Experimenting with a Shine Six-er

[Karnage]

The lower the note and/or the heavier the string, the harder it is for the sponge to mute it. It needs to get thinner as the strings get thinner to be more even in result.

On the pickup wiring, consider looking up how to wire series/parallel humbucking for these pickups if they are four-wired. This allows you to get a sound very close to single coils (it's two in parallel) but keep the lack of noise. Parallel for single type sound, series for standard humbucker. I use push-pull pots to do the switching to save more hole drilling etc.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Karnage

[Annoying Twit]

Thanks for the wiring advice. I'm waiting on some shielding tape bought on ebay to arrive, and will go through the electronics when it arrives.

This is sort of embarrassing to admit, but I actually don't have a bass amp. I play through a Zoom B2 on headphones for reasons of domestic harmony. When I got together with some people at work for a jam session, I used a borrowed Laney amp, but it's not mine. I keep thinking that if our trio develops, then I'll need an amp, but for practice, learning, and general mucking about, zoom + headphones seems to work fine. I even sometimes use my guitar Roland microcube + headphones so that I can plug my computer in to provide backing tracks.

My Cimar bass sounds really nice through everything I play it through. So, I don't it's the lack of EQ/processing that means I don't like the sound of the Shine so much. I just think that the Cimar sound (very similar to a Rickenbacker) is the 'sound for me', while in general (e.g. Eastwood Classic 4 is an exception - perhaps other shortscale basses with a neck pickup next to the neck) double humbuckers aren't.

I'd like to give experimenting with wiring, as suggested by Karnage, a go.

[Annoying Twit]

The more I experiment with this bass, the more I decide that I think it plays acceptably well now, but I simply do not like the sound of the pickups.

I'm strongly considering putting in these pickups, wired passively. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=400303187981&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:GB:1123 Those are five string pickups, but the seller has asked me for my string spacing as he believes that they will be wide enough.



I'd be tempted to remove the current active electronics and replace them with passive electronics. As that would allow me to swap them back. Or perhaps I should wire these pickups to the current active electronics?

I've looked as carefully as I can at the wires for the current pickups, and I can see no sign of additional wires that would allow me to coil tap them.

Advice would be very gratefully received, as this will require monetary outlay But while I can imagine that other people may well like the sound of this bass, unfortunately I don't.

BTW: I'm not concerned if the pickups don't take up all the room of the current pickups, and I end up with ugly exposed routing.

[blablas]

I wouldn't go for these cheap pickups, you'll probably regret it later on and wish you had gone for higher quality pickups.

As far as connecting, just wire them to the current electronics, you can always remove the preamp at a later time if you don't like it.

[Annoying Twit]

Thanks. Which pickups would you recommend I go for? This bass only cost me £60 at the beginning, and I'm not expecting to turn it into a really top-flight thing. In fact, I may well wreck it when/if I get around to levelling the frets and refinishing it. Hence, I don't want to sink £200-300 into a set of Barts and matching pre-amp.

If I was keeping the electronics, then I could change only the neck pickup (I generally prefer neck pickup sounds, but on my Cimar find both neck and bridge pickups to give very useful sounds). Looking around, I've found good reviews of the actually quite cheap Artec pickups. [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f38/artec-pickups-great-512689/"]Artec pickups are great! (Talkbass)[/url] You're going to be using a Artec sidewinder pickup in your SG bass build, so presume they can't be too bad! They're more expensive than the rail pickups I link to above, but still a very reasonable cost if I'm just mucking about with the idea of a pickup swap. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Artec-6-string-Bass-bar-pickup-15k-ohms-P35-/140743962779?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&var=440059927667&hash=item20c4fe709b"]About £19 all up on ebay.[/url]

Also, there are Wikinson MWJF6-6 pickups. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wilkinson-MWJF6-6-String-Bass-Guitar-Humbucker-Hot-Jazz-Pickup-Brand-New-/310414669802"]Wilkinson pickup on ebay, about £20 all up[/url]. I haven't found reviews of these, but my experience is that Wilkinson stuff is generally reasonable for the price.

Both of those are humbuckers, but include the extra wires for coil tapping. In this thread I've more or less mentally written off the Shine bass, so I'm not scared to do things to it. So, drilling holes to add a coil tap switch and/or holes for the lugs on the Wilkinson pickups is something I'd consider, even though I don't have the experience to be confident of not making a big mess of it.

Edit: It appears that neither of those pickups will fit in the current pickup holes. The pickups in there at the moment are about 105mm long. The replacement pickups are 112mm and 114mm long, as well as being wider. Hmmm.....

Edit: I'm told that it will be OK for me to have the CNC machine at work used to route out the pickup holes a bit bigger if I wait for a suitable time. BTW: I can only see two wires coming out of the black cables from the existing pickups. I'm wondering if I peel back the insulation a bit whether there might be other wires in there allowing coil tapping, which have been chopped off when the bass was manufactured.

