LawrenceH

[quote name='charic' post='984028' date='Oct 11 2010, 06:24 AM']That's fair enough. There's not really a LOT to go wrong though. Short of breaking it yourself which wouldn't be covered.[/quote] Yeah, what charic said - a bass isn't really very high tech! I think all my basses have been secondhand and I kind of prefer it. The wood on an older bass is likely more stable than on a new one. In answer to your question, pickup type and importantly position, body wood, neck wood/construction all seem to impact on different aspects of the tone. But, with their twin pickups and sensible body woods something like the BB414 or a jazz would be versatile enough to cover any style, really, apart from sounding like a double bass - having said that, flatwounds, solo neck pickup, bit of foam at the bridge and it'll do the same sort of tonal job.

If you're mainly after the 70s spacing then you could probably get a US75RI or a MIM 70s for a lot cheaper (try US ebay there's normally one or two), though obviously that wouldn't have the relicing. But otherwise going by the ebay prices on those things, you really are better off buying a whole one and then selling the parts separately! Though that would be a shame.

No disrespect to others above, but given what you list as music you like I would ignore suggestions to buy a P-bass without an extra pup at the bridge. Before anyone jumps on my back, yes they are great for some funk (Paul Jackson of the Headhunters springs to mind), but the core tone is sort of exactly the opposite of Level 42 etc! A jazz type, MM, or a P-J, will be more versatile. I started on a Yamaha RBX170 and it was a great bass to begin on, ergonomic, well-constructed and reliable. The core tone was a little weak but you'll struggle to find better in the sub-£100 bracket that these go for 2ndhand. Having said that, I'd say the BB414/424 is a very worthwhile step up. I don't think you need look beyond the Yamaha range at the low end of the market, there might be others as good but I don't think there's better pound for pound. If you want a jazz then the CV Squier is a safe bet, and there's one for sale on here I believe.

Feel nice and with an aggressive top end, but this doesn't last for a huge amount of time and they probably lack a bit in the mids which makes them sound very dead when they are gone. Were my favoured string until I switched to DR black beauties, although I didn't compare to a huge number of brands.

[quote name='Big_Stu' post='979677' date='Oct 6 2010, 06:00 PM']Anyone know if it's possible to buy a clear coat polyurethane based spray can? On Saturday I won a guitar previously owned by Andy Scott of The Sweet. He's signed a marker pen dedication on it to me which I'd like to permanently protect. I've been told by Washburn that it's polyurethane based. So far I've been told my a couple of manufacturers that their spray paints won't do it - one of them was acrylic which surprised me. So I'm looking for the name of a manufacturer that will definitely be compatible - or the name of a Lancs luthier than can do a small patch spray of coating without breaking the bank.[/quote] I would guess that the solvent in many sprays will unfortunately dissolve the marker pen. You might be able to get round that by doing very very light initial mist coats. Plastikote do a poly-based spray but whatever you use, test it against marker pen on some other smooth surface first!

I had what I'd assume are those same pickups in a Jap 75RI and they were very meh. I'm a bit suspicious of the Japanese 'US' pickups. I'd say it's worth swapping them out

[quote name='Dave Vader' post='979125' date='Oct 6 2010, 09:22 AM']reverse wound reverse phase. Often used in strat middle pickups so that the 2 and 4 positions are humbucking. Means that when you select either of these positions the hum becomes noticeable by it's absence, and your output goes super wimpy. And buying a new router seems to be the best option, or sanding block and a knackered elbow.[/quote] Ahh! Thanks for enlightening me. In that case I can't see how it could be that since it would surely be immaterial except when pickups were used in combination? More likely it's just a weedy pickup sitting too low from the strings. I jam my bridge pup right up close to the strings without problems and I remember it seemed to make a good difference to the bass response.

