple stupid: maintain the groove, match the dynamics and occasionally they throw you a bone: you get to start a number, or you get a solo fill. I have a long way to go still but I feel I am becoming a bassist, rather than a guitarist with a bass in his hands.

Only because I’m not very good at wiring the shunts between the terminals on the switches. Probably more of a faff on the blend pot to be honest. The push/pull and the blend will be the top two pots on the scratchplate, so it sounds as though space won’t be a problem in the cavity. The series wiring does add some hum but as you say but the shielding helps tame it a bit. It’s worth it for the massive tone that it produces: it turns the pickups into a huge humbucker with lots of bass and low mids.

Yep, those pots are pretty bad but the soldering is about my level of incompetence , at least on the back of pots. However, some Alpha pots are on order and I will try to do better this time, despite the non-lead solder we have to use these days. I am going to go for a parallel/series switch on a push/pull pot as well as the blend control. Took me most of the afternoon to work out the wiring schematic and it is going to be a bit fiddly to do. At least the control cavity looks quite big in your pics and it seems to have shielding paint but whether they carried that over into the pickup cavities and put connected shielding on the back of the pickguard, remains to be seen. I might give Newtone a shout. I use their Michael Messer strings on my National NRP reso and I have used their Acoustic Masters in the past as well. You just have to be careful how, when and where you cut any surplus length off when changing strings.

Thanks for the info. I have an Alpha blend pot I was going to fit instead of having 2 individual volume controls. It sounds like it might be worth replacing all the electronics at the same time. It probably will have zero impact on the sound but it gives you peace of mind for gigging. I agree the OEM bridge and tuners look surprisingly good for the price point. The Fender item is so heavy it might be worth fitting just to combat the neck dive but the trade off would be even more weight on the shoulder. It is already quite heavy for a short scale. Fortunately the OEM strings seem pretty good because there seem to be very few choices around for SS 5 strings and even fewer in stock in the UK.

I haven’t noticed that yet but I have only played it at studio volume. Are we talking the sort of noise that shielding will cure? That was on my to-do list, as I have some copper tape left from my last project. BTW have you replaced the bridge and if so, with what? I spotted an unused Fender high mass unit going cheap on eBay and bought it on impulse but now it has arrived I see it has a 4 screw mount. They look as though they might line up with 4 of the originals but I will only know if it aligns properly when I try it. I might need to look for something else. How have the machine heads held up? They look pretty good.

Yes, I saw that but £300: streuth! The BC sized Aguilars were over £200 for the 1000. I now wish I had gone for the Big Splits rather than the Dual Coil but I am going to have to live with them and they certainly sound a lot better than the OEM Bartolinis. It’s just I am having a lot of love for the Jazz bass sound at the moment. I was listening to the remastered versions of Led Zep’s first couple of albums and JPJ’s tone is amazing.

Well, having just sold my AFR Affirma 5 string (very sad) because of having to go short scale, I couldn’t resist the GAS and succumbed to a Talman TMB35. I am staggered by the value for money of this bass. You get a lot for your £219. All the frets are seated well, no sharp ends. The finish is well applied. The hardware is reasonable quality for a guitar in this price bracket. Really the only things I am not that keen on are the “mint” green, which is a bit insipid, the control knobs and the bulk of the neck. After all I have gone short scale because I was finding long scale basses too much for my arthritic left hand. I’ll see how I get on with it but I can always get the spoke shave out and take it down a bit. At this price, it’s not really an issue. I now have two green Ibanez short scales. The other being the EHB1000s. I did think about getting the EHB1005s but then I would have the expense of changing the Bartolini pickups for Aguilar, or Nordstrand. Whereas the pickups in the Talman seem OK on first use. There is no way I am going to spend North of £200 on replacement pickups for it anyway.

