My ragdoll Epiphone ET-280 (pic intensive)

[Chris P.]

Nice thread!! 

[amptech]

So... I had the new nut put on the bass. I was not at all happy with the "setup" job that they "threw in." The whole thing was under $40, so I am OK.
The truss rod still needed adjustment, so I did that... the bridge adjustment was not right, so the intonation was waaay off. Fixed that.
I went upstairs and plugged her in....

nothing on the treble pickup. no sound at all.

very quiet sound on the bass pickup.

I am not sure what is wrong, as I did test the pickups before assembly.

Any thoughts?

It´s true that the electronics are not the best, but the pickups sound fine when they work.
I´ve got the early Aria Diamond model 1820, which is the same instrument as the ET-280 with different
headstock. I was 16 years old (back in 1993) when I tried to upgrade it by changing the jack, pots and wires.
But the PUP´s was very weak after the ´mod´and as with yours one of them stopped working.

A while ago I picked it up again, and it was now obvious to me that my ´mod´had killed it.
The magnetic wire was destroyed by my soldering iron back then, and the non-working PUP was really falling apart and could not be saved. I re-wound the thin sounding neck PUP with .058 wire, really hot, and constructed a new bridge PUP , equally hot but on a taller bobbin to give it some treble response as well.
I completely shielded the cavities as well.

It´s not a high end instrument, and not really that easy to play - but it sounds like bass guitar sounds like
on good sixties pop recordings - nice and smooth round sound. Warm, but not muddy on a good tube amp.
I like it and was glad I gave it a second chance, it blends better than I thought even on recordings with a full band.

Not something I´d marry, but still a nice week-end lover....

[T40_King]

I've recently picked up an ET-280 bass and something to note about these basses are the pickups and how they work.

The biggest problem with them is the two magnet system. Both magnets need to be facing the same polarity, which means the magnets push against each other, so over time the glue can't hold the magnets and they shoot apart, making the pickups sound either wonky, or if the one magnet flips where they apparently stick together you get half the pickup out of phase with the other half, meaning weak if any output.

What you need to do is get both magnets facing 'north' lets say, which means they will want to push away from each other, but hold them together and glue/epoxy them to the pickup bobbin, then tie them up with rubber bands or string and let the glue dry as long as you can. After that's all said and done, and assuming the winds on both pickups are still good you should have serious output. Mine are super hot, hotter than my Precision bass with a Quarter Pounder pickup.

Also note that in order for both pickups to be Humbucking when used together you need one pickup going North and the other going South magnetically, so test them before you glue the magnets back on.

I'm super satisfied with my ET-280 and I regularly use it live and in the studio. Short scale just has that incredible rich low end that can't be beat.

Cheers,

[amptech]

Short scale just has that incredible rich low end that can't be beat.

You´ll love it here!

[Philomena Cunk]

Reanimating a zombie thread for first post.

Was in my local independent mom and pop music store today to make a payment on a Hohner SE 35 six string semi acoustic I spotted a few days ago and put a deposit on.
Unusually the shop had no customers, usually always busy, and the owner was playing an Epiphone ET-280, the phone went and whilst he answered it Isat and played it and really liked it.
Turned out he'd sold it fifteen years ago to a customer who brought it back to trade five years later, it went to someone else who's brought it back ten years later for same.
That's how the shop works, no online presence, stuff comes back down the line and kind of stays in the family of long term customers, I've been using the place since 1983
and it had already been open ten years at that point.

Instead of making a payment on the Hohner I put a deposit down on the Epiphone and the owner happily agreed to let me pay up both at same time.
I have a really good relationship with the guy who does all the inhouse repair/customisation work, we've done eleven six strings together over the last two years or so
adding pups from Lindy Fralin, Jason Lollar, Sanford Magnetics, The Creamery, DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan, full rewires etc. They'd taken a well played bass and spent a lot
of time on it cleaning it up to as good as it could possibly get given its age, a quirk is that a previous owner has removed the neck single coil pup and replaced it with a
set of Precision style splits meaning it has three distinct sounds. This was one of the things which spurred me into an impulse buy, the second this week and it's only Wednesday! (Thursday, doh!)

It'll be a while before I get it as paying that and the Hohner up simultaneously but I'll get some photos of it up when time permits. I was playing an old Encore Precision copy
which an ex stole from under her brothers bed at the parents house, they'd both long left and the brother was teaching music and owned a couple of Status basses
and higher end classical acoustics so she figured he wouldn't miss the entry level Encore, over fifteen years after we split it's still here. I have a taste for things like the Epi though and about a year ago sourced a Westbury Track 2 bass online and bought that, still has the stock DiMarzios on it etc, this relegated the Encore to sitting in a softcase.

Really enjoyed reading this thread, about as informative as I could hope to find re the ET-280, appreciated.

[uwe]

Willkommen, but perhaps you should get out during the day a bit more?



The ET-280 is a model in dearth of some affirmative action here. 

It doth have indie/shoegaze appeal though.

[Highlander]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs

[amptech]

I have fixed up/set up/ repaired/ refinished every instrument I own during the last 4-5 years. Except the 280! Maybe now it's time...

No matter how good I set it up it still feels somewhat... spongy? It does have that 'steel reinforced neck' that makes it a tad neck heavy, but that really does not make it stiff enough. So it's cool enough, sounds decent - but still a 'one song bass'

[Philomena Cunk]

As I said it was the tweak a previous owner had done which sold me, the addition of the Precision pups where the neck single coil had been, the middle toggle position was my own personal favourite as it was quite different from the sound of either pup on its own.

Good luck with showing your 280 a bit of love.