[quote name='Dave Vader' post='978223' date='Oct 5 2010, 12:33 PM']Finally got my latest bitsa project together last night, Jazz body, silly reshaped headstock neck, MIM pickups. All seemed not too bad, neck has back-bowed a bit but I've loosened the truss, put the strings a bit # and left it over night to pull out. Real problem is same as always, the neck heel is too deep, and the pocket is too shallow, so my pickups don't go quite high enough (at least that's what I assume) to get decent output. I might make some stilts for the pups (foam is super deep and stiff, just wood is too low). On top of this, my neck pickup is not too bad, sounds quite nice, as does both up full. Trouble is, soon as I roll off a bit of neck to get a trebley slappy tone, it goes very thin and weak. Is this just the height? Is it wired up funny? Is it rw/rp (cos I hate that, and it will annoy me a bit) No idea, any help on deepening my neck pocket/thinning the neck heel would be greatly appreciated, need to lose a good 4 or 5 mm overall, and I have broken my router. [/quote] Err, buy a new router? Forgive my ignorance but what does rw/rp mean?

[quote name='Bottle' post='976845' date='Oct 4 2010, 11:12 AM']OK, so I've been using this setup for the last month or so - first impressions have been good (although, it's fair to say I miss playing my Ibanez - it's out on loan at the moment). The Squier has been gigged lots - Sunday mornings at church and Wednesday evenings at the funk jam. Think I can draw some conclusions now - glad I performed the experiment.[/quote] Is the jam using Claudia's bass rig nowadays? I'm glad it's not still my little 12" combo, I think it would probably crumble to dust if you tried to play a low A through it!

Here is a good graph from Audere which shows how the resonant peak on a passive bass pickup shifts downwards as you add capacitance. [url="http://www.audereaudio.com/TechDetails.htm#capacitance"]http://www.audereaudio.com/TechDetails.htm#capacitance[/url] Bear in mind that though the overall response of the pickup gets lower, shifting the peak from a region where the bass doesn't output much to one where it does, and/or from a region which the speakers can't reproduce well (say 4.5k through a 'typical' 12") downwards (say to 2.5k), will have the effect of apparently boosting high-end output.

[quote name='StevieD_FenderP2009' post='976023' date='Oct 3 2010, 02:49 PM']I must be really stupid because alot of that made absolutely no sense to me The wiring kit I bought was the same wiring kit as used in Fender's current AM series and the Steve Harris sig series but I just didn't bother wiring in the cap and I think it was a 0.05 cap... now I don't know what that means but yeah, i didn't wire it in From what else I read here, it looks like capacitors aren't actually needed then?[/quote] They're not needed unless you want the ability to roll off the high end. --However, counter-intuitively, in passive basses caps can make the overall tone a bit more bark-y because as you roll them off you get a slight peak just below the roll-off frequency. With my Jazz, if I roll the tone nearly but not quite off with the bridge pickup solo-ed, the mid-range stands out a little bit more. But the effect is quite subtle and doesn't sound like what you're after--

[quote name='Marvin' post='975364' date='Oct 2 2010, 08:00 PM']This guy comes across as a complete idiot.[/quote] I think you've missed the point, rather spectacularly. You can definitely FEEL 27 Hz and below when the power's high enough! And I don't think he'd have infra subs and then just leave a big gap between 40 and 150 Hz either. I'm sure if you play a conventional bass line through their system it'll sound punchy and dynamic. It'll just shake your booty like a fat nun on a washing machine at the same time if the lower signal's there as well. I know BFM and Alex are at pains to point out that loudspeaker size per se doesn't govern tone, but when it comes to reproducing deep bass bigger is always better, it's physics. Small 8" home subwoofers can produce very low bass indeed but they do it a lot less efficiently than mahoosive great big drivers (in suitable boxes). By the way church organs often have 32ft pipes (16 Hz), and some have 64' 'stopped' pipes! You can't exactly hear them, they just add general massiveness to the sound.

Really interested to hear your experiences here. Based on these I'll be proceeding with caution with respect to shielding when I put my jazz back together!

