Gah...
Still working on that bass. Electronics seem to be borked worse than I thought.
I replaced the input, but that didn't help with cleaning up the signal. It's still intermittently fuzzy on pretty much every setting. The problem is, I can't tell if it's the parts bin 3-way switch, the pots, or the pickups. The pots were frozen solid when I got the thing, so they very well could be trash. That said, I am getting the most noise when futzing with the switch; there was a reason why I had replaced it on my Explorer, as it felt a little on the loose side. I may have to just bite the bullet and replace all the pots and the switch. It's still worth the investment; the thing looks and feels great.
For reference, here's the wiring cavity before I replaced the switch.
Seems like your standard Jazz Bass style harness, but there's a switch and some filter caps and the pots are 500k instead of 250k. I was thinking of just getting a pre-made harness like this:
This is a "guitar" harness, but other than the filter caps, it seems to be identical. Any reason why I couldn't just stab this in there?
A fellow is absolutely swimming in 4x12s rn.
Tony Sestito said:
This is a "guitar" harness, but other than the filter caps, it seems to be identical. Any reason why I couldn't just stab this in there?
A potentiometer doesn't care if it's in a guitar or bass. If it fits what you have, then it's pretty easy to change out a capacitor if you want to adjust
Thanks to MusiciansFriend deal of the hour on black Friday I have acquired a neat little Fender acoustic.
The neck is slim, like a modern Strat. At first the unplugged tone seemed pretty weak, especially compared to my big old dreadnaught shape acoustics, but I think I've been learning that it just responds to a slightly different playing style. It does the high end shimmer thing pretty well, where suspended chords and open tunings sound really good. I think its a nice contrast in my current acoustic lineup.
BlueInGreen - Jon said:
Tony Sestito said:
This is a "guitar" harness, but other than the filter caps, it seems to be identical. Any reason why I couldn't just stab this in there?
A potentiometer doesn't care if it's in a guitar or bass. If it fits what you have, then it's pretty easy to change out a capacitor if you want to adjust
Yeah, that's what I figured. I have a cheap harness on the way. I'll try it as-is, but I am guessing it will need those caps swapped on. Not a big deal.
500k pots will make the bass sound much brighter, 250k is what you want for bass really.
I've played around with them, it makes a huge difference
Today, I tried wiring up that new harness. It seems like a no-go. With it wired in, I couldn't get anything out of the pickups. I then tried to just reinstall the old harness with the switch that was on the new harness, to see if maybe both of my old switches were bad. Nope, same farty, fuzzy sounds. And this time, for some reason, the J-pickup volume is controlled by the tone pot. I really thought I had it wired correctly.
I then thought to myself: how is a REAL Jazz Bass Special wired up? After some Googling, I found this:
Biggest differences are that these are 500k pots (yes, I know it will be bright and loud) and that my pickup wires are red and black. I am assuming that the red = white in this case. But what I'll try and do here is mimic this diagram with the new bits and see where that gets me. It's also possible that these pickups are garbage, but at least if I wire it up like the diagram above, I can rule everything else out.
Yet another update on my project bass:
Wired everything according to the diagram with the new pot. The tone pot, which I think is a push-pull deal on the real ones, got wired notmally. I got sound, but it was doing the same thing as before I messed with anything: P-pickup works, J pickup sorta does, and the signal farts out.
I think the pickups are the culprit here. And that's a shame, because they sounded great for the little time I had them working.
I think I will be replacing everything again, and probably switching to 250k pots. I did swap over all the filter caps, but it was too bright even with those. Not sure what I will go with yet, but I will be keeping it cheap if possible. I am not giving up on this thing!
My Ibanez started making horrendous crackling earlier this week. When I had the active EQ circuit engaged, it would crackle and hiss like the static hunting for a radio station. Totally quiet when I switch to passive EQ.
Opened it up and found a loose wire. Fairly certain that's the ground to bridge.
Soldered it back down as well as I could and the crackling went away.
Now I'm noticing a very faint hiss when the active circuit is engaged. It's subtle and to quiet to notice while playing, but I can clearly hear the difference when I switch from the active to passive circuit. It's just enough to be irritating.
