The Yamaha BB mega-thread

[Al Krow]

9 minutes ago, gobasserk said:

Hi folks..... after a loooong time of not touching my BB's I found a new band and tried the new material with my main BB and.... I think it is kind of a BB comeback!

That's very positive news to hear. What sort of music genre will you guys be playing? 

 

It's sometimes really refreshing having a break from a particular bass, which you know deep down is a treasure but may have become a little aurally stale from being constantly played. When you come back to it, you get that "oh yeah, that's why I fell in love with that bass!" 

 

Had that with my Spector recently - set it on bridge pup and started playing notes on the low E and B strings. My initial thoughts were that there must be something up with the amp as it was not coming through perfectly clean. And then it twigged, there was no problem with anything. Just that delicious Spector growl! 

[TheGreek]

IIRC somebody was looking for a BB1200. There's one on Gumtree in North London for £675. Check the pick ups first.

 

Seller looks to be clearing out  a few basses.

 

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/yamaha-bb1200-vintage-bass-guitar-with-original-hard-case-/1421088089

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by TheGreek

[LukeFRC]

35 minutes ago, gobasserk said:

Hi folks..... after a loooong time of not touching my BB's I found a new band and tried the new material with my main BB and.... I think it is kind of a BB comeback!

a comeBBack

[LukeFRC]

7 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

IIRC somebody was looking for a BB1200. There's one on Gumtree in North London for £675. Check the pick ups first.

 

Seller looks to be clearing out  a few basses.

 

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/yamaha-bb1200-vintage-bass-guitar-with-original-hard-case-/1421088089

 

two questions... why check the pickups? 
And two ... I'm surprised @gareth hasn't driven to enfield yet!

[TheGreek]

Are they the original pups? They don't look very Yamaha-ish.

[gareth]

1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

IIRC somebody was looking for a BB1200. There's one on Gumtree in North London for £675. Check the pick ups first.

 

Seller looks to be clearing out  a few basses.

 

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/yamaha-bb1200-vintage-bass-guitar-with-original-hard-case-/1421088089

 

Very much like my old bb1200 recently sold

The pups look ok to me

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by gareth

[chriswareham]

1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

IIRC somebody was looking for a BB1200. There's one on Gumtree in North London for £675. Check the pick ups first.

 

Seller looks to be clearing out  a few basses.

 

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/yamaha-bb1200-vintage-bass-guitar-with-original-hard-case-/1421088089

 

 

That's my listing - someone just messaged me about the pickups and mentioned that there was interest here on Basschat! The bass is completely original, including the pickups, and I bought it from Beedster on this very website. I've used it quite a bit in a Joy Division tribute act, but people expect the red Rickenfaker that Hooky used so the Yamaha has sat unused for quite a while.

[gobasserk]

Well, I am still totally in love with some Telecaster basses and bought a new amp and preamp and adjusted everything for the single coil basses. 

Now I readjusted some things and the BB shines again. For the new band, the Yamaha will fit better. It is a ridiculous talented singer/ songwriter . 
 

[LukeFRC]

48 minutes ago, chriswareham said:

 

That's my listing - someone just messaged me about the pickups and mentioned that there was interest here on Basschat! The bass is completely original, including the pickups, and I bought it from Beedster on this very website. I've used it quite a bit in a Joy Division tribute act, but people expect the red Rickenfaker that Hooky used so the Yamaha has sat unused for quite a while.

it looks amazing! 

[Al Krow]

On 06/12/2021 at 22:19, Maude said:

Whichever is the keeper gets the series switch mod. 

 

I think this "Rioli mod" could really catch on! I don't have your bass tech skills, Maude, but I know an excellent chap who does, so it's gonna cost me a bit more than for you to sort. But be a great mod to see if I can get expertly done to both my BB2005 and BB1025, which are both keepers, and maybe swap out the NE mid cut on 2005 at the same time, which I'm not using at all, for a full 3 band EQ. Potentially make two awesome basses, awesomer...going on my 2022 wish list! 

[Maude]

6 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

I think this "Rioli mod" could really catch on! I don't have your bass tech skills, Maude, but I know an excellent chap who does, so it's gonna cost me a bit more than for you to sort. But be a great mod to see if I can get expertly done to both my BB2005 and BB1025, which are both keepers, and maybe swap out the NE mid cut on 2005 at the same time, which I'm not using at all, for a full 3 band EQ. Potentially make two awesome basses, awesomer...going on my 2022 wish list! 

 

It really is a great mod, as long as you like the series sound. 

But it's completely non invasive (bar a bit of soldering), you still have all your original tones, and reversible if you no longer want it for any reason. 

 

I think the best way of describing the series sound is rather than one of either pickup (call either p/u 100%) or a blend of the two (50% of each to get 100%), it's like taking the full sound of each p/u and stacking them to get 200%. Full, punchy and a slight volume boost. 

It works better with some pickups than others. 

I've found the wider the p/u spacing, the more the series tone is a distinct tone of it's own, and you get three completely different sounds (with a two p/u bass). 

[gobasserk]

Found this guy in a dusty case somewhere... might be worth playing again. 

