LawrenceH

+1 on using a Jap 75RI as a basis. Get one in natural so it's definitely ash, unless I'm mistaken the others can be basswood? I don't think it sounds as good as alder/ash.

I'd have thought the road worn jazz, whether or not you like relics (I don't). Jazz basses get a lot of love on here, and the consensus seems to be that that one's a tone monster. The youtube clips back this up for me. If I had one I'd probably refinish it Though I'm loving my JaP 75ri now I swapped the pups for Classic 70s (the same as HWY1?). It's a growly beast! Agreed on the Wizard pups and J East pre, they seem to be the number 1 recommended items in their respective categories. I've not tried either, though I do own a J retro awaiting fitting.

[quote name='Spoombung' post='920455' date='Aug 10 2010, 11:04 AM']Thanks![/quote] Really impressive job there - can I ask did you clearcoat the bass after spraying the colours?

I'd say, if you really can't stick with it go for a neck transplant, necks seem to come up on here from time to time. Tone is far harder to get right than playability IMO

Just received a tort jazz pickguard from Nick - well packed, arrived promptly, all is good. Thanks a lot!

A word of caution...I tried two each of both a 12-piezo melded and 6-piezo flat array using piezos shipped by Leland, on 4 Jack 10s. The sound is ok for giving a bit of fizz for bass guitar, but I was seriously unimpressed with the sound for PA. I only tried using a bi-amped configuration, and the suggested passive crossover design will alter the frequency response. But even with a graphic EQ I couldn't get a sound that I liked out of them. I A/B'ed with an Eminence CD from a Yamaha Club series speaker (PSD2002, these are about £50 new I think? It's the more expensive one recommended in the plans IIRC) and the Eminence just sounded so much sweeter, despite the fact it's not the world's best comp driver. In my opinion the sound was noticeably worse than your average semi-respectable entry-level PA speaker. Your mileage may vary, as they say on that thar internet.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='913876' date='Aug 3 2010, 02:07 PM']Ah, and youll get a small refund as well! Id swap it out Dave. Itll play on your mind even if they fix it.[/quote] Plus black with maple looks waaaay cooler than sunburst. Especially with a black pickguard.

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='912768' date='Aug 2 2010, 01:31 PM']Ive now got a MIA jazz that i really like the tone off, but at some point i will put the Wizards in and see who they sound on a decent bass ;-)[/quote] Be REALLY interested in this comparison. Hope you get round to it soon!

I'd be surprised if the pickguard is at fault, it sounds/looks like the body router was just badly aligned on that particular instrument, which will give problems down the road if you want to swap certain components around, or with re-sale value. At the price you've paid I'd be looking for a replacement unless the tone is unusually monstrous. EDIT: I've just realised that it's more likely the pickguard/neck is slightly mis-aligned, either of which would require redrilling. Again I'd just want one that was right first time.

WTF is going on with that routing?? I thought the MIAs had proper pickup-sized cavities -and then that random hole as well? My Mexi Classic 70s has that (but at the least the pup cavities are the right size) but I'd assumed the MIAs were better in this respect, not worse. That's annoying.

My vote for tone would definitely go to the VMJ. It just sounds a lot warmer and livelier acoustically, I'm guessing it's down to the different body woods. My vote for quality control would go the CV though, so if you go VMJ maybe try and buy in person!

[quote name='Philly' post='910142' date='Jul 30 2010, 12:01 PM']Hi All I have an American 75 reissue Jazz and I love it, my only one gripe is it is very slightly head heavy. I am thinking about adding a badass II bridge, I know the benefits are already massive due to the crap bent tin bridge already on it, just wondered if anyone thinks this will help balance the instrument better? Anyone encountered any negatives swapping the bridge over? Thanks Phil[/quote] I put a Fender deluxe bridge on my jap 75 reissue. It improved the 'tightness' of the tone but lost a certain amount of woodiness. So depends if you like the difference. By the way I took the tuners off and they weighed a ton! Maybe worth checking the weight on yours and see if replacing them with ultralites or similar would make a worthwhile weight saving, as an alternative if you don't get on with the new bridge/still have issues.

