Harley Benton MB 4 SBK mods?

[thisisswanbon]

On 18/12/2022 at 16:36, Bassfinger said:

Good lord, no!  As stock they have nothing to be ashamed of low down, and with the Warman pickup it's like Joss Ackland clearing his throat.

Thanks for the reassurance! 

 

Mines just arrived, haven't plugged it in yet but initial impressions are aside from some sharp fretwork, it genuinely feels like a solid instrument and I can't work out how they've produced this at this price point! Can't wait to get her plugged in!

[ern500evo]

For those who have added a Warman pickup, are your controls still volume-volume-tone, or is it now just volume-tone with the Warman pup? 

[kodiakblair]

8 minutes ago, ern500evo said:

are your controls still volume-volume-tone, or is it now just volume-tone with the Warman pup? 

You can set it for either.

 

Warman comes wired in series, if you want Vol/Vol/Tone just separate the red/white wires.

 

Black would ground on one vol pot with white as hot, Red ground/Green hot for the other pot 👍

[Stub Mandrel]

On 15/12/2022 at 10:04, carlsim said:

I added the Warman pup to my 5 string one and that made a significant different to the tonal capabilities. I also added an Artec SE2a preamp (this has a stacked treble and bass 2 band eq and a balance and volume).

 

This made a huge difference to me in terms of tonal shaping. it was a tight squeeze and needed a bit of fettling to get in but for about £40/£50 this has made a massive difference to this bass. Admittedly the balance doesn't really need to be there but i just leave it central to select both coils. I wanted to add a series parallel switch at some point but adapting this is outside my capabilities!

 

I also defretted mine as I wanted a cheap fretless 5 and changed some of the hardware for chrome to remove that matt blackness of it! See below...

 

I also have further plans to completely reshape it into a headless bass and chamber out the body to reduce weight. Basically, mill off 5-10mm off the top, chamber out sections of the body and then glue on a new top and refinish. This would also mean refinishing the neck as well unless i can hide where i chop the headstock off! A white body with the matt black neck would look quite cool!

 

 

 

Nothing to dramatic then...

[Stub Mandrel]

On 18/12/2022 at 16:36, Bassfinger said:

Good lord, no!  As stock they have nothing to be ashamed of low down, and with the Warman pickup it's like Joss Ackland clearing his throat.

 

I was playing ming through my Joyo badass and at212s, no shortage of low end. But now got the Warman ready to fit.

[thisisswanbon]

Second impressions after plugging in... Sounds great, but the strings seem poorly balanced! D and G are loud and mega punchy, but the A sounds weak in comparison and the E even worse 🤔

 

I've adjusted action and truss rod and it's slightly better, but still not great. Could be a string thing though although the issue isn't as present acoustically.

 

Other issue is the A string tuner is almost unusable. You can see the paint stripping from the thread where there's friction. I didn't expect glory for just over £100, but I expect functional regardless of how much I pay. 

Edited December 20, 2022 by thisisswanbon

[Bassfinger]

7 hours ago, ern500evo said:

For those who have added a Warman pickup, are your controls still volume-volume-tone, or is it now just volume-tone with the Warman pup? 

I wired mine as per standard.

 

You can see why I went for Wilkinson tuners very quickly!

Edited December 20, 2022 by Bassfinger

[thisisswanbon]

1 hour ago, Bassfinger said:

You can see why I went for Wilkinson tuners very quickly!

I may be doing the same myself... I'm guessing they weren't a straight replacement though?  Were you left with holes?

[Bassfinger]

I had no exposed holes, so they look OK.  The HB tuner spacing is a little closer than the Fender norm so 3 of the Wilkinson tuners required about 0.5mm filing off the edge where they butt up to the adjacent tuner.  The backplate covers the old holes and the Wilko tuners actually work very nicely.

[mcnach]

9 hours ago, thisisswanbon said:

Second impressions after plugging in... Sounds great, but the strings seem poorly balanced! D and G are loud and mega punchy, but the A sounds weak in comparison and the E even worse 🤔

 

I've adjusted action and truss rod and it's slightly better, but still not great. Could be a string thing though although the issue isn't as present acoustically.

 

Other issue is the A string tuner is almost unusable. You can see the paint stripping from the thread where there's friction. I didn't expect glory for just over £100, but I expect functional regardless of how much I pay. 

 

 

The tuners are not great, it's true.

 

The ones on my girlfriend's PB-20 SBK were equally bad. One chewed itself out the first time the bass was restrung. The tuners on the MB-5 SBK look exactly the same. Mine are doing ok so far, and I've used the bass a lot (gigged with it over the summer too), but they won't last long. 

