It's a Sei bass with knobs on.

[7string]

My Sei has always been a bit frustrating. Immaculately built, plays superbly but I always wanted the tone to be a bit more rounded. The sound always wandered to that bridge pickup J-bass sound that I just can’t stand (some love that, I just don’t). It wasn’t that the tone was bad, but to me it was just OK.





After having the bass for a few months, I had a Schack pre-amp fitted. That was fine for a while but gradually got more and more frustrating. The Schack pre-amp has a gazillion different options (I exaggerate it’s only a million), but nothing really worked. It was OK. A slightly better version of OK, but still OK. Nothing more. Something had to be done.

I thought that if the pre-amp wasn’t helping then it has to be the pickup itself. I figured out that wasn’t too near the bridge, so I should have had a good tone from its placement. It was time to take the darn thing out.





I knew that it was a Kent Armstrong pickup, so seeing a Kent Armstrong sticker on the bottom was no surprise. The hand-written numbers though, made no sense to me at all so I decided to go to the source and e-mail Aaron Armstrong. Aaron winds the pickups for ACG, I have them in my ACG bass and they are really something special.

The news from Aaron was bad but good. The pickup was designed to be a bridge pickup and not necessarily to be used further towards the neck. Also, the pickup couldn’t be rewound, so I’d need a new pickup. Problem found, I needed a solution. I asked Aaron what he could do for me.

Wanting to have a look around I asked Wizard what they could do but, unfortunately, they don’t carry cases large enough for a 7. Nordstrand seem to have such a reputation at the moment, so I e-mailed them to see what they’d suggest. The reply was friendly and prompt: they could make a pickup for me and I should contact Mark at Bass Direct. His replies were also prompt and friendly, but the more I looked at the cost of the Nordstrand the more I winced at the pain I would feel in my wallet. £175 plus £50 fitting. No doubt I would get a quality product and the install would be extremely well done, but that to me was very expensive.

Aaron’s reply was that he was absolutely sure he could make something to suit. Also, he could make exactly the same size, so re-fitting wouldn’t involve any routing or drilling and be relatively painless. I unsoldered the pickup, packed it so that it would take Aaron at least 20 minutes to open it, and sent it off. I also went to PayPal’s website and sent Aaron £75. Yup, £75.

With the pickup being made, I decided that I would change the controls and the preamp myself. This way I would save some money, but more importantly, I’d learn something about bass electronics on the way. I made diagrams of the wiring, unsoldered some connections and took the whole shebang out of the bass. I ordered 2 new CTS 250k pots, a couple of different Sprague capacitors and trawled the net for wiring diagrams which were basic enough so I could understand them.

With the new pickup delivered (and the old one returned with it), it was time to resurrect the Sei. The wiring wasn’t complicated, but the series/parallel switch was a bit awkward. I found that the stand I had for my soldering iron spoilt the tip badly, so I’ve got to do it all over again to tidy it up a bit but heck, it works.

The result: well it sounds pretty darn amazing!!. The bass has a richness to it and, finally, some aggression. Played with a pick it sounds huge and growly. Played fingerstyle, the sound is round and full. Throughout the full range of the instrument it sounds as if a blanket has been taken out of the bass! The difference between before and after is absolutely night and day.

The only thing now was to find some new knobs. The controls with the Schack pre
were 2 concentric pots and now I have 2 regular pots with a ¼” shaft. I wanted
something different, something special and that was hard to find. Eventually I came
across Q-Parts ([url="http://www.qparts.com"]www.qparts.com[/url]), who have a great range of knobs (and
pickguards, pickups &straplocks) With my wife’s advice, I went with gold domes
with acrylic purple tops to match the purple LEDs on the edge of the fingerboard.











This is the first time in my nearly 20 years of playing bass that I have changed a pickup and I wouldn’t have believed what a massive difference it can make. Not only that, but the way I play and respond to the bass has changed and it’s looking better than ever as well. It’s like owning a new bass!

My thanks to Aaron Armstrong for an amazing job.

[budget bassist]

glad to hear that it's finally how you wanted it to be looks like a nice bass, enjoy her!

[OutToPlayJazz]

As I think I said before, that's a stunning looking instrument and as BB above mentioned, I'm glad it now sounds how you really want it to

Rich.

[peted]

+1 It's an awesome looking bass, glad to hear that it now comes with an awesome sound to match. Congratulations on a job well done!

[Spoombung]

That's a very elegant looking bass. Glad you sorted it out.

[7string]

Thanks guys

Here's a couple more pics.

First up, here's the pickups. New one on the right, old one on the left. Look at the size of the magnets!!




The circuit board for the Schack pre was stuck to the control cavity cover to save space (what a great idea). Even after a couple a years, this didn't budge without a fight!!





I really didn't want to damage the finish

Edited December 11, 2009 by 7string

[JTUK]

Just top say I like the Schack pre but you can get carried away with all the tone options...not to say, confused..!!

In the end I started again and reset the 3 band along the lines of a John East, with the mid between 400-600, IIRC..
A much better place to start..

but sometimes too many options isn't helpful

[Spoombung]

Do you have any tracks featuring the bass - you know, soundclips/ Myspace page or Youtube clips? Just curious - I'm interested to know what kind of music you're doing on these big instruments!