Bass players hark on about Zender (who was awesome) but I really haven't enjoyed any Jamiroquai stuff since Toby Smith left the group, in my opinion whatever the contracts may say he was an important creative force and kept the band interesting with his voicings etc. JK's more recent offerings have been very derivative and uninspiring to me, admittedly these will always do well in the pop/club market but musically they're completely forgettable. I think Smith and Kay complemented each other nicely with the former's musicality and the latter's uncomplicated charisma. Runaway has a good bass line and harks back to an earlier sound, but that's about all that stuck in my mind from the 2000s. Recent live incarnations of the band seem competent, but definitely have a session-player-marking-time vibe. The modern recorded stuff is very over-processed for my tastes, sounding far too Logic-ed to the point where quantisation and compression has just killed the groove. Lately they've become half the band they used to be (geddit? sigh)

I thought that real 'collectors' vintage basses were indeed prized for having original soldering. Why, other than it helping with authenticity, I have no idea. But perhaps that's more of an issue for 60s instruments. Personally, if I thought it sounded great as is then I'd leave it, but if it had a decent acoustic tone that wasn't really being conveyed when plugged in then I'd have no qualms about swapping the pickups. Basses are great to play, but if I wanted an ornament then I'd prefer a nice Chinese ginger jar If you do swap them out, maybe it'd be an idea to take some detailed photos of the original pups and soldering while in the bass to prove that the originals were at some point there.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='971491' date='Sep 29 2010, 10:40 AM']I think if they sound great, I wouldnt worry. They are very sneaky on their specs.[/quote] This. The pickups on my Classic 70s are a LOT better than the supposedly US ones on my CIJ 75RI, so now the ones from the Classic 70s sit on the Jap as I've said before. I have a feeling this will differ between individual pickup sets but based on my experience trying a few the Classic 70s 'Vintage' pups seem very consistent. I'm really torn as to what pickups to put back in the Classic, Custom Shop 60s, Vintage 75s or another set of the originals as they just work so damn well.

[quote name='Phil Starr' post='970186' date='Sep 27 2010, 11:06 PM']Just as an added point I've noticed that the quoted specs for these size of piezos vary from a bottom frequency of 2kHz to 4.5kHz so I guess they are not all the same.[/quote] I did wonder if the UK ones were different to the US ones in performance. I have the US ones, perhaps the UK units perform better. They're certainly more expensive. Thanks for the plug description btw, I'd love to know if anyone's tried this, sounds a bit convoluted for us to do as an experiment when we're not happy with the HF anyway but in future may well try it. Gilmour - thanks for letting us sidetrack the thread! Glad you're getting on with yours, would be very interested to hear them sometime and see how they stack up to ours.

[quote name='DaveMuadDib' post='970093' date='Sep 27 2010, 09:42 PM']After further inspection (read: fiddling) the washers are not actually affixed to the control plate at all - they're just being held down by the pot nut! DOH!! Just a simple 1:1 control plate it is then!! [/quote] Ha ha that's hilarious! I actually thought to myself 'that's funny doesn't look welded to me' but dismissed it immediately. Be interested to see how this turns out

[quote name='DaveMuadDib' post='969855' date='Sep 27 2010, 06:49 PM']Ordered - I'll give it a go![/quote] Hope that works, but if not then that looks replicable if you knew someone handy with tools. Is it just cheap pressed steel washer-type things? Could punch something similar into a washer of suitable diameter, bend the washer around a former then glue it to the plate.

[quote name='Phil Starr' post='969625' date='Sep 27 2010, 04:19 PM']wow, thanks a lot. The jacks are just an undersized conical horn with a reflex port, a nice design with some neat bits of improvisation but for me the phase plug needs to intrude into the cone area to avoid cancellation at high frequencies and the horn is a long way short of optimal. I'm open minded however I used to build my version of a horn/reflex hybrid years back for a number of bands and they always sounded sweet I was kind of expecting the sorts of things you are describing from the Jack though. That Yamaha is the horn I'm using for A/B 'ing with piezo's at the moment. The nearest I've got is with a 1" piezo driver with a big moulded horn which sounds pretty good but won't quite handle the power. Using multiple piezo's gives the phasing problems you describe. I'd love to use the piezo's because they are electrically more robust than the coil versions and I hate expensive crossovers. I know I'm going to end up with 'proper ' horns and an electronic crossover in my heart but I just want to try a couple more experiments first.[/quote] I certainly wanted the piezos to sound good. But to me at least they really didn't and I consequently feel a bit sceptical about other people's glowing reports. Maybe some people just don't hear what I hear, or maybe there's some gross distortion using comp drivers that I'm strangely immune to (other than the usual harshness at the lower end of their useable frequency response). It wasn't a subtle difference though. We fitted the not-really-a-true-phase-plug as recommended in the Jack plans and found the performance difference negligible. I'm interested to know if you'd think a more complex design would lead to a real-world noticeable improvement.