 

At least it's a cheap bass. I've seen the same on £1300 SBMM Ray35 basses, which is insane. 

[kodiakblair]

9 hours ago, thisisswanbon said:

You can see the paint stripping from the thread where there's friction.

Disassemble the tuning peg, any stripped material caught between the worm and gear will lead to further damaged.

 

Take them apart, give everything a wee clean and grease the worm gear. Reassemble, making sure the wheel is round the right way and the cogs seat into the worm spiral.

 

Regards your unbalanced E/A strings, had the same issue with a SBMM Sub. Offsetting the pickup height might help.

[Stub Mandrel]

I seem to have been lucky with mine, although one of the ones that came with my HB kit bass needed a tweak. I replaced them with Wilkinsons which are really nice... then ended up replacing everything except the neck, so I got a Squier neck and ended up with a bitsa of quality parts plus a HB neck and an HB with a squier neck... 🤣

 

FWIW been playing the MB-5 through the Joyo and my PJB C2. Sounded nice, balanced but mellow. Wanted top practice singing and playing so swapped to a 4-string - randomly chose my passive Westone Thunder 1. Massively louder with loads of growl... I hope the Warman pickup mode brings that kind of improvement!

 

Have ordered a 4-way 3-pole switch so will wait for that, plan is to wire it:

 

Coil 1 : series : parallel : coil 2

 

But have to think about how to connect it up!

[thisisswanbon]

4 hours ago, kodiakblair said:

Disassemble the tuning peg, any stripped material caught between the worm and gear will lead to further damaged.

 

Take them apart, give everything a wee clean and grease the worm gear. Reassemble, making sure the wheel is round the right way and the cogs seat into the worm spiral.

 

Regards your unbalanced E/A strings, had the same issue with a SBMM Sub. Offsetting the pickup height might help.

That's not a bad shout... I'll have a look before spending any coinage!  Did you manage to rectify the SBMM Sub issue?  I did try adjusting the pick up height last night but didn't make a massive difference in honesty.  It's almost as if the E and A aren't as direct as the other strings, almost like the difference between DI and micing a cab from a distance

[Huge Hands]

I have been playing my MB-5 that I bought last December (last purchase before Brexit) a lot this month as it may be heavy to some, but it is a lot lighter than my main Sire V7 and my back has been giving me gyp.

 

I love mine as a back up bass and it is still totally stock, apart from a set of cheap flatwounds.  My only gripe (if you can call it that) is that it seems to have sustain for days and days which is not good for me so this has been solved with a bit of foam under the strings..

 

I also miss the single volume control of the V7 but I am really clutching at straws to moan about a bass that IIRC was about £110 delivered at the time.

[kodiakblair]

1 hour ago, thisisswanbon said:

Did you manage to rectify the SBMM Sub issue?

Naw.

 

Had an email from a SBMM manager saying it was preamp related, pretty cool; fella saw my request for advice on Talkbass 😃 

 

London shop it came from were total d**ks. First they said they'd sent a replacement bass, then changed their tune when I thanked them for sending an exact replacement ; even the ID note I'd hidden under the PG came with the the replacement 😄 That had them singing "we just replaced the preamp", b0ll0cks they'd done heehaw bar resend the same bass.

 

Was an Xmas raffle prize so they weren't prepared to ship a 3rd time, told me to pick something else up to B-stock value. 

[thisisswanbon]

2 hours ago, Huge Hands said:

I have been playing my MB-5 that I bought last December (last purchase before Brexit) a lot this month as it may be heavy to some, but it is a lot lighter than my main Sire V7 and my back has been giving me gyp.

 

I love mine as a back up bass and it is still totally stock, apart from a set of cheap flatwounds.  My only gripe (if you can call it that) is that it seems to have sustain for days and days which is not good for me so this has been solved with a bit of foam under the strings..

 

I also miss the single volume control of the V7 but I am really clutching at straws to moan about a bass that IIRC was about £110 delivered at the time.

I wouldn't consider this a heavy bass at all to be fair, although my Jazz is an absolute boat anchor!

[thisisswanbon]

1 hour ago, kodiakblair said:

Naw.

 

Had an email from a SBMM manager saying it was preamp related, pretty cool; fella saw my request for advice on Talkbass 😃 

 

London shop it came from were total d**ks. First they said they'd sent a replacement bass, then changed their tune when I thanked them for sending an exact replacement ; even the ID note I'd hidden under the PG came with the the replacement 😄 That had them singing "we just replaced the preamp", b0ll0cks they'd done heehaw bar resend the same bass.

