Another budget semi-hollow.

[Alanko]

I originally posted this on another forum yesterday, but they are too busy chucking their collective muck over the Flea sig Jazz bass and everything Maruszcyzk to take any notice. Either that or I piss them off too frequently. Given that this forum doesn't seem to have such a boner for every terminally boring P, J and PJ permutation of basses available I might have better luck here. Right?

I've always had a soft spot for the TAB-66, and I found one retailer left with them in stock, and only in wine red... and it looks like I got the last one!




I quickly strung up the bass with NOS 30+ year old Chromes. The E from that set is especially oldschool sounding, with that weird detuned 'boing' that immediately says 'Ronnie Lane' to me. The 'plonk' tone from this bass is really solid, but maybe too oldschool for me. The bass is back on the stock roundwounds. I always think semi-hollow basses should run on flats, so maybe some groundwound or pressurewound strings are in the future for this one?

I've had the bass a week now, and my thoughts are....

The good:
It is a long-scale (34'') bass! It doesn't feel a million miles away from my P bass in terms of string tension.
The neck pickup sounds great. With the tone control you can go from Rickenbacker to Rivoli. I've been playing along to The Animals!
The bridge pickup does a good Andy Fraser tone; that stubby, percussive sound.
The finish is amazing and flawlessly executed. It feels like a luxury bass. Hard to say, but some Poly finishes feel cheaper somehow.
The nut was cut brilliantly, only the E slot was too high, and even then only slightly.
Balance seems good on a strap; no neck dive.
In general it has quite a grindy, aggressive tone, whereas most hollow-bodies accentuate a pillowy, undefined, slightly fragile '60s bass tone, which is cool but can be hard to EQ or work in a band setting.
The neutral:
The pickups themselves are slightly odd. They are slightly noisy depending on the angle of the bass, and I've checked the magnetic pull and there is only a single 'blade' of pull down the middle of the pickup. Are they really humbuckers, or side-winders like old Firebird pickups? The good news is that the routes are big enough to fit full-size guitar humbuckers, so various other pickups could be employed in the future.
There isn't a blend control for the pickups. I've had to lower the neck pickup a bit, and in the 'middle' position there is a slightly odd, nasally tone. I'm guessing I cannot flip the phase of either pickup as the end of the coil(s) is connected to ground, which incorporates the grounding of the pickup cover.
The output jack! I'm not a fan of having the output jack mounted directly to the wood through a wee hole. I've seen a lot of SGs with finish damage around the jack. As such I've already fitted a Strat output jack. It doesn't look too out of place, and it gets the cable away from the top of the bass. I don't like cutting the top so much, but it is easier than patching up finish or structural damage down the line.
The stock strings were hard to remove. The ball-ends were jammed hard into the stoptail.
The stock strap buttons were a bit too small. Not good as the strap buttons are both along the center line so the bass hangs forwards slightly, and so the strap could jump off the neck heel button.






The bad:
The bridge pickup wasn't fully picking up the E string. The tune-o-matic is very slightly off-centre, so the strings are slightly over to the bass side of the neck. It barely matters and is hard to see by eye. However these pickups have very little magnetic pull beyond the width of the strings, so by default the bridge pickup wasn't capturing the full excursion of the E string. The trick was to plug the four holes for the bridge pickup mounting ring and shift everything a few millimeters across to the bass side. Re-drill four holes and screw back into place. The trick works, but it is slightly unusual to see a bass kitted out with Firebird pickups. I don't think Violin bass-style pickups would work as they probably have a narrower field.
Rattles! The fretwork seemed fine, though benefited from polishing. However the neck came with too-little relief to begin with (a first!) so I had to back the rod off. Even with the fret rattling cut down, the switch tip rattles (I'm replacing it) and for every G played the pickguard also vibrates. The pickguard is kept off the mounting bracket with a felt washer, but the pickguard is slightly flexible and can therefore vibrate off the rest of the bracket. I removed the spacer, and it has cut it down slightly. The pickguard sits a couple of millimeters off the face of the bass, so can also vibrate. There was some rattling coming from inside the bass, I think from the pickup cables. The neck pickup was also rattling slightly. I will replace the springs with surgical tubing at some point.



Final bug/issue/thought: Basschat forum member 'hairyhaw' noticed the bridge bushings were uprooting on his TAB bass in a thread here:

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/238450-arai-tab-66/

When my bass arrived I had the exact same issue. I removed the strings and assessed the deal. In short, the bushings were loose and had come out of their holes slightly. The problem is exacerbated slightly because of the length of the bushings and because the holes are drilled vertically rather than off the vertical to accommodate the contours of the top of the bass. I fixed the issue by taking shorter bushings for the stoptail and gluing them into the bass using epoxy. I epoxied the bushing for the tune-o-matic on the bass side, but didn't glue the treble bushing as the ground wire runs into the drill hole here. This cable may need repaired or replaced, so I didn't fancy having to hack away at an epoxied part in the future. You can still see a wee bit of the ribbed/machined section of the bushing that is meant to be invisible, but it isn't as bad as when the bass arrived.

If you made it this far, have a flying boat.

[Dave W]

Looks great. Your review is positive and you've made changes to make it more positive, so the negatives can't be that bad..

Not sure about what could be causing the pickup noise, but unless you're having 60 cycle hum all the time, they aren't single coils.

Dunlip Ergo Loks are cheap and should solve the strap button issue unless your strap ends are thick. Downside is that you need a dedicated strap for the bass.