Edited October 3, 2013 by Annoying Twit

[blablas]

I think the Artec and Wilkinson pickups are a step up from the ones you linked before.
I understand you don't want to spend the money on Bartolini's or something compatible on this bass, but then again if you want to improve this bass I think you are taking the risk of a disappointment if you are replacing the cheap ones that are already in there with another set of cheap ones, the pickups are the most important part of a good sound and the good ones are expensive for a reason, you're not only paying for the brand.

If you want to use five string pickups for a six string and they are split coil watch out that all the strings are covering the coils because most five string pu's are split in 2 by 3 string pairs coils, if one of your stings is running over the gap that is between them you can experience a drop in volume for that string in relation to the other strings. I've had that experience with a set of 5 string pu's (Barts) that I had lying around and which I tried on a four string.
If they are single coils it's no problem but then you have be very thorough with shielding and grounding to minimize the possible hum.

The sidewinder I'm using is a experiment, I don't know this type of humbuckers and for the price I payed for it I was willing to give it a go.

Edited October 3, 2013 by blablas

[Annoying Twit]

Hi. I do greatly appreciate your advice, but must admit that my gut feeling now is that I would like to give the blade pickups a go. While at that price they aren't going to be the best pickups, I am experimenting, and would think that they would be in the ballpark. I've searched around, and I can't find an examples of blade pickups that are split coil without it being visually obvious as the blade is not continuous. E.g.



I have asked the ebay seller if they know how the pickups are wound.




I've played a number of very cheap jazz basses, Johnson basses and the like, and while they don't sound excellent, they sound reasonable. I've also heard youtube videos of very expensive basses with active humbuckers that sound unattractive to me in the same way that the Shine does. So, swapping cheap pickups for cheap pickups might still be a reasonable experiment, if the type of pickup is very different. From the measurements, it also looks as if I can put those blade pickups in without having to remove any wood, perhaps just putting blocks of foam into the pickup holes to help suspend the pickups in the right place and drilling guide holes for the pickup screws. At £24 for this experiment, I don't think I'd be too upset if in future months I decide I wish to try another pickup in there. It's more the experiments I want to do at this point, rather than being too worried about the quality of the result.

On the other hand, I did find last night that the bass seemed to be sounding worse and worse, and losing oomph. My experiment for tonight is to put in a fresh battery and see what, if anything, that does. I bought the bass several years ago, and I think that might be the battery that came with it. I can't remember.

BTW: I bought the shielding tape as discussed in your build thread. But I found that I couldn't remove the electronics from the Shine as I couldn't undo the jack plug. I'm so used to cheap instruments where I have to keep an eye on the jack plug in case it loosens and disappears inside the bass, and hence was surprised to find such a robust one on the Shine. Which I must admit I couldn't work out how to undo and remove.

I did shield the cavity on a Vintage V100 LP-a-like as a substitute experiment. It didn't look as neat as your shielding from your recent build, but looked like a reasonable coverage of all exposed surfaces with an overlap to make an electrical connection with the tape on the cavity cover. If the guitar is placed sufficiently near sources of electrical interference, it still picks up hums and buzzes however, but I guess that no shielding will prevent electrical interference if it's strong enough.

I do greatly appreciate your advice, which is why I don't want to just do the opposite without explanation. But my inclination is to give the pickups a go and see what happens. I guess I'd still be able to sell them for £10 on ebay or something But, I'd probably keep them around for experiments, e.g. if I ever DO get around to making a lap steel bass.

[blablas]

Nothing wrong with single coils, I love the sound. That's one of the reasons, when I'm using dual coil humbuckers, I like to have a series/single/parallel switch.

Keep us posted of what these blade pickups sound like, hopefully they are a hidden gem.

[Annoying Twit]

I've bought them, and presume that they'll turn up next week. I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong if they sound like £$%^.

[MB1]

MB1.
?

[Annoying Twit]

Hmmm.... Putting a fresh battery in seems to have significantly improved the sound of this bass.

[Annoying Twit]

The pickups have arrived in the post. I've taken the old pickups out, and put one of the new ones in. Result is an ugly looking bass



It's an interesting experiment. I haven't tightened the pickup screws very far down as I don't have a drill to make guide holes. I'll borrow one, so I can drill a bit more and screw them down further without stripping the heads on them. The pickup is probably too high and close to the strings right now.

Some aspects of the sound haven't changed nearly as much as I expected, given that previously the bass had two humbuckers, and currently it has a single single coil. (It'll gain the other one on Sunday probably). However, the B string in particular has just so much bass power it's silly. I can't turn the bass boost up beyond flat or it's just over the top and starts distorting. I pushed the pickup down a bit, and now it distorts less, but the B string in particular is much less powerful. I think I prefer the sound with the pickup close to the strings.

