fergs40

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My first bass was a Hondo II bolt-on Ric copy, and I also experienced the neck pulling forward as described. Luckily the guitarist’s dad was ‘handy with wood’ and sorted it with some suitably impressive wood screws. The bass then took its revenge by turning the impressive tail-lift into a full-on crack behind the saddles, leading to the end of the bridge parting company with the bass without warning - had it not been restrained by the strings, the high speed lump of metal might have killed somebody as it flew through the air. Thankfully the guitarist’s dad was on hand with some more heavy duty wood screws and on we went… I often think those starting out these days are more blessed than they know by the existence of Harley Benton and their ilk.

Well that certainly makes a lot of sense, and explains why the Westone job was more effective than the Vigier one. I shall return to the Vigier at some point and add a couple of wires. Ta!

Not specifically. On both basses I reckon the control cavities are grounded due to the jack sockets touching the copper. The Westone had a grounding wire in the pickup rout already (though on reflection it’s a mystery why, as there was no shielding in there?), so that is definitely connected to the control cavity and thus to ground. On the Vigier, however, the pickup rout shielding isn’t connected to anything - there was nothing obvious on the pickups to connect it to (and frankly I wasn’t about to start soldering anything on to my irreplaceable pickups), and running additional grounding wires along the same route as the pickup wires was too much effort…maybe another day. But perhaps some explanation for why the job seems to have been less effective on the Vigier?

I know there will be many on here who have done this a hundred times and more, but as it's my first go I wanted to share - please pass on if not of interest! My motivation for this was sparked by @Jean-Luc Pickguard's NBD about his Rick 4003, and the subsequent discussion about shielding it. So I acquired some copper tape and rather than jumping straight into disassembling my Rick, as a first experiment I set about my 1987 Thunder 1A. This is still 100% original, including the 18v preamp, but my goodness was it noisy! It probably took me about an hour to complete the job. It was surprisingly straightforward to cut out strips of tape and manipulate them into place. I had the odd piece tear when I was smoothing it down, but it was easy enough to patch. I'd read some warnings about the sharp edges of the tape being a bit hazardous, but I was either sufficiently careful or lucky and survived without injury. I did the inside of the pickup rout (discovering that a younger me had almost pulled one of the mounting studs out of the body in a ham-fisted attempt to lower the pickup), the inside of the cavity and the inside of the rear cover (which has the preamp mounted to it). I put everything back together and, not really expecting very much, plugged in. The difference was night and day - the bass has gone from a handy receiver for local taxis to almost completely silent, even with the active circuit at the extremes of its settings. Previously the active circuit was so noisy I just avoided using it, but no longer! I was so flushed with success I decided to do my Vigier Excess at the same time as fitting the new preamp (see other thread). I'm not sure the difference with the Vigier was quite as noticeable - it already had shielding paint and it's still a bit buzzy sitting in front of the computer (despite having a hum cancelling circuit). Equally I believe the pickups in these are perhaps more prone to noise than some, the sacrifice being reasonable for the excellent tones they produce. Anyway. there you are - a simple job with a satisfying result (and no slugs harmed). I'm afraid I was so engrossed I forgot to take much in the way of photos, but here are the couple I did take (one each of the Westone and Vigier).

Six weeks later... ...so despite saying I was happy with the preamp in my Excess (and I was, there was nothing wrong with it!), that 'but it's not original' devil kept whispering in my ear. So I wrote to Vigier to ask if they might have a spare preamp lying around. They didn't, but they did say they were thinking of making some more in the next couple of months. And a week or so ago I got a message to say they were back in stock. I'm almost positive this isn't the unit that would have been in the bass when it was created in 2002 (the hole for the hum cancelling trim pot doesn't line up), but it is the modern equivalent and dropped straight in. Is it better than what was in there before? Of course - it's a Vigier! As an added bonus, having unpacked the thing and looked at the instructions I saw they were expecting it to be powered by two batteries - and I only have one battery box. So I wrote them a quick email and within the hour had a reply from M. Vigier himself confirming that it would also work on 9v. So he might not be making instruments any more, but he's still out there supporting them - merci!

@Jean-Luc Pickguard Did you happen to take any pictures of the cavity shielding you did? I have been meaning to do my 2011 4003 for ages - have got as far as buying the tape, but not 100% sure what an effective shielding job on one of these looks like, so a pic would be very helpful to me. Thank you!

The bass players!

Ordered 23 Nov, turned up today (in Ireland), though the initial estimate was, as others have found, sometime between January and June next year… £19.46. Posted 5 Dec in Germany.

Buy a spare from the manufacturer of your bass and use that?

Thanks @Madein1962 - I had a look and unfortunately the 2 band preamp they list there (https://www.parts.vigierguitars.com/en/electronic/265-vigier_parts_excess_4_electronic_2_bands_eq.html) is for humbuckers (mine are single coils) and I suspect it's also 18v where mine is 9v. It's also out of stock, so everything is conspiring against me! But thank you anyway!

And the prize goes to... @Mediocre Polymath It is indeed a Bartolini, and the same model you had I think. Thanks also to @Doctor J for the link to the pictures of the Excess electronics - those show what I was expecting to find but didn't. But, as I say, happy with what I've got! Thanks all.

This is the preamp from my new-to-me Excess. Being a curious sort I had a look inside, and am a bit puzzled by what I found. Couple of things: I had expected the preamp to be on a custom circuit board shaped like the cavity rather than a discrete unit like this. Certainly the one in my Passion III is like that, and the wiring diagram on the Vigier website suggests that’s what it should be. Although there is a trim pot (presumably for the hum-cancelling circuit, though I haven’t fiddled with it - yet) it doesn’t line up with the little hole in the cavity cover, and it’s not obvious to me how it could do with the components arranged as they are at the moment. So, does anyone have any thoughts? Or pictures of their Excess preamp (the 9v one) they could share? BTW, regardless of whether it’s the original or not it does everything I would want and expect it to do, so no complaints. But enquiring minds… Thanks as ever, collective.