Al Heeley

What's the pickup height like compared to the others? An active ray should blow the other passive basses away easily, unless your battery has run down

I have a Marshall BassState 150W (1 x 15) for sale at the moment, with 7-band graphic eq, and a ss/tube pre-amp blend. Packs a punch and a good versatile range of tones. Price £150

Jeez - I thought i was sad! Thats nice though, can't beat the appeal of a tight loom.

Take a few days off - no playing, don't even look at the bass. Go see a good band. Pick up the guitar, play the keyboards. Dig out an old favourite record you haven't listened to for ages. Music has a great power to rekindle positive memories. this will inspire you.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='426800' date='Mar 5 2009, 11:52 PM']Very tidy-looking Shafty, £375 BIN: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=150330555882"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=150330555882[/url] Almost seems reasonable compared to what some have gone for recently. And Glen's wrong. J.[/quote] Its as good as a real rik and he's had one! [quote]HE INFORMS ME THAT THIS GUITAR WOULD HAVE BEEN BUILD IN AND AROUND THE 70s SOMETIME IN LONDON HENCE THE NAME SHAFTESBURY LIKE THE AVE, HE HAS ALSO INFORMED THAT IBANEZ USED THE SAME FACTORY AT THAT TIME AND DISTRIBUTED BY ROSE MORRIS[/quote] ...That would make Ibanez's factory just off Shaftesbury Avenue, london then back in 1970. Hmmm. I had a Shafesbury Les Paul black beauty copy when I was 16, it was a nice copy. This rickylike looks in decent nick.

If it bugs you that much you have to ask yourself: "Why do I want to hang onto a bass I don't get on with? Either I sell it, or rub the gloss down on the neck and make it something I want to hang on to" Get some fine scotchbrite pads from Homebase or B&Q and gently rub the gloss off the neck, its not as drastic as wire wool or sandpaper and it makes the neck silky smooth.

I'm a big fan of the Squier Jazz, they are a cracking good bass for the money, as you see from the above reccs its really down to your own personal prefs. I like the Jazz skinny neck and narrow feel, it gives a great range of tones and theres dozens of pickup upgrade choices for later if you want.

If yoou find it difficult visualising Treble Attenuation, think of it as influencing the tone pot taper - the rate at which the treble gets cut off as you turn the pot as well as the full on/full off tone difference. I prefer to go for smaer value caps as I never play with the tone pot below 5, it all gets too muddy and dark. With a 0.022 cap you can typically get the tone change between 10 and 3 to replicate the tone change you would get between 10 and 6 with a 0.047 cap, if that makes sense.

They are really lovely basses, looks like a nice narrow spacing at the nut, for a 5-string. Is the AB1 an active or passive?

Not posted up a prog shot for a while. body and neck have been tru-oiled and waxed. The maple has taken on a softer honey glow. Bridge and rear pup fitted, some more wiring work needed then a good fret levelling and set up.

[quote name='rockpig' post='411653' date='Feb 17 2009, 01:22 AM']the stingray pick up is positioned at about the same distance from the bridge as the space between the 2nd and third fret so that it sits under a harmonic node...[/quote] As long as you only play open strings cos as soon as you fret it, the harmonic node will shift elsewhere...

+1 for Rob - just received the 4-string EBMM Piezo, dispatched promptly, well packaged, manythanks mate - plays really nicely and Rob even included a leather strap and locking Dunlop strap buttons + authentic Ernie Ball polishing cloth into the deal. Cheers, Al

Cool project but I agree with the other posts, the body would need to be scaled down a little, it looks way too bottom heavy now. There's 2 conflicting schools of thought on the headstock resonant mass thing, one say it improves tone (and you can buy those heavy brass clip thingys for guitars to put on the headstock) some say it's wasteful dissipation of energy fromt he strings where it would better be channelled into the neck and body to preserve tone. I would not think most people could tell in a blind A/B comparison thru an amplifier unless you are the sort of audiophile who buys those £1600 power leads to clean and speed up the electricity coming out of his wall socket into his hi fi amplifier.

+3 some of the best (and most helpful) bass playing on Youtube. Great collection of instruments too

[quote name='Protium' post='416260' date='Feb 21 2009, 05:50 PM']I'm trying to find my copy of excel [/quote]Heh

Got a 2nF or a 1.6? That will do fine Series is interesting, it has more of an influence on the tone pot taper. With a series treble bleed, with vol and tone half way, there is a broader hump in the mid to treble end (this is all on the graphs made by the modelling spreadsheet I linked to further up) With a prallel treble bleed, at half tone and half vol, there is a flatter overall response with a narrower peak in the treble. Does that make sense? Download the spreadsheet, tinker with the values and see the response curves, its a lot easier to visualise on a graph than it is to talk about!

A crazy price for a 2 pence cap. If you want to preserve some sparkle when you roll the volume off have a look at my Treble Bleed post: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=41568"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=41568[/url]

P-bass pickups are normally wired with 250k pots and a 0.05uF cap on the tone pot. A much smaller cap will keep the pickup sounding brighter as the tone is turned down. If you like, it's like making the tone pot taper [i]shallower[/i]. After all, very few people play with the tone pot down below 3 or 4 so that part is wasted. Some percieve this as giving the tone pot a greater level of resolution or accuracy. With tone below 6 you'll notice it retains a little more high end.

No prob Marcus. I tried the laser print paper method and iron but in the end reverted to good old etch resist pen and those letraset transfer holes (seno) where I could be bothered.