I'm sure all you guys are waiting with baited breath for my next installment. Shorting the cap did nothing that i could hear, so I clipped the inductor out of the circuit and that did it, the neck is on full boom in pos 3 with the bridge pickup. I also took off the Labellas, way to boomy and dead on this bass for my tastes and put on some old round wounds that had some life left that I had lying around and it sounds pretty damn good now. The bridge volume is very touchy though, I have to fine tune it to get a good blend, but at a certain point the things sounds great, plenty of bottom with a good clear top end. I scrubbed the black mark with Murphy's and a lot of it did come out but so did the sealer and some of the stain, it looks a lot better though and I kind of like the color the way it is. I would like a clear coat on it though but I want the black out of it first. I think I'm going to have it looked at at the Guitar Garage, I can drive there in about an hour. SG Moritz does some nice work but I don't really want to ship it and at this point I don't want a total restoration just maybe get it cleaned up with a clear coat, maybe not even the clear. When my wife gets back from S America I'll have her take some pictures and I'll post them. I even got it pretty closely intonated with the little Allen screws in the bridge. I haven't tried it through the SVT yet, I've only been playing it through my little practice amp in my bedroom, so I'll check that out tomorrow, i expect to rattle things off the shelves.