 

[Munurmunuh]

On a Telecaster the additional series option is often called position 4 – when you've got a standard bridge-parallel-neck switch, adding a 4th position for series is extremely easy from a wiring point of view, and the physically the Telecaster switch is like a Strat switch and so doesn’t mind having a 4th position. The 3-way toggle of a 424 would present problems

 

On a Jazz, the series option is called an S-1 switch, iirc. I'm hazy on how that series switch behaves with two seperate volume knobs. My guess is that once they're in series it's like having two Master volumes in a row? Perhaps the standard mod includes bypassing one of the volumes? 🤷 Anyway it seems having a separate switch as a pull-push is the standard way of doing it on basses.

 

One way of hearing the basic difference in tone is to listen to a demo of a G&L Kiloton, which has a switch that goes between having a the two coils of its humbucker in series or parallel. The extra thickness of the series sound is very obvious. I've not read of anyone adding a switch like that to a Stingray – perhaps in series its humbucker would lose its sting?

[Doctor J]

Usually one volume control becomes redundant. Essentially, the switch routes the bridge pickup into the path of the neck pickup. The neck pickup control becomes a master volume and the bridge volume does nothing, as nothing is being directed through it.

[Doctor J]

After I installed the Sadowsky preamp into this Blade, I had a spare hole where the Blade pre had a voicing switch. I used a DPDT on/on switch to enable to serial mod and it's the same thing, in serial mode there is nothing going through the bridge pickup side of the blend pot. If you only have the bridge pickup selected, the serial switch basically acts as a kill switch. 

 

[Doctor J]

The push/pull was installed in this Charvel JP. It was VVT and, as said, the bridge volume became redundant when serial was engaged. The tone change in serial was far more noticeable on the Charvel than the Blade, possibly the result of the P being part of it. It's a noticeable change on the Blade, but it was a huge change on the Charvel.

[LukeFRC]

25 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

I've not read of anyone adding a switch like that to a Stingray – perhaps in series its humbucker would lose its sting?

I’ve done that on a DIY stingray I built - one of the reasons it isn’t common is that the pickup feeds directly into the preamp and it doesn’t love the impedance switching. 
the L1000 is probably a good example where pickup switching was designed in

[Doctor J]

28 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

 I've not read of anyone adding a switch like that to a Stingray – perhaps in series its humbucker would lose its sting?

I installed one in this Bacchus which, despite the look, has the Stingray sound in spades. It's a very useful mod and gives a whole new voice to  Ray. It's still a Ray sound, just growlier. I picked up an EBMM Ray in a trade recently and I think a push/pull mod is on the cards 🙂

[Al Krow]

My BB2005 has the stock pre-amp set up as follows:

 

 

Following on from the v interesting / useful chat above, I'm thinking that the following mod might work well:

 

1. Pup/Blend --> Pup/Blend + push-pull Parallel (down) & Series (up)

2. Vol (unchanged)

3. B --> T

4. T --> M

5. NE mid cut --> B

6. NE by-pass --> active/passive 

 

What do you reckon?

 

Oh and maybe swapping the chrome knobs --> black knobs to match the pups, but jury still out on that one, given the bridge and tuners are chrome.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Al Krow

[Munurmunuh]

I had this daydream ..... a one humbucker bass with 4 knobs and a switch .... with the switch off, the humbucker is in series and goes to a passive tone .... with the switch on, the humbucker changes to parallel and goes to a classic stingray clone 2 band EQ .... the idea being that either way, the sound is getting something extra.

 

Perhaps the downfall for this daydream would be that the two different sounds would want two different pickup placings?

 

But that's getting a long way from BBs, sorry. I have been trying to find demos of PJs wired in series. Haven't found anything good yet.

[Doctor J]

I don't have the Charvel anymore, but I'll put something together with audio samples of switching between serial and parallel with what I have left some time soon.

[Osiris]

13 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Had that with my Spector recently - set it on bridge pup and started playing notes on the low E and B strings. My initial thoughts were that there must be something up with the amp as it was not coming through perfectly clean. And then it twigged, there was no problem with anything. Just that delicious Spector growl! 

 

You ought to get onto Spector's marketing department with this, it sounds like they're missing a trick,

 

"That delicious Spector growl - it sounds like there must be something up with your amp"

 

😀

[krispn]

20 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

I had this daydream ..... a one humbucker bass with 4 knobs and a switch .... with the switch off, the humbucker is in series and goes to a passive tone .... with the switch on, the humbucker changes to parallel and goes to a classic stingray clone 2 band EQ .... the idea being that either way, the sound is getting something extra.

 

Perhaps the downfall for this daydream would be that the two different sounds would want two different pickup placings?

 

But that's getting a long way from BBs, sorry. I have been trying to find demos of PJs wired in series. Haven't found anything good yet.

Or to go one step further with something like the Nordstrand Bigman with the option to split the humbucker coils into ‘bridge’ or ‘neck’ then add series and parallel and a passive option. Then you really push the full potential of a one pick up bass 

[Doctor J]

You can do that with any four-conductor humbucker pickup, it's all down to the switch.

[krispn]

17 minutes ago, Doctor J said:

You can do that with any four-conductor humbucker pickup, it's all down to the switch.

I just like the Bigman 🙂