I've noticed that flats on a long scale hollowbody or semihollow usually won't get you an old school sound.

[Basvarken]

Beautiful bass. Very nice colour!
I don't think I would have mounted the Strat type output. I usually use an angled plug for top mounted outputs. And secure it behind the end strap pin.

[Alanko]

Thanks both for your kind words.

With regards to the Strat jack, I figured that might raise some eyebrows. I always route the cable behind my strap as a matter of principle. In my current band the two guitarists are using Gretsch hollowbodies and neither does this. It gives me the fear! I've personally wrecked an SG output jack area, going through a succession of jack plates to try and hide the damage. All of us at school with our Epi SGs and copies ended up going down the same route.

One of the things I really appreciate about this bass is the size of the body, which is smaller than an ES-355/EB-2 or Starfire. I find those big hollow instruments to be a bit bewildering to play sitting down, and this negates that to some degree.

I've solved the straplock issue with Grolsch washers. I bought a bunch off Ebay a few years back and use them on everything. The Dunlop system might be better in the long run. 

I'm on the hunt for new pickups. There is a winder in the UK called 'The Creamery' who will make regular humbucker-sized blade pickups. Unlike the majority of 'hot rails' these can be custom ordered with lower output and available in various flavours of Alnico as well as ceramic. I just need to make sure that they can produce something that can accommodate a string spacing at the bridge of ~55 mm or so. I've also considered the new John Birch pickups, but these seem to be wound fairly hot as a rule.

[Granny Gremlin]

The Strat jack plate put me off at first, but I very quickly turned around on that for the usual pragmatic reasons mentioned.   

[exiledarchangel]

Very nice bass, but that strat jack doesn't match, maybe you can replace it with a black one so it doesn't show as much.
As for the pickup problem, I think its because those pickups are cheaply made, as is the case with cheaper instruments, always the electronics are crap. Low quality magnets, crappy soldering work, or all of the above. Get a new pair along with pots and then you got not only good looks, but good sound too.

[Pilgrim]

I happen to like the look AND the function of the Strat jack. I think it's a nice touch.

[Dave W]

Yeah, IMHO the Strat jack looks fine as is.

[Highlander]

I've been in that flying boat...

I wonder what a T'bird (China) pup would sound like...?

[amptech]

EY pickups, who makes the china t.bird pickup, also makes a very cheap firebird pickups that is a normal humbucker with two polepieces
and alnico5 bar magnet unlike other inexpensive pups. Sounds decent, better than a stock EB3 you ask me, does not hum and is really cheap. Not massive output (was it 6500 - 7000 ohms maybe?) but i think they have normal or hot of these too. Maybe worth trying?

[Alanko]

The Ey pickups could be interesting. I've been looking at some Duesenburg pickups. They make a humbucker-sized P90 and regular humbucker, with long Alnico blades instead of poles. They look pretty tidy.

The black Strat plate idea could look pretty tidy. I took the bass to rehearsal last night and it thundered! I ran it through a VTDI into some random Trace Elliot combo, and for once I got some solid lows out of the amp.

[Basvarken]

I have a pair of guitar sized bass humbuckers that come from a Pearl Export bass (the same bass as the Epiphone Genesis). Plus the original wiring loom.
Maybe an option?

[Alanko]

Those are tempting, so I've PM'd you!

[Alanko]

Rob has sold me the pickups!

I've encountered an issue however. The pickups above have two legs on one side, so I will need to route the bass slightly to accommodate this. The second issue is that I've been labouring under the assumption that Firebird pickups and surrounds are smaller. The surrounds that came on the bass are wider than a stock guitar humbucker ring. As it stands a humbucker ring will not cover the screw holes for the stock pickup ring.

I've come up with two solutions. Option 1 is to build my own pickup rings. I have an A3 sheet of black 5mm Lexan. I could prototype a bunch of rings using the footprint of the bass's stock pickup rings but using the internal holes of Rob's pickups as per the photos above. I've found Lexan to be somewhat forgiving, and the edge can be buffed up pretty nicely.

Option 2 is maybe a couple of weeks away. I purchased two Wide Range humbucker adaptor rings on Ebay. These are routed to conventional humbuckers but are wide enough to cover over the routing for a WRHB. These are 10mm wider than a conventional humbucker ring.

I've drilled the top of the bass for a 3rd knob. I will configure this to be like Rickenbacker's 5th 'mixer' knob, for the bridge pickup. I typically run the neck pickup full-bore and blend in treble from the bridge pickup.

I'm bodging and blundering into a set of mods I didn't think I would have to do. For me this is pretty standard. 

[Alanko]

This is the guys of the stock pickup. It is a single coil! A tall, thin coil (a bit like a Strat), with a ferrous blade and two fairly substantial (ceramic?) magnets on the back. The whole thing is encased in a block of wax.

I've been having some fun with the Epiphone Genesis/Pearl Export pickups. I've re-wired them with longer pickup wires. I'm also contemplating putting new baseplates on the pickups, as I need something with shorter legs and a 1 + 1 mounting-screw arrangement to fit an adapter plate I have in the works.

These new pickups level walls! I took a wee photie of the guts. They are basically a little like chunky PAFs with 8 slugs (no screw poles) and, oddly, no spacers under the outside edge of each coil. This means that the coils are actually in a subtle V formation, as the are pivoting slightly on the magnet in the middle of them. Oddly the neck pickup was slightly hotter than the bridge pickup.



The covers were held on with double-sided tape. No solder blobs on the baseplate.