I thought I would do a quick update in case anybody is interested. I fitted the K&K Pure transducers: quite a fiddly operation, especially as the Guild has quite a small sound hole. If you follow the instructions to the letter and use the template they provide, you get there in the end. One of the problems I discovered is that they obviously give you the same mounting template with the bass set as they do for a standard six string acoustic guitar. The golf tee (yes really) and locating stick might be a snug fit in an acoustic bridge but the string holes in a bass bridge are much bigger, so the template is quite difficult to line up, especially as you can only get one hand in the body to do the job. Eventually I did get both sensors stuck in place on the bridge reinforcement plate inside the body, just about underneath the saddle slot in the bridge. My advice: take it slowly and give yourself plenty of time to do it. The whole job took about 2 1/2 hours. One annoyance was that, having followed the advice to drill out the end pin hole with a Forstner bit, with duct tape to protect the finish, there was still a little chip out of the top surface of the ply around the hole. This wasn’t quite covered by the collar of the end pin jack socket. I suspect this is because the back and sides on the Guild are mahogany laminate, rather than solid tone wood. Anyway, it was worth all the hassle because the K&K Pure system produces a very even string balance and an accurate reproduction of the bass’s acoustic tone: better than the Sonitone under saddle system. I did notice quite a lot of handling noise, which I guess is going to be a feature with transducers fitted to the body but the system seems to be more feedback resistant than the under saddle system. I was also impressed with the strength of the signal from a passive pickup system. Almost as much gain as the Sonitone which has quite a hot active preamp. Next step was to replace the Sonitone pickup with the Artec PP 417. I had to drill out the hole in the end of the bridge slot a bit to get the Artec’s cable through because of its jack plug. Cutting the original Sonitone pickup’s cable to the preamp and fitting a 2.5mm inline jack socket was straightforward but fiddly. I had to leave enough cable to be able to pull it out of the sound hole to solder on the socket but not so much that it would be flopping around once attached to the Artec’s cable. In the end I did have to coil it was once back in the body and use a cable tie to fix it to other cables: super fiddly and accompanied by much swearing. The Artec pickup seated nicely in the bridge slot but is a gnat’s thicker than the braided Sonitone pickup. The final step was to replace the original bone saddle with a better fitting Tusq item. I made this from a Tusq blank and it involved about half an hour’s filing and sanding. It probably isn’t the best executed saddle but it seems to work OK and fortunately there was no compensation on the original to copy. After restringing, I was pleased to hear both pickup systems worked and actually were a marked improvement on the original Sonitone setup. The Artec pickup produces a much better string balance than the original. If anything the A string is a little quieter than the others with the Artec but I suspect that might be because I haven’t quite cut the saddle right. Tone wise the Artec is a bit more thudding than the Sonitone and perhaps has compressed the tone a little. It is seems to be slightly less prone to feedback than the original but not much. Overall though at £11 for the Artec pickup and £2.50 for the inline jack socket, it was a relatively cheap and effective upgrade over the Sonitone, while reusing the original preamp and peripherals. The Tusq saddle blank was another £11 but that wasn’t strictly necessary. Of course, the upgrade would be much more expensive if you have to get it done by a luthier. For reference the K&K Pure bass transducer system cost £95 delivered and you need a fresh tube of superglue gel to fit it, plus tools to fit the end pin jack socket. If I wanted to fit a pickup to an acoustic bass without an OEM system, I would definitely go for the K&K and not bother with an under saddle system. My final task is to fit a set of Medium Scale LaBella Black Nylon Tape Wounds that arrived in the post yesterday. £44 inc p&p from Bass Direct (and much cheaper than elsewhere). I hope these will help suppress some of the Wolf tones that the bronze round wounds are producing, which I think contribute to feedback. Also there should be less string noise from slides, etc.

I was interested in that. Thanks for the review. My fist bass as a teenager was a Vox. I forget what the model was but it had two lipstick style single coil pickups and a vaguely Fender shape. Short scale with a terrible action and intonation. I didn’t touch a bass again for about 40 years but these new Vox basses look altogether more competent.

Thanks. Oh dear! Not helping my GAS!

Am I expecting too much to think that you shouldn’t need to dress the frets on a bass that costs the best part of £700 new? I would be less bothered by the nut being a touch high. Personal preference comes in there and it is better to have it high and need to take it down a bit, than too low and have to replace it.

Whoops! I tried clicking through before but it didn’t work! It just did and I read your review, so apologies. I would still be interested to know how you find the fretboard radius though.

Enjoy! Let us know what you think once you have used it a bit. I quite fancy one of those but the 9.5” fingerboard radius puts me off a bit. I prefer flatter boards. Interested to hear what you think.

