The Last Bass Outpost

Pics for all!

The bass, thirty seconds after I opened the case at my desk at work:



More Bent Tuner than Hot Tuna:




The bit that annoys me. This weird scuzzy damage does through to the wood. I've been going over this section with black nail polish, and will flatten it back and buff it out. Not sure how this will turn out.



Green frets, yow!

Heh, I killed the finish on a cheap guitar with bug spray!

A tuner upgrade is in the works. Those Gotohs look really good. 

I straightened out the tuner last night. I simply disassembled the tuner, took the paddle-axle-worm gear mechanism, straightened it in my vice slowly, heated it up with my hot air gun, let it cool and reassembled the tuner. It looks ok, but I would rather be using new tuners in the long run.

The transformer was a bit tricky to screw down. I've mounted it to the center block beyond the pickup, towards the bridge. I couldn't get two screws into the bass, as the transformer would foul with the underside of the pickup in any location anywhere I could locate the transformer and get a screwdriver in place, so had to make do with one screw. The body material (mahogany?) is quite soft, so I had to impregnate it with superglue in a small spot first. I will keep an eye on this one, but the transformer is quite tightly wedged in.

Well the seller was wrong! The 3-way still works perfectly. The transformer is loose inside the base however. That switch would be a good replacement, but I might not need it... yet.

One thing I've noticed is that one of the tuners has bent. The peg, aft of the end of the mounting arm/axle, has bent. I might try heating it and gently returning it to the correct shape. If that doesn't work then I'm on the hunt for a replacement.

The frets are tarnished and a wee bit worn, so they will be getting leveled.

There are a few chips in the paint, so I will drop-fill these. there is a sort of scuzzily scratched up area on the side of the body, through to the wood. Lots of narrow-width but deep scratches. Not sure yet how I will tackle them.

So I've finally bartered, haggled and brokered myself a black Jack Casady bass!

I got it for a good price, in part because it has a couple of issues:

1) The transformer is loose within the instrument and rattling around.

2) The 3-way switch spins in perpetuity as it is somehow missing the keeper. It still has the three positions, but you can cycle through them endlessly.

In short, where does the transformer sit within the bass? I thought it might be attached to the switch originally, but from having had a look at Casady harnesses for sale it appears to be separate from the switch.

Also, can I get away with a generic four pole/three way switch or is there a space consideration? How bit a component can be fished inside a Casady bass?

Also, is there any advantage to upgrading the potentiometers, and do they use different values given the low impedance of the pickup?

Another video with Steve Swallow playing his EB-2D.




And again:

Einsturzende Neubauten was one the bands I was into in college. I had (where is it now?) the DVD of Halber Mensch. A sort of menacing art video of the band playing in a disused factory in Japan. From memory the bassist there was using a black '70s Jazz with block inlays, into an SVT. Blixa Bargeld was playing some sort of beaten up Hofner solid body. The other guys are playing lengths of pipe, shopping trolleys... cool elements of kabuki dance blended into the mix as well, and some cool jump-cut editing for the track 'ZNS'. My favourite is still the opening track Armenia, with Blixa Bargeld looking and sounding almost more like an injured dope-sick insect or dog-man than a human. This dangerously pale, thin man with clumps of hair missing.

As metalhead students we were totally into how brutal and abrasive the band was. I think there was a bonus clip or something on there, called 'Autobahn' or similar. The band are outdoors at a set of roadworks, and one guy is actually shoveling dirt and sand while Blixa sings through pitch-shifting delays and things. I wouldn't imagine a T-bird holding up very long in that sort of environment. There is footage of them playing in a small club somewhere and actually digging up the stage. It makes Pete Townshend, bouncing a Strat off the bottom strap button a few times, look positively childish and tame.

Odd to see Blixa these days as he looks so plump and comfortable; like some sort of rich German producer.

If your haemorrhoids look like that, please go and see a doctor. I'm worried about you!

Only if the doctor lets me keep them.