Some of the basses on this list are ridiculous! And I'm pretty confident that none could beat an old 4-string P copy I had, I think it was a Rockwood? Flippin' dreadful, weighed a ton, played like a cow and had the tone of a pillow. Looked a pig's ear as well (though in the ugly stakes the Big Al will always be my number 1)

[quote name='escholl' post='909476' date='Jul 29 2010, 05:26 PM']Your ears can be surprisingly good liars. You hear what you expect to hear. If you have any friends who are music producers or mixing engineers, ask them if they've ever accidentally used an EQ which, in fact, wasn't connected or engaged -- but they didn't realise till after they'd "gotten" the sound the wanted. It's happened to me, it's happened to a few people I know -- you feel silly, but it demonstrates to what extent you can hear what you expect to hear. This is why you need to measure, and not trust your ears. Notice how speakers never sound worse when they're broken in? If speaker break in was a "thing" there is no way that would be true in every instance.[/quote] Yes, yes, BUT. This was not one of those times! Like I said the difference was night and day, like comparing a full PA speaker with an overloaded ipod docking station. We did measure at the time, using a crude Behringer RTA, and it supported what we heard (but as I say I don't completely trust the kit/set-up we had). We had to boost the bass massively to get a decent balance. Then the next day we ran it flat to start with and the bass was hitting the chest nicely (still didn't sound good overall, but that's another story. Anyone want to buy a BFM Jack 10? ). Sometimes though you do have to trust your ears, like when you buy kit, you never go purely on spec. After all, I don't listen to music by looking at oscilloscopes and RTAs. For sure there is variation in our hearing from day to day, even moment to moment, and it can be surprising how they're fooled, but after a while you get a good feel for what's accounted for by that and what isn't and I've done enough mixing to know where my normal limits are. This was definitely outside them, the same way I can tell the difference between a 1k and 5k test tone completely robustly! Doesn't even mean what I'm hearing as the low octave is real bass, or something elsewhere, just that I'm confident I heard a genuine (marked) difference that I could have picked out in a blind test. Interesting that Stevie's graphs show reasonably substantial spec variation between the driver before and after, but because of the way the parameters alter in that particular box/driver combo it models out the same. Doesn't mean they always will, of course (I wonder if the fact that we were using a horn-loaded design would have any bearing there?). I expect Stevie's going to say the driver was run in in about 30 seconds!

[quote name='stevie' post='909455' date='Jul 29 2010, 05:05 PM']Although you will admit that accusing others of having ears of cloth when they don't agree with you is exactly how such people behave.[/quote] Hmm, good point. I was more trying to say I don't think my ears are especially golden! As opposed to where people boast about how great they are, or try to justify some ridiculous expense as a protection mechanism. I guess I mean that there is a real-world cut-off between what's one of those things where you can convince yourself you can hear something or other, and when something plainly sounds rotten and awful, otherwise we'd all be playing through banks of Chinese ipod speaker docks. Burden of proof often works both way before accusations are made.

In fact I found the original exchange you had with Alex on this, interesting that he's also talking about an Eminence and his description of what he hears and how obvious it is tallies well with my own aural 'observation'. He reckons there's a big difference between hi-fi speaker surrounds and PA drivers. He's not one to buy into I'd happily do some measurements if someone provides me with a boxed new Eminence driver and £30 for my trouble! But, I trust my ears more than I'd trust the rubbish testing conditions/aparatus I'd have to use...bass measurements can be a bit haphazard unless you have a decent set-up.

