Dankology Posted March 9, 2022 Author Share Posted March 9, 2022 3 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said: What part of the country are you in @Dankology ? There's a permanent thread at the top of the Repairs section here of Basschatters round the country who can offer help to other Basschatters. It wouldn't take long for someone experienced to diagnose the issue...and I'm always bothered when a majorly high action is put down to truss rod (and yours is a majorly high action). Agreed, the rod may well be not adjusted correctly but, as @BigRedX says, this starts as a neck angle problem and, generally, that is easily fixed. I'm literally minutes away from a fabulous luthier (the guys who do these: https://reverb.com/uk/item/7274703-very-rare-brian-eastwood-bender-distortocaster ) but my pointless male pride means I want to have done as much as I possibly can myself before I send the flare up. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EssentialTension Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Dankology said: I'm literally minutes away from a fabulous luthier (the guys who do these: https://reverb.com/uk/item/7274703-very-rare-brian-eastwood-bender-distortocaster ) but my pointless male pride means I want to have done as much as I possibly can myself before I send the flare up. Your Bass VI looks in a better state than the one in that link. Edited March 9, 2022 by EssentialTension 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reggaebass Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 2 minutes ago, Dankology said: my pointless male pride means I want to have done as much as I possibly can myself before I send the flare up I get where you’re coming from there, i like to try myself too, then if I can’t solve the problem, (which has only happened a few times) I hand it over to a luthier 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 (edited) 36 minutes ago, Dankology said: I'm literally minutes away from a fabulous luthier (the guys who do these: https://reverb.com/uk/item/7274703-very-rare-brian-eastwood-bender-distortocaster ) but my pointless male pride means I want to have done as much as I possibly can myself before I send the flare up. I do know where you are coming from. If you do want to carry on trying first, then take the neck off again and put a thicker shim in from the back of the pocket (neck pickup side) to the first set of screws. Be prepared to end up trying this a few times. - Try an old credit card or similar - usually more than plenty but it will give you an idea where you are starting from. Plastic is better than card as it won't compress. - Make sure that there is no obstruction in the pocket and that the neck heel at the front of the pocket is fully seated so that you are gaining the full advantage of the shim - Bolt it all back up and restring. - If the action is now close to OK, then OK. If the strings are flat against the frets at the end of the fretboard, then will the saddle block adjust enough for a decent action without it looking like it's sitting on stalks? If not, then take it off and find a thinner piece of plastic. If the action is still way too high and the neck is seating properly in the pocket, take the neck off again and add a second piece of credit card When you are there or thereabouts, fine tune the truss rod relief and compensate by lowering or raising the saddle block. Many of the Basschatters on the list will do this sort of thing for nowt or close to nowt, so if there is one local to you... Edited March 9, 2022 by Andyjr1515 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 I think there are two separate issues at work here. Firstly there is the actual concept and design of the Fender/Squier Bass VI. Out of the box the instrument is perfectly playable if you are a guitarist looking to do some tic-tac bass or doubling up a guitar part on a 60s style recording. However a lot of modern bass players want something that is capable of being used as a stand-alone bass instrument, and unfortunately it's guitar-based heritage does not necessarily offer what a bass player wants. (This is why I have ultimately abandoned mine in favour of first a Burns Barracuda and now the Eastwood copy of the Shergold Marathon 6-string bass, but that's a completely different matter.) Out of the box (IME) there is nothing wrong with the action on these basses, but the fitted E and A strings are a little on the light (and therefore floppy) side and the whole bridge/vibrato mechanism while fine for doing MBV impersonations on a guitar is not really a sensible design feature on a bass. This is why as bass players we fit heavier strings and need to shim the neck. And as the OP has done replace the original wobbly bridge with the StayTrem version. The neck shim is only needed if you want to raise the bridge in order to increase the break angle behind the saddles to reduce the compliance of the strings. However once you have done that and fitted heavier strings there are a whole load of extra adjustments that need to be done to return the instrument to it's playable condition. The second issue is (as Andyjr1515 has already hinted at) that often the wrong things are adjusted to correct the problems