Not sure whether:
- This was always there and I never noticed before
- I did a crap job soldering
- The ground wire is also loose on the bridge side
Also the bridge ground circuit was soldered to the pickup sweep pot, and wiring diagrams I could find show it connected to the volume. Wondering if I should un-solder it and run it to the volume instead. This might also help me get a cleaner solder joint, because there was a giant blob that I struggled to clean away.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Have you looked at GuitarFetish?
I know they gave bass harnesses, I don't know if they have anything exact like you are thinking though
In reply to Antihero :
Yeah, I've used GFS stuff before. Great stuff for the money, but they don't have any harnesses like this. I think I am on my own for the harness. I might end up using a P/J set from them though!
I got an Orange Micro Dark for Xmas and man is it an improvement on the original Micro.
For starters it's stock found is waaaayyy better but this one will take pedals way better too!
I forgot how much I liked this fuzz and single knob fuzzes in general.
Another cool fuzz I forgot about. Made by a Bulgarian guy from reclaimed parts, I'm not sure what it's based off of but it is another awesome one knob fuzz
So, Santa dropped off this thing off under our tree a couple days ago! I suspected a guitar kit was on the way, but not one of these!
It's a Leo Jaymz "AX" kit, and typically when you see these, the bodies have weird points and scallops to differentiate it from the real deal. But this one looks straight up like a Gibson, but with some subtle changes like the control layout. It's a glue-in set neck model, and the neck itself has a couple weird spots on the back I may have to fill and sand, but it's workable. Body and neck are mahogany and it has an ebony fretboard. The hardware/etc. that comes with these kits is usually garbage, so I will likely upgrade all of that.
The biggest question is what to do about the finish. Part of me says to hit it with grain filler, poly over it, and send it, while another part of me wants to paint it white, get some black hardware and build a Matthias Jabs clone or maybe paint it black with gold hardware like something Phil Collen would have played in the early Def Leppard days. I already have a Epiphone Goth Explorer, and so many other black guitars, so I am thinking white or another color would be the way to go.
All in all, I am really excited about doing a full build like this. Never done one before, and I'm pumped!
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Nice!! If I get a vote, since you already have a goth, go white with white EMGs.
Also, if you have a straight edge go ahead and check the frets for flatness right now. My stewmac kit needed a full fret dressing out of the box.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
How about a cool stain?
Id probably add some sort of striping to hide the joint between woods too.
In reply to Antihero :
That's the thing, there are some strange looking joints on the body that probably would look best covered in paint. An interesting stain might look cool though. I could probably pull it off.
Tony Sestito said:
I've been playing bass more lately, and I've been sort of annoyed with trying to get the tone I want. I am playing with a Peavey Combo 115 with an old original Line 6 Bass POD as a preamp. Back around 2003, this thing was amazing, and I still like it mostly, but I've wanted to try a new approach. Everyone I've talked to said the same thing: get a SansAmp Bass DI.
I'd love to, but they are like $250+, and I don't have the budget right now for that as a glorified hobbyist that's just messing around playing in his attic.
So I did the next best thing and started looking at clones. There are tons of different bass DI preamps out there, but I really wanted something simple and cheap (under $50 if possible). After looking around, it was between these two:
Behringer BDI21
Caline CP60 "Wine Cellar"
After listening to some demos, I ended up going with the Caline CP60. It seemed to have a little more "beef" and I like that it's in a metal box as opposed to the plastic casing of the Behringer; I read that it's quieter with noise interference because of the case. Both were on sale for under $30, so I probably can't go wrong with either one. I don't expect miracles, but from what I heard, it should be a step up from the POD. I do like some of the features of the POD, like the onboard tuner and some of the effects, so I may run that in-line with this. Hopefully I can get a little boost and grit out of this thing.
I had a couple of minutes to mess with this thing today. For under $30, it's pretty great. It doesn't work miracles, but it boosts just enough to crud things up nicely. I can get the dirty tones I want pretty easily. It won't replace a bass fuzz/overdrive pedal, but it does what I want it to do.
And in testing the pedal, I think I singled out the fuzzy farting thing my project bass was doing:
It's the amp!
I have been doing all my testing with my Peavey Microbass since it's very portable. But with my known working Jazz Bass, it was doing EXACTLY what my project bass was doing. And if I recall, this amp did this after I first got it, but I fixed it. Guess I'll have to go in there again and see what's wrong. Might be time to send it down the road and replace it with something else.