Subject successfully derailed. Psychoacoustic phenomena explaining break-in would be more believable in cases where you listen to the speaker for extended periods, hence in audio mixing/mastering where you take breaks every so often, A/B with other commercial mixes, etc. to compensate for your ears adjusting - I'm well-used to that! I did not listen to the speaker for an extended period, just heard it once when freshly installed and once again a day later after it had been left with a LF signal running through it. The difference was, as I said, very obvious with the initial sound being distorted and extremely bass-shy. As much as I trust my ears to discriminate between a £100 versus £1000 PA speaker, I trust the difference I heard to be real. But I'm sure it varies considerably from driver to driver, depending on construction, materials etc. Hence it could be negligible in many cases, especially lower power drivers as opposed to big PA drivers with quite heavy-duty suspension. I must say I'd never noticed it with other drivers but then I've only built PA speakers before rather than dedicated bass cabs. What drivers does the AES paper relate to? Mechanically, get a piece of paper, fold it, and bend it back and forth a few times. It changes, and though that happens fast, that's with a more extreme degree of flex than a rolled loudspeaker edge would be subject to. I understand when people question other people's ears over subtle differences, it's definitely good to hear things for yourself. But really, if someone couldn't tell the difference between the 'fresh' Deltalite II I tried versus the same unit with a few hours' playing time, then they have ears of cloth. And I definitely am not a subscriber to weird voodoo hifi magic about solid gold interconnects, bi-wiring or all that rubbish.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='909017' date='Jul 29 2010, 11:11 AM']I recently made some speaker cables because of all this talk about burning patch cables. I used mains cable because for whatever reason I have a big reel of the stuff. My problem is that the cable is so chunky I couldn't possibly get it to fit into a standard jack plug, and my cables (which work perfectly) are covered in insulation tape at the end, rather than a nice silver jack. Anyone know where I can get bigger jacks?[/quote] Neutrik do a speaker-specific jack plug with a larger case. I'm sure they're available through studiospares...(google)...HERE: [url="http://www.studiospares.com/connectors/neutrik-speaker-jackplug-nys225/invt/578030/"]http://www.studiospares.com/connectors/neu...25/invt/578030/[/url]

[quote name='escholl' post='903237' date='Jul 23 2010, 02:31 PM']Having said that, I am a man of science, and without having done my own measurements am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that any benefits could merely be merely psychological. Just because an entire industry is behind an idea, doesn't mean it's true -- just look at the fallacy that is "breaking in" speakers[/quote] Not wishing to derail this thread but speaker break-in is very real and easily measurable. I've experienced it, in VERY obvious fashion, with a Deltalite 2510 II. Note that Eminence (and other manufacturers) specify their speakers after 'conditioning' to account for this phenomenon. Makes me wonder about judging pristine new cabs in shops. Re caps, I seriously doubt I could hear/care about the difference, but would be interested to A/B and see!

Two types of failure could happen with the cable - it could simply burn out and fail to pass signal (high resistance) which isn't going to do anything to any half-decent modern non-valve amp. Or it could burn up the insulation and go open circuit, dropping the load impedence to zero. This could potentially screw with the amp but again you'd expect a modern one to have adequate short circuit protection, especially something reasonably high-end like the TC. But, the cable's not going to fail until you pump a decent amount of signal through, enough to heat it up. If you didn't play anything before it failed then I can't see how the cable could have done so, unless it was already faulty. If the cable tests ok then it wasn't the cable that caused this.

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='905753' date='Jul 26 2010, 01:05 PM']Just make some. Get the clear decal paper off eBay and print some off, only costs a couple of quid. I scoured google for appropriate images and then cleaned them up, gave a few away on here as i had a load spare I have publisher document at home with some decals on, can email it to you if you like? The eBay seller is also very good, can do some very specific decals. I just don't like paying all that money for one when i can make 15 for half the price![/quote] Can you print gold metallic ink? Either way I'd be interested in the publisher doc if you can find the time!

[quote name='Paul_C' post='904324' date='Jul 24 2010, 09:15 PM']you could put the old one back on and see if the problem goes away.[/quote] Try swapping the bridge saddle between the A and E strings (flipping it round to make it fit) and see if the problem stays on the A

[quote name='supabock' post='904310' date='Jul 24 2010, 08:52 PM']Can anyone tell me the advantages/ disadvantages when comparing Fender Jazz basses that have 3 bolt neck plates with adjusters, with those that have the 4 bolt neck plates? Are there any playability/ setup issues with the 3 bolt system? Steve[/quote] I have the 3 bolt on a Jap 75RI. I haven't found any problems and can't see why there would be, can't see any particular advantages either. Except, it does make swapping necks between different Fenders a bit of a pain as none of the holes line up. I do wonder if you used the micro-tilt system whether it affects sustain through to the body simply because the physical connection between neck and body woods is reduced, but then this would often be similar in shimmed 4-bolt necks. On mine the micro-tilt is not engaged and the neck pocket is a very snug fit. The three-bolt plate does look just that little bit cooler though.