that develop. It is important that the adjustments are made in a logical manner and only the right items are adjusted. While adjusting one thing may affect another, it should be sorted with its own adjustment. So in order: 1. The shim is there (on this instrument) to allow the bridge to be raised to increase the break angle over the saddles cure the floppy feeling of the lower strings on the Bass VI. Unfortunately this setting on the Bass VI is entirely subjective, and I get the impression that many people do it having been told it is a requirement without actually realising exactly why they are doing it, or what exactly they are aiming for. I've found that having the tops of the E string saddles approximately 17mm above the top of the scratch plate (combined with LaBella round-wound bass VI strings) gives the right feeling for me. That won't apply to everyone. 2. The truss rod is only there to adjust the straightness/relief of the neck. Any other effect is has is entirely separate and while require a different part of the instrument to be adjusted to compensate. Swapping from the factory fitted strings to either the LaBella or Newtone will almost definitely require the truss rod tightening slightly, but all you should be doing is correcting the change in relief caused by fitting heavier strings. 3. The intonation should only need adjusting because the new string are heavier and therefore the saddles need to be moved back very slightly to compensate. The OP has fitted a StayTrem bridge which I believe has a slightly greater range of adjustment, so there shouldn't be any problems here. Just work through the problems one at a time and use the correct adjustment for the correct part of the instrument and the OP should get be able to get it back to a playable state. If the OP does ultimately decide to get the bass looked at by a professional, they should explain to them the reason for fitting the shim and the higher than usual bridge setting, as I would suspect that a lot of luthiers would not necessarily know this and decide that removing an "unnecessary" shim and lowering the bridge would sort out all the problems and the OP will be back to where they originally started in terms of set-up which is not really what they want. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dankology Posted March 9, 2022 Author Share Posted March 9, 2022 (edited) Tonight's update... I followed @BigRedX's instructions re starting from scratch and initially setting the saddle height at 15mm. I needed to put in a shim of two layers of a plastic RAC membership card going up to the lowest neck screws in order to keep a straight line from neck to saddles. I then raised the bridge up a further 2mm and tuned up. The low E is in tune when played open, at the 12th fret harmonic and when fretted at the 12th fret. But every note from 1st to 11th fret is sharp - this gradually settles towards the octave and is sort of OK beyond there. The A and D strings are similarly affected but to a lesser extent - ie the A's intonation is right from the 10th fret up, the D from the 7th. Perhaps I need to let tonight's adjustments settle overnight but I've not got a great feeling here. I did contact my luthier but have to admit that I jumped pretty much straight to asking about a custom build... Edited March 9, 2022 by Dankology 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted March 10, 2022 Share Posted March 10, 2022 16 hours ago, Dankology said: Tonight's update... I followed @BigRedX's instructions re starting from scratch and initially setting the saddle height at 15mm. I needed to put in a shim of two layers of a plastic RAC membership card going up to the lowest neck screws in order to keep a straight line from neck to saddles. I then raised the bridge up a further 2mm and tuned up. The low E is in tune when played open, at the 12th fret harmonic and when fretted at the 12th fret. But every note from 1st to 11th fret is sharp - this gradually settles towards the octave and is sort of OK beyond there. The A and D strings are similarly affected but to a lesser extent - ie the A's intonation is right from the 10th fret up, the D from the 7th. Perhaps I need to let tonight's adjustments settle overnight but I've not got a great feeling here. I did contact my luthier but have to admit that I jumped pretty much straight to asking about a custom build... While still not ideal, that sounds a lot better than the situation you and the bass were in previously. Can you give an indication of exactly how far out the tuning of the fretted notes are? A few cents or something more serious and definitely noticeable when playing two note chords or drones? Remember that the tuning/fret position of a fretted instrument is a bit of a compromise between what is mathematically correct and what sounds right. Guitarists will often slightly alter the tuning on certain strings depending on what chords they are intending to play. The other thing to watch is that you are not pulling all the fretted notes slightly sharp as you fret them. This is something I have to watch when play the bass VI as the 30" scale means lower tension strings which are more susceptible to this. Fret each note carefully and see if by bending the