That also means my project bass might be OK, potentially. I will have to try it out on my other amp to confirm. I may still have to swap the pots and move some of the wires around, but that makes me feel a lot better about that.
I now own a Reverend Raymond bass.
Saw it listed at a local Music Go Round. I've been wanting a Ray-type, and I absolutely loved the look of this thing with the gold paint, nifty body shape, and 5-piece neck. It sounds and feels just as wonderful. It is incredibly light. Even lighter than my Ibanez special. Although playing high on the neck isn't great.
I had never even heard of Reverend guitars before. I guess they're small, and quasi-boutique, but sitting at mid-tier prices (most of their basses are ~$1,200 new.) They're based in Toledo, here in Ohio (although instruments are crafted in Korea). So I can go by and check them out in person next time I'm up that way.
When I first tested it, it let out a horrendous POP when I slapped or did percussive muting. But I lowered the neck pickup and that calmed down.
So now, I have to deal with my wife rolling her eyes at me for buying my third bass in 6 months. She did admit that it is gorgeous and it was really nice when I made her play it. She's more bothered by the idea of me accumulating Stuff, rather than spending my money. But I'm going to sell my Sire I bought as my first bass, or keep it at work to be able to practice during downtime.
I'm not one to name cars, guitars, or other inanimate objects, but I feel like this one might need to be dubbed "The Beast"...
I'm also strongly considering getting a Boss ME-90b effects board. I like the layout of a nice multi-effects processor, but with dial controls and dedicated foot switches for each step. Also has the option to program and store custom packages.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
The pop was probably the string hitting a pole piece so you did great there.
3 basses isn't bad, I'm not entirely sure how many guitars I own except that it's more that 40 lol. I also have one on the way for my birthday even
I am up to 8 guitars and 6 basses, I think. And I am a drummer. Not sure how that happened.
That Reverend bass is a nice one. Looks well built and has some quality components. Nice score!
In other news, work continues on my project bass. I busted out the multimeter yesterday and found that the P-pickup seems to be OK but the J pickup is wonky with intermittent resistance values. I re-checked the wiring, and reflowed some of the solder points I made. Then, I tested it on my known working amp. P-bass pickup works OK, but the J-pickup again is all over the place. The volume pot for some reason is like an on-off switch, and when it's "on", it farts and pops intermittently. I am thinking that the pickup is just trash.
I ordered up a cheap set of "Alnico 5" P/J pickups along with some 250k pots from a seller on Ebay that I've used on the past with success. This should hopefully solve whatever is going on here and hopefully improve the sound. Again, it's worth the trouble, because it does look great and plays great.
Antihero said:
The pop was probably the string hitting a pole piece so you did great there.
3 basses isn't bad, I'm not entirely sure how many guitars I own except that it's more that 40 lol. I also have one on the way for my birthday even
I'm not sure. It was still REALLY loud even as I lowered it. I think a combo of factors: hot pup, too high, strings are old and clacky making the noise harsh.
I know it's not bad, but I've only been playing for 5 or 6 months, and my wife is concerned that I may have a habit of coming home with a new large piece of equipment every month or two. Want to assuage her fears. I think much of that is just starting I'm building up to my basic toolkit and also learning what I like, want, and need.
I expect I'll eventually want a core collection of: Jazz, P-bass w/flats, Ray (or evolution thereof), and Fretless.
I'm selling my Sire, because it and the Ibanez are both Jazz basses, and the Ibanez does everything the Sire can, and more, better. It's like having a Gen 2 MR2 and a Porsche Cayman S.
Tony Sestito said:
That Reverend bass is a nice one. Looks well built and has some quality components. Nice score!
Yeah. Feels and plays great. The controls are so smooth and solid.
It's just about a perfect bass for what my band is doing. Lots of post-punk and new wave, Grunge, post-grunge, and 90's alt (Talking Heads, Stone Roses, Cranberries, Breeders, Toadies, Green Day...).
It and the Ibanez are great compliments to each other.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
It is really loud, you can tap a pole piece with a screwdriver and see if it sounds close,i bet it does.
Also your list needs a short scale too. I'm mostly a guitar player and I have 4 basses, 3 short scales lol