[quote name='Phil Starr' post='969100' date='Sep 27 2010, 08:06 AM']I'm really interested in how you find these as PA speakers. What do you put through them? How are they on vocals? I've never managed to squeeze the sound I want out of piezos but they are working hard in my designs. The array means you are working each one much less but there are technical problems when high frequencies come from multiple sources spaced like these. The test of course is what they sound like and vocals are very revealing. I guess I ought to check up on your gig diary next time I come up to Reading.[/quote] Hi Phil, I thought I'd chip in here as my father and I built a set of 4 Jack 110s using Deltalite IIs and the piezo arrays (2 with 12 piezso, 2 with 6, piezos imported from Speaker Hardware in the States). We initially tried them on bass without piezos and found the sound to be very good, smooth and with excellent clarity despite the lack of tweeters. However. On PA duties, the piezo arrays to my ears (and my dad's, a relatively experienced sound engineer) sound dreadful, and we spent a long time trying to EQ them and fiddling around with crossover frequencies. The Jack 10s were very boxy sounding overall, and the gap between the speaker cut-off and the piezos kicking in properly (from memory, somewhere like 1-2k is much more audible than the graphs led me to think it would be, and we found impossible to restore with EQ in a way that was satisfactory. I tried a bit of modelling in hornresp using the jack 10 design, and found it behaved pretty similarly to what was predicted, the cut-off is just too low for those piezos. Additionally, overall the mid/upper mid-range response sounded flat and lifeless yet somehow also harsh. Above 2-2.5k it's there, but it's not nice. And yes, although everyone on the BFM site insisted the wiring must be incorrect, we double and triple-checked and basically lots of tweeters together pretty much sounded to us like a phasey version of one on its own. I A/B'ed against an Eminence tweeter (NSD2005 I think? OEM in Yamaha PAs) coupled to a horn and that was significantly better especially lower down, although it's still far from perfect. Much greater clarity across the usable frequency range. The Jack 10s are very loud though and as I said they did sound bizarrely nice on bass guitar. I actually think they'd work well as part of a 3-way design (although the lower-mid hump does make them very boxy so you'd really want to cross at about 800 max) but that sort of defeats the point of them. BFM insisted EQ was essential for any PA rig, I have to say I don't agree with that philosophy for little portable rigs but it is so for the Jacks as their untweaked response is very uneven indeed. But our experiences illustrated the point quite nicely that there's a lot more to speakers than flat frequency response. This works in the Jack's favour across some parts of the frequency range (I liked the upper-bass/low-mid clarity) but not others (anything 800-ish up). My 2p, take or leave it! Others say they're very happy with theirs and good for them, this is just our experience although I will say we did try and exhaust possbilities of faults/errors on our part before making up our minds.

[quote name='DaveMuadDib' post='969311' date='Sep 27 2010, 12:00 PM']Well, the situation is like so (kinda complex to explain!): The VM Jaguar has a concentric pot for each p'up, and quite uniquely, the bottom tone knobs click as they turn, while the smaller volume knobs on top rotate smoothly as standard. The potentiometers themselves are completely normal. So to achieve this clicking mechanism, there is a metal disc beneath both of the knobs, one half of which is welded to the control plate, the other half of which is slightly raised. There is also a tiny raised dome in the middle of this half of the disc. The large tone knobs have a series of holes underneath, dotted equally around the circumference. So the dome interacts with the hole in the knob, providing the clicking mechanism! (You might think that the knobs would be non-replaceable, but luckily the large unique tone knob is black, so it's only the top one that I need to replace, and I've done so already!) Phew! So if I were to replace the control plate and wanted to maintain this mechanism, I would either need to relocate the metal discs (impossible, and I don't want to damage the old hardware), make new ones (rather implausible) or bypass this nice clever clicking mechanism (undesirable). But it looks like the latter might have to be the solution! How uneconomic would a replacement control plate be? I'm a rather poor student [/quote] Any chance of a photo?