string at each fret (in both directions) you can lower the pitch of the note rather than just raising it. If you are fretting the note perfectly bending in either direction will always raise the pitch. However if you are pulling or pushing the note sharp as you fret, bending in one direction will cause the pitch of the note to drop first before it rises. Unfortunately if this is the case, all you can do to avoid it, is work on your technique (like I am). Finally, if the tuning problems are more than 10 cents, and not a result to your playing technique, then I suggest you take the bass to a decent luthier and get them to look at the nut and ask for a fret dress explaining, and hopefully demonstrating by playing, what the problem is. BTW what sort of custom build are you considering? I would love a custom Bass VI incorporating on all the things I like from the various models I have played and getting rid of the those that I find makes playing one harder work than it should be. Unfortunately for my preferred luthier (Simon Farmer of Gus Guitars) we are looking at in excess of £6k for one with all the features I want... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dankology Posted March 10, 2022 Author Share Posted March 10, 2022 @BigRedX Things have got a little better today with incremental truss rod adjustments - I think there was still way too much relief and this was influencing the tuning issue. I can't quantify how out they were but certainly enough for my not-excellent ears to pick up on. It's still not perfect but I can just about play octaves now without cringing. I've still got way more buzz than I'd like but you're quite right - the overall situation is now siginficantly improved. I think the nut could definitely do with a proper seeing to too. I'm definitely not seeking perfection here - I have at least a couple of instruments (a mando and a guitar) that I'm happy to tune differently depending on which key I'm in. The saddles' positions relative to each other do look properly odd though. I was hoping to pick your brain regarding my theoretical custom build. In my head it's looking very much like the Elvis Costello Jazzmaster https://flickr.com/photos/mediawench/4096773922/in/set-72157594485374924 (maybe with a slightly scaled down body size) but almost certainly without the whammy bar and with more orthodox circuitry. I've always been a fan of P90s on guitars and was considering two of these rather than the three Jaguar-style ones. I am a fairly heavy handed player at times and I'm intrigued by what you were saying about your Hooky 6-string - ideally I'd be wanting something that functions as an extended-range bass rather than an extended range guitar, if that makes sense. Not for six grand though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted March 10, 2022 Share Posted March 10, 2022 I ended up with the Eastwood Hooky, because for me the most important thing was the increased string spacing, and of all the Bass VIs currently in production this is the one that is least like a guitar without having a neck as wide as a 34" scale 6-string bass. My Squier has a very narrow neck, similar to a 70s Stratocaster and IMO narrow even by guitar standards (the neck is certainly narrower than both the guitars I play). As I said previously the big problem I find with most bass VIs is that they are essentially guitars with longer necks and fatter strings. BTW have you looked at the Revelation version of the Bass VI? This has three P90 soapbar style pickups and a slightly wider neck than the Squier. It also has more conventional Stratocaster style pickup switching. I've found that for what I do the middle and the bridge pickups are the most useful - the middle for "bass guitar" sounds and the bridge for the more "guitar" -like parts. The Eastwood only has one pickup but it sits between these two positions and therefore is a suitable compromise. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dankology Posted March 11, 2022 Author Share Posted March 11, 2022 On 10/03/2022 at 15:49, BigRedX said: BTW have you looked at the Revelation version of the Bass VI? This has three P90 soapbar style pickups and a slightly wider neck than the Squier. It also has more conventional Stratocaster style pickup switching. I've found that for what I do the middle and the bridge pickups are the most useful - the middle for "bass guitar" sounds and the bridge for the more "guitar" -like parts. The Eastwood only has one pickup but it sits between these two positions and therefore is a suitable compromise. The Revelation was the first thing I Googled when I started losing the will to live several hours into messing with the Squier. They seem to be out of stock in most places but I'm thinking it could provide a model for a possible custom build. Triple P90s do look a bit crammed though. But I too seem to favour the middle position on the Squire (sometimes with the neck switched in too) so I've got a bit of thinking and mocking up to do here. Rehearsed with the Squire VI last night and things went reasonably well but definitely had some slightly grizzly notes on the low E. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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