There's a fair amount of single coil hum, which isn't surprising since I've only put one single coil in. BTW: I connected the pickup to the existing active electronics.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Annoying Twit

[Annoying Twit]

I finally got around to drilling holes for the pickup screws in the wood, and I can now screw down the screws further. I'm using rough blocks of foam to act as springs underneath the pickups. I can now adjust the height of the pickups.

The overall result is that the pickups seem OK. It sounds like a bass. But, I don't think it's a very inspiring sound. While I used the cheaper pickups, Given that the basic character of the sound that I don't like has stayed the same, I wonder if this is the sound of the bass itself, rather than the pickups. It does seem to have a lot more power in the low B string however, perhaps to the degree that it overpowers the other strings a bit.

The bass looks very ugly with the pickups in holes that are too small for them. Thinking about possible solutions for this, one might be to make and install a pickguard on the bass. If that was the case, I'm wondering about the possibility of attaching the pickups to the pickguard, rather than to the wood.

[Annoying Twit]

It's been a long time since anyone else commented in this thread, so I don't know if I should continue solo posting. But, I've decided that overall I'm pleased with the admittedly minor changes the pickup swap led to. The sound is slightly beefier particularly for the B string. Playing along with a Roland PMA-5 with the bass track muted, the bass sounds quite OK in the mix. I've been fiddling with the setup in terms of string height and truss rod tension a bit, and seem to have stumbled onto something I find reasonable, and gives me less 'clank'. Such that I feel I enjoy playing the bass now, while before I really didn't enjoy it that much.

It was an accident that I started playing it last night. I was playing along with some ultra-cheesy tunes I'd written on the PMA some years ago, and found one of them was in the key of Eb major. In working out a bass line, I had one that naturally wanted to descend from the Eb on the A string down, but of course on my four string I didn't have a lower Eb to descend to! So, out came the six string

Edited October 22, 2013 by Annoying Twit

[Annoying Twit]

Potential pickguard and new truss rod cover (missing when I first bought the bass) designs. These are deliberately simple.

I'm planning to make these using black plastic, with the assumption that at some time in the future I'll refinish the bass in a light natural wood oil finish, if I can work out how people put a finish on a bass that really brings out the grain. (I"ve seen this mentioned several times).

I wondered about designing a pickguard and truss rod cover in the shape of a well known litigious American bass manufacturer as a joke, but couldn't make a sufficiently curved TRC shape that would fit on the headstock, and didn't want to extend the pickguard to include the knobs.



My pictures seem to get blurrier each time I try, but this should give the basic idea.



If I do this, I'd be designing the items with CAD software, and hence there would be no problems getting them to be symmetrical. Unlike the cardboard

Ideas for how the design could be changed gratefully accepted. But, nothing too weird or technically difficult please

Edited October 22, 2013 by Annoying Twit

[JapanAxe]

MDP had better watch out!

[Annoying Twit]

How else would you recommend I learn this bass setup/modding lark?

[DarkHeart]

these are at £2.20 when i posted the link, you might drop lucky if you read this in time.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kent-Armstrong-6-String-Humbucking-Bass-Guitar-Pickup-Pair-/121200567144?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&hash=item1c381de368

[Myke]

How're you getting on with this?

I picked up the same bass but in black today, did a quick shim which made it much, much easier to play. I must admit I prefer the sound acoustically more than I do through my amp but I'm still learning what I can get out of it. Not a bad bass for £65

[Annoying Twit]

[quote name='Myke' timestamp='1384731379' post='2280183']
How're you getting on with this?

I picked up the same bass but in black today, did a quick shim which made it much, much easier to play. I must admit I prefer the sound acoustically more than I do through my amp but I'm still learning what I can get out of it. Not a bad bass for £65
[/quote]

I haven't progressed at all since my last posting. I use the bass as-is with the cardboard pickguard held in place by friction. At present I'm so busy that I'm unlikely to do anything more with this bass until December. What spare time I have I'm spending on my [url=http://basschat.co.uk/topic/218120-diy-looper-project/]DIY looper project[/url]. I'd need to use equipment at work for the pickguard, and at the moment when I get to work I'm submerged in work. But, it will happen sometime.

[Myke]

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1384758888' post='2280256']
I haven't progressed at all since my last posting. I use the bass as-is with the cardboard pickguard held in place by friction. At present I'm so busy that I'm unlikely to do anything more with this bass until December. What spare time I have I'm spending on my [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/218120-diy-looper-project/"]DIY looper project[/url]. I'd need to use equipment at work for the pickguard, and at the moment when I get to work I'm submerged in work. But, it will happen sometime.
[/quote]

Ah okay, please keep us informed when you do