 

Was an Xmas raffle prize so they weren't prepared to ship a 3rd time, told me to pick something else up to B-stock value. 

Sounds like a shop to avoid if I'm honest! I had a similar experience with an EBMM sterling 5 that had a faulty pick up, sent away 3 times for repair with nothing done! 

 

If the sound issue was anything like mine then it doesn't sound pre amp related, as these are passive 😬... Good of him to message you though!

[thisisswanbon]

For anyone interested in these basses, thought I'd give an update...

 

I contacted Thomann about the unusable tuners, they offered a new set or £25 partial refund. How they can do that on a bass of this value is insane, but very stand up of them. 

 

I put this on top of the Wilkinson tuner price and ordered some black Schaller tuners instead. Much better fit than the Wilkinson's sound, with only 1 hole per tuner to be redrilled. Embarrassingly, I made an absolute pigs ear of this after a good skinful; 2 sheered screws later and a few headstock dings later they were fitted.  I suspect if I'd been sober, it'd have been an easy job though.

 

the unbalanced string volume was infarct a string issue! Put some D'addario NYXLs on and it sounds awesome for the money. Going to gig it before deciding on the electrics!

 

[ern500evo]

Mine arrived this week. Thoroughly impressed tbh. Can’t believe this bass is £121 brand new, including delivery from Germany! I’ve only played it briefly through a little 15w practice amp, but will get to play it through my ABM600 and Big Twin 2 later this week at rehearsal. Truss rod needs a little tweak, it’s a little bit buzzy at the headstock end but only a little. When I look back to the first bass I owned, a weird Encore bass, the quality of this HB for the price is just ridiculous 

[ern500evo]

Well I used it for the first time through my gig rig tonight, and have to say, it’s just brilliant for the price point. Ran it through my ABM600 and Barefaced Big Twin 2. For live stuff I usually have my Darkglass Vintage Microtubes pedal always engaged, for a light grit. I played about 50% of tonight’s rehearsal clean, just to get more of an idea of the core tone of the bass. It’s great! It sounds snarly and has a nice growl when you dig in. The front volume pot has a bit of a squeak to it, I’ll take some contact cleaner with me to next rehearsal. Apart from that, I don’t really have any complaints. I bought it solely with the intention of leaving it at our rehearsal space, so I don’t need to take anything with me to rehearsals, but after a few hours jamming with it, I think I’d be more than happy to actually gig with it. Am curious as to how much of an upgrade the Warman pickup is now? 

[Stub Mandrel]

I've fitted the Warman PUP to my MB-5. Also shielded the control cavity swapped out one volume control for a 4-way switch to give bridge winding, series, parallel and neck settings.

 

Works, but have to wait until the morning to test at volume.

[BassApprentice]

I want to love these but I'm just not a fully blacked out stealth type of guy. Would be great to see this in more colours Vs the other stingray style HBs! 

[ern500evo]

49 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I've fitted the Warman PUP to my MB-5. Also shielded the control cavity swapped out one volume control for a 4-way switch to give bridge winding, series, parallel and neck settings.

 

Works, but have to wait until the morning to test at volume.

That sounds like a great upgrade. Be interesting to hear your thoughts once you’ve rested it at volume 

[Bassfinger]

On 05/01/2023 at 22:47, ern500evo said:

Well I used it for the first time through my gig rig tonight, and have to say, it’s just brilliant for the price point. Ran it through my ABM600 and Barefaced Big Twin 2. For live stuff I usually have my Darkglass Vintage Microtubes pedal always engaged, for a light grit. I played about 50% of tonight’s rehearsal clean, just to get more of an idea of the core tone of the bass. It’s great! It sounds snarly and has a nice growl when you dig in. The front volume pot has a bit of a squeak to it, I’ll take some contact cleaner with me to next rehearsal. Apart from that, I don’t really have any complaints. I bought it solely with the intention of leaving it at our rehearsal space, so I don’t need to take anything with me to rehearsals, but after a few hours jamming with it, I think I’d be more than happy to actually gig with it. Am curious as to how much of an upgrade the Warman pickup is now? 

It's hilarious how much they punch above their price point. Very versatile and playable bits of kit, and ripe for modifying.

 

Speaking of which, the Warman pickup is something else. It darkens to tone a touch and adds a slight frisson of growl that I really like. Slap a fancy name on it, trot out some glossy advertising with moody shots of the pickup on a gloss black surface and people would pay 4 times as much and would not be disappointed with the performance.

[Stub Mandrel]

Sounds good, but only a quick spin.