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Built in Chicago. A range of several basses but I'm particularly drawn to the short scale Midwestern and Midwestern 2 with choice of Darkstar, Bisonic or B90 pickups. Quality gear by all accounts but I've not heard of them before. Has anyone this side of the pond got one of these, or even heard of Serek? I'd be interested to hear any views. https://www.serekbasses.com/midwestern

It's fine, gold is a good conductor so the ground wire will work exactly as it did with the previous bridge.

That pickup is still pretty hefty compared with a regular J (which weighs about 100g). Probably a hefty full length magnet under the blade I guess.

Crikey, that's a big weight saving! I can see 4 Ultralites saving around 200g or so but I'd be interested to know how much that pickup weighs in at, surely not half a kilo?

Ah ok, that's not clear from the specs above. Both fretted and fretless on offer?

Love how the S-Type sounds on the Gillett website demo. Do the ex-demo models on offer come with both mag and piezo pickups or just the mag? Fretted or fretless (or both)?

How about a Guild Bisonic reissue pickup for $125 - https://shop.guildguitars.com/product/guild-bs-1-bisonic-bass-pickup/ Be aware of the very narrow pole spacing though (15.6mm I believe)

Yes, a no-load pot is completely removed from the circuit when on '10'

Are these any good? - https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/guitar-screws/fender-screws-for-vintage-tuning-machines-nickel-12-pieces

Ah, OK thanks

I can run a search and get a list of search results OK, but when I click on a result and view it I can't see how to get back to the search results (clicking the 'back' button gives a 'page expired' error message).

Thanks Will, much appreciated!

I believe overall string spacing (centre-to-centre of G to E string) at the bridge is 52.4mm. Could someone with a Mustang (regular single pickup version, not the new P/J) please give me the overall string spacing (centre-to-centre) at the pickup centreline? I'm guessing it's somewhere around 48-50mm but would like to confirm. Question relates to potential Mustang purchase and pickup mod. Thanks

This ad on Gumtree purports to be for an original 1960s set of Fender light gauge bass strings and gives the gauges as 50/64/80/95 - https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/1960-s-fender-bass-strings-genuine-new-old-stock-still-in-packaging-£95-ono/1272536060 1960's FENDER BASS STRINGS ‘GENUINE’ NEW OLD STOCK - STILL IN THEIR ORIGINAL PACKETS AND POLYTHENE SLEEVE! F-80 SET LIGHT GAUGE STAINLESS STEEL FLAT WIRE ELECTRIC BASS STRINGS 1st – G-.050, 2nd – D-.064, 3rd – A-.080 4th – E-.095.

The higher frequencies are attenuated so 'less present' in the signal rather than lost altogether. Active eq will be able to compensate for this to some extent but the basic signal from the pickup will be darker so the eq will have less headroom for adding extra sparkle.

Generally speaking the higher the pot value/resistance the brighter the tone. A dual 500k pot would be darker than the original single 500k vol plus 3-way switch configuration (2 x 500k in parallel = 250k). A dual 250k pot would be darker still (2 x 250k in parallel = 125k). In passive mode I'm sure you would hear a darkening of the tone. In active mode probably less so or not at all (and you can boost the EQ anyway if needed).

I tried to replace the bridge on my CV with a standard Fender 5 screw bridge and the two outer holes were too far out to work without filling and redrilling. The CV bridge is annoyingly non-standard in that respect! I left the bridge as it was in the end. It's a fairly hefty bridge anyway so I doubt that a Badass would add much in the way of tone. The only reason I wanted to change it was because I prefer standard 19mm string spacing to the CV 20mm.

With open strings, and plucking directly over a pickup in the P position, the dominant harmonics are a 1st octave, perfect 5th and 2nd octave. But the harmonic content of a note changes depending on the LH fretting position. It crossed my mind that it might be some sort of neck/body resonance causing the G/D string issue, but that would only affect certain notes/frequencies, it wouldn't be a general effect up and down the fingerboard. I had something similar on my Hofner Club bass where the D string (Hofner flats) had a sort of hollow ringing sound around the 6th fret. Eventually traced it to the tailpiece which had a sympathetic vibration at that frequency. A small block of rubber carefully positioned under the tailpiece to damp the resonance fixed that.

What strings are you using? If the strings are new they should mellow out with a bit more playing and the octave harmonic will be less noticeable. The octave is a natural harmonic anyway so it sounds like the G and D strings are just a little more lively than the A and E. Rolling back the tone a bit may help.