ikay

Surely there must be some sort of substrate material across the full strap width with the memory foam just being an outer layer?

Hofner staple pickups are generally pretty hot. Even at that distance from the strings you should be getting good output. Pic of my 185 below which had a similar pup/string distance and that was fine. How did you check that your pickup output was OK?

Thanks warwickhunt for the cab info.

Out of interest, what speaker set up were you using with the Handbox?

A tiny tweak to the trussrod (in either direction) can also help to shift or reduce a deadspot.

Saw Sting at the Palladium last night and there was a bell-shaped 'thing' with wires going into it on a post behind his bass cabs. See pic below (apoligies for quality). It's been bugging me ever since! Anyone have any idea what it is?

Here's a link to an old listing on Reverb for one that looks the same - https://reverb.com/item/40315677-bhk-bass-humbucker-neck-pickup

Swap in lightweight tuners and aluminium bridge. If that's not enough drill holes in the body under the pickguard. If that's not enough, remove more wood, make the holes a design feature 🙂

The 500k pot value is the problem. The EMG specs recommend 25k vol and tone pots for this pickup so I'd try a dual MN25K pot for the blend.

Removing the vol pot from circuit would make the tone slightly brighter with the tone pot two-bobbed.

👍 front edge of the nut

The only thing that doesn't look original is the fat white earth wire from the jack to vol pot. Looks like this has been added later. See pic below of original wiring on another '73. Soldering on the pot case is much tidier and the earth tag on the jack is unconnected (common with this era). One end of the tone cap goes to earth on the vol pot case so check that it's making a good connection. I'd be tempted to resolder that anyway and maybe dispense with the added earth wire. Or replace it with a black wire of the same gauge as the original wiring just to make it a bit tidier and consistent with black=earth.

Have you looked to see what cap it has at the moment and check the pot (should be 250k audio taper) and wiring?

Thanks basstone. I hadn't thought of giving it a clout, might try that!

The SB 700 wiring (top pic) looks very similar to the RB60 diagram below.

Another variation on a spaceframe body design from Paul Lairat

I'm sure this is exactly the sort of thought that goes into something like a Rob Allen. I had an RA Mouse which is a great example of a bass that has been carefully designed to work as a complete system, much like an acoustic instrument. The neck body joint is super tight, the body is chambered and the fixed bridge is bonded deep into the body with through-body stringing. The result is a bass that comes alive in your hands as soon as you touch a string. Rich full notes and harmonics just jump out of the thing. The whole bass vibrates like a living thing so there must be a lot of energy transfer going on, but in a way that harnesses and amplifies that energy to produce great tone. Fabulous little bass. It's the exact opposite of a rigid neck isolated from the body!

That's the sort of thing! Sustain for days and harmonics you never knew existed 🙂

The science here is borne out by 'dead spots' which occur where a particular point on the neck happens to resonate at the exact frequency of a note that is fretted at that same point. A lot of the energy from the string is absorbed into the neck, resulting in a short, dead-sounding note. Which raises an interesting question. A lot of bass design features are notionally aimed at improving energy transferrence and increasing sustain (eg. hi-mass bridges, through-body stringing, mitred neck joints etc). But surely this goes against the science? Wouldn't it be better to isolate the entire speaking length of every string from the neck/body structure to minimise energy transferrence? A sort of super rigid frame including tuners, nut, fretboard and bridge which 'floats' on the neck body structure. The neck and body merely being a convenient device to enable the instrument to be handled and played and having no bearing whatsoever on the sound. Of course, all the above, only if you want more ringing sustain and clinically pure harmonic content. Update: http://stashstainlessbass.com/shop 🤫

https://www.hotoneaudio.com/products/omni/omni-ac Would be interested to know if anyone has used this with a bass and how it sounded? Although it's mainly aimed at simulating acoustic guitars, the final two presets are for bass (a fretless and a double bass). I've scoured youtube but can't find any demos of the bass presets using a bass guitar, they just play all the presets with a guitar and pretty much skip over the bass ones. Somewhat annoying!

Here's how, if you're feeling brave!

My old GK 200MB has developed a curious fault - a temporary loss of high-end response when the combo is first turned on. For the first 15 mins or so the upper frequencies are lacking and everything sounds a little muddy. After playing for about 15 mins, the top frequencies come back and everything then sounds fine for the rest of the session. I contacted GK who were very helpful but say it could be any of many things from a leaky capacitor to a dry solder joint. The fact that it rectifies itself when it's warmed up makes me think probably more a leaky cap than a bad connection. Before I send it to an amp tech, I thought I'd post on here in case anyone else has experienced something similar. Wiring schematic for the input stage of the preamp below for ref. Any input welcome. Cheers!

Using this as a reference (https://shop.warwick.de/en/pickups/accessories-parts/bass-electronics/19979/mec-warwick-streamer-fna-jazzman-3-way-electronics), I'd deduce the following: Pot B is treble Pot A is mid Pot D is bass (the brown wire goes to the spare tag on the pot) The red and black wires from the white connector go to battery +/- (not sure what the other red wire is) The loose purple/black/white wires go the jack The MEC 3-band pic below has a different preamp board to yours, but the wiring colours are most likely the same. Wiring schematic here - https://shop.warwick.de/media/pdf/2a/93/05/M_60055_Schematic_Drawing.pdf