Author Topic: A silly idea?  (Read 8466 times)

exiledarchangel

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #15 on: June 21, 2017, 12:08:49 PM »
I still like the rings I added to my black plastic TB+. I've thought about going chrome, but I think it might be a bit much.

I like that combination, has a nice balance of light/darkness.
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slinkp

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2017, 12:49:06 PM »
Nice LPB Gearhed!  I like that color.  Is yours active or passive?
Basses: Gibson lpb-1, Gibson dc jr tribute, Greco thunderbird, Danelectro dc, Ibanez blazer.  Amps: genz benz shuttle 6.0, EA CXL110, EA CXL112, Spark 40.  Guitars: Danelectro 59XT, rebuilt cheap LP copy

Alanko

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2017, 01:55:19 PM »
I like the combo of black pickups and chrome rings. As I said before, I'm hoping I can get away without having to use rings, to try and keep the bass looking quite clean. We shall see! I've found it difficult to find the true length of the Gibson pickups, only various aftermarket replacements, and the seller forgot to measure before he sent them to me. If there is a couple of millimeters in it then I will let it slide.

I have a gig on the 23rd of July, so I want to have the bass reworked by then, which involves leveling the frets and a total rewire with coax and 500 k pots.

The bass is currently strung with Jim Dunlop flatwounds and fitted with the Fender Badass II-style bridge that was on my Starcaster bass. The string spacing is tighter than a stock Jazz, and I oddly prefer it this way.  Like the red pickguard on the bass I tried it out thinking it would stay on for five minutes and somehow it has all stuck.

gearHed289

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2017, 08:07:18 AM »
Nice LPB Gearhed!  I like that color.  Is yours active or passive?

It had a Bart pre when I bought it, but I pulled that out and sold it on eBay. There was really nothing wrong with it, it's just that at the time, I was going for a totally passive vibe after YEARS of putting EMGs on everything, including my main Ric. The rings with black pups and reflector knobs are a nod to the Hobbit basses. And I forgot to mention, I had to have them custom made since the black pups are a hair bigger than the chrome ones.

lowend1

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #19 on: June 22, 2017, 11:34:34 AM »
This one had a J pickup at the bridge:
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Alanko

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #20 on: June 22, 2017, 01:47:51 PM »
That is cool! Is that a Gibson pickup, and where did the ring come from? Too many questions.... It looks like a very thin trim ring?

lowend1

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #21 on: June 22, 2017, 03:23:28 PM »
That is cool! Is that a Gibson pickup, and where did the ring come from? Too many questions.... It looks like a very thin trim ring?

That is a black TB Plus, no trim ring. You're seeing the edge of the rout with black paint inside. The only trouble that I ran into was that the TB Plus was out of phase with the Select P - so I had to reverse the leads on the P.
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Dave W

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #22 on: June 22, 2017, 06:16:31 PM »
Love the color. Is that Sherwood Green?

lowend1

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #23 on: June 22, 2017, 08:37:47 PM »
Love the color. Is that Sherwood Green?
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Alanko

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #24 on: June 23, 2017, 04:11:36 AM »
The pickups arrived today! Very solid, chunky units. I've measured them up and they are 94 mm x 41 mm (3 and 11/16ths by 1 and 10/16ths for you Imperial peasants  :P). By my reckoning they are wide enough to fill out the Jazz routes without requiring any trim rings as it seems that *most* Jazz bass bridge pickups, the wider of the pair, are 95 mm wide.

My only lingering concern is with the speaking area of the pickup. I can see quite clearly the actual topology of the pickup on the back, and there are basically two coils with blades, charged by thin ceramic magnets. I'm hoping these are wide enough to capture the full spread of the pickup. As I mentioned before I'm running the bass with narrower string spacing, so this might not be an issue.

Dave W

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #25 on: June 23, 2017, 09:30:34 AM »
You ought to be okay then.

Alanko

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #26 on: July 07, 2017, 02:14:43 PM »
The silly idea has taken off!



I wussed out of routing for a bridge pickup, but decided to add one Thunderbird pickup in the neck position. I like the sound of both pickups on a Jazz bass, and the bridge pickup solo'd, but never been the biggest fan of the stock neck pickups. The Thunderbird pickup sounds great in there; a sort of warm woody tone that still kicks out a lot of output. It blends nicely with the stock bridge pickup (once I flipped the phase of it).

One problem was that I had a Fender 'Super 55' pickup in the bridge. Neither of the two Gibson pickups worked with it, and I had a hollow phasey tone from both, albeit with different mids/treble content. No bass end to speak of. You cannot flip the phase of one of these Super 55 pickups for whatever reason. Fender designed all the intuition out of those pickups which, given that they were basically copying the Dimarzio Area J pickup set, is surprising. Out goes normal pickup technology and in comes fragile circuit boards, unreliable quick connectors and the flimsiest of mounting tabs. Apparently a lot of these pickups died.

Pilgrim

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #27 on: July 07, 2017, 03:06:26 PM »
THAT is one very good-looking result!!
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Dave W

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #28 on: July 07, 2017, 04:38:21 PM »
Looks good.

Alanko

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Re: A silly idea?
« Reply #29 on: July 08, 2017, 03:22:14 AM »
I've dug out the route for the bridge pickup now. I finally plucked up the courage. No router here, so I used a forstner bit to dig out each corner, then joined it all up with a dremel cutting wheel and a chisel. Not the prettiest work in the world, but it will do the job. I have a chrome T-bird pickup ring on order from Ebay that will hide the route, though it is actually pretty good. The only ugly issue is that the J pickup was ~4 mm wider than the T-bird pickup in the end, so the factory route was wider again, with a bit of slop. This means that there is maybe ~3 mm either side of the T-bird pickup. Not a crime, but if it can be hidden then I'm happy.