I was just scoping out flats and nylon wound strings for a new acoustic bass. I checked out pricing on the usual direct online sellers. I was quite shocked to see prices for D’Addario strings were roughly the same, or more than La Bella equivalents. I am sure their nylon wound sets used to be much cheaper. I can’t say I have been keeping a log of D’Addario prices, so this is purely subjective but the prices of flats and nylon wounds do seem to have jumped considerably. Has anybody else noticed this, or am I just imagining it?

As was said before, Rotosound short scale strings seem to have intonation issues. I gave up on the set I had and won’t buy them again. Strangely I haven’t had the same problem with their standard scale strings.

I reseated the Sonicore yesterday. The bottom of the saddle was absolutely straight and the base of the slot appeared completely even. The piezo looked fine: lying flat with no bumps, or kinks. Unfortunately reseating it made absolutely no difference to the string balance. Without loads of compression the top and bottom strings are almost inaudible. I can’t imagine the the preamp is the problem: surely it must be OK, as this is sold as an OEM bass system. It is very high gain though. The one thing I did notice was that the saddle was a very loose fit in the slot but in my experience that is more likely to cause a rattle, rather than uneven pressure on the piezo. Next stop is going to be the Artec pickup and perhaps a new saddle with a tighter fit in the slot (either bone or Tusq). I’ll do this when I fit the K&K Pure transducers. I might also fit tape wounds to calm some of the overtones that are coming off the bronze strings. It shouldn’t really be necessary to do all this with a new bass and it’s a shame because it is a well made instrument and sounds great acoustically. I have to say I really miss my Ibanez SRH500 Aerium but they don’t come in short scale. It sounded great plugged in, didn’t feedback, was nice and light and it didn’t have a huge body.

Thanks for that tip: soldering a female socket to the original wire would be easier than removing the board and soldering onto it. I am always nervous soldering onto a board using modern lead free solder: too easy to overheat the components. However, reseating the Sonitone is obviously the first thing to try, along with fitting the K&K, as I have bought it now. Yes, that’s another option I guess. The sound hole on the Guild is quite small but I think the Fishman Neo would fit. I fitted a Rare Earth Blend in a Martin 015, which was even smaller, so it must be possible. I am assuming the Neo has a bar magnet, rather than individual pole pieces, so string alignment wouldn’t be an issue. I would have to remove the Sonitone sound hole preamp and controls though, as they are situated where the Neo would attach, so it really would mean junking the total system, rather than reusing components.

Thanks for that I bought one: at that price, why not. Did you use it with an existing preamp, or did you buy an Artec unit? The reason I ask is that the OEM Sonicore piezo in my Guild is hardwired to the board of the sound hole mounted volume and tone controls. It looks like the Artec pickup has a mini jack. I imagine it is fairly straightforward to remove that and work out which wire goes where on the board but I wondered what your experience was. Would I better to buy the Artec preamp and replace the Sonicore unit?

I don’t have the pro, just the bog standard 200 watt unit. The fan come on almost immediately and while not the noisiest, I am aware of it even in band rehearsals but I am right next to it most of the time.

That’s interesting: both points. I’ll start by reseating the saddle but if that doesn’t improve the string balance, I’ll try the Artec, I am sure it is cheaper than the Headway. I ordered the K&K anyway and it arrived today. Looks a little fiddly to fit but I have only heard good things about it, so it might be worth the hassle. Fortunately the Guild has a separate jack socket for its OEM pickup, so I can bore out the end pin and put the K&K socket in there. If I can sort out the under saddle piezo, I will have 2 separate signals to blend.

I’ll second that. Interested to know if it is any good.

I would be interested to know what you settled on in the end and how it worked. I have recently bought a Guild B240 fretless and I really don’t like the Sonicore piezo system that is in it. String balance is really bad. Amplified it has to be heavily compressed to even this out. It is also very prone to feedback. I am going to put a K&K Pure transducer pickup (2 transducers actually) in it but as it already has the bridge drilled for a piezo and has a battery box in the side, I thought I might fit a better under saddle system as well. It is really difficult to find purpose made acoustic bass under saddle systems in this country. Headway seems to be the only pickups available in this bracket. They have the HE5 mentioned above (about a third of the cost of the Guild) and the cheaper Snake pickups. Anyway, it would be great to hear about what you chose and how it is working. Other experiences gratefully received as well. I am going to be using mine with a band when we do “unplugged” gigs, so it will be quite loud and feedback could be an issue.