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Custom Semi Acoustic Bass mods and fixes


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36 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

The borescope arrived today. It's a 2m cable with an LED-illuminated camera on the end, smaller than a AAA battery. The connection is USB.

It's not super clear, however it can shoot videos and has a live feed on your phone or tablet. Bargain.

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That's brilliant!

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So, Mr Bond....do you cut the red wire or the blue wire?

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The Seymour Duncan 3-band EQ comes with a blend knob and a stacked pot for bass and treble boost/cut.  Stuart, the owner, wanted to maintain the three-way switch and to have three separate pots for bass, mids and treble.  That meant tracking down some centre detent 100k linear pots and taking the clippers to SD's previously very neat wiring loom!

This was the layout before installation - a bit of a dog's dinner, but with the prime objectives of 1) it working and 2) there being no wires crossing the 'f' hole:

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And this was it installed - after a short panic when I thought there was no signal tapping the pickup poles with a screwdriver but realised (after a full torch and multi-meter diagnostic) that my amp simply wasn't turned up enough :blush

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I've got a bit of tidying to do - one of the pots is standing a bit proud and I will see if I can polish out or reduce one or two of the historic buckle-rashes and dints.  I'll also fit a new set of strings and finalise the setup, but it's all done bar the shouting.... :)

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For what it's worth, I've done some sound comparisons of some of the various settings (actually didn't do the slap bass volume push pull) on Soundcloud here.  The clips were input directly through a Focusrite Scarlett interface into Ableton Live with no effects or colouring.  

Each switch position is announced before a small clip and includes:

 

  • Bridge (full humbucker); Middle; Neck
  • Bridge (full humbucker) with no boost; with full mids boost; with full bass boost; with full mids and bass boost
  • Middle postion with no boost; with full mids boost; with full bass boost; with full mids and bass boost
  • Neck position with no boost; with full mids boost; with full bass boost; with full mids and bass boost
  • Middle position (with bridge pickup in split coil mode) with no boost; with full mids boost; with full bass boost; with full mids and bass boost

What it will actually sound like will obviously be hugely influenced by the rig it goes through but this hopefully gives some indication of the huge variety of sounds.

I haven't done any recordings with full treble boost - the impact through my rig seems less than with the bass and mids boosts and, of course, this is where the hiss will be most audible. 

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