Saber

I am rebuilding a 1960's Japanese short-scale bass. The neck and bridge looks like the strings are a bit close together. My question is:

I have a couple of six-string humbuckers laying around from another build. Would it be a good idea to use these for the bass rebuild? I think that a J-bass or a bass humbucker pup's magnets spacing would be too far apart for the strings. I was thinking of even purchasing some rail humbucker pups.

Comments/concerns/suggestions are GREATLY appreciated.

Cheers!

Chuck

For what it's worth, I have an old short-scale Fender Musicmaster Bass, and when I removed the pickup cover, I was surprised to find a 6-pole pickup under there. While not a high-end bass, I would never have guessed from its sound that it had a 6-pole pickup.

But any sound the wood itself may produce will not be picked up, and will not affect the amplified sound in any way. Wood is simply an effective conductor of resonant vibration. For this reason, contact between the pickups and the body wood serves no tonal purpose.

Is that anywhere close to correct? I hope this isn't a question that's been answered numerous times already. I tried a quick search, but didn't find anything.

Thanks,

Dave

I remember a thread about this. My answer was something like, "Remove all the strings from your guitar, plug the guitar in your amp, and knock on the guitar. You'll see that the guitar doesn't need strings on it for the pickup to pick up wood vibration."

The downside of the GI-20 is that your GK signal is converted to MIDI, which in turn drives a MIDI synth. The advantage of a dedicated guitar synth like the GR-20 is that the GK signal is processed directly by ithe GR-20 without going through a MIDI conversion. 1 conversion to MIDI and 1 conversion from MIDI means 2 additional conversions that you avoid using a dedicated synth. That results in faster, better tracking overall no matter what pickup system you use.

Sorry, my mistake... I meant the GR-20 is what I'm using.

Even with that, I dare say you'd still have the same analog -> MIDI -> analog conversion happening, it just happens internally instead of spread over the signal chain.

I've tried a GI-20 connected to a synth module and the tracking was much slower than my GR-09. And the GR-09 is an old model. The MIDI protocol is a modified RS232 so its speed is limited. While the GR-20 may have internal analog<->digital conversion, it's not the same as MIDI. Here's a quote from the GR-09 manual. "The response time (and other factors) can seem somewhat altered, and you may feel there is a slight disadvantage to using MIDI to play an external unit, as opposed to the GR-09's internal sound generator. This is caused by restrictions in MIDI specifications, not the GR-09 or your external unit."

In the early days of guitar synths, I remember Craig Anderton writing that a less lively sounding guitar possibly with old strings tracks better because the fundamental tone is stronger since less upper harmonics have to be filtered out. I have also noticed that my mahogany-bodied Ibanez 540SLTD with a GK-2A pickup tracks a bit better than my basswood-bodied RG1520 with its piezo-equipped trem. So I would think that a lively guitar like a Strat might not be the ideal candidate for a guitar synth, and a more mid-heavy guitar would be better, even though Roland may have improved their techniques for filtering out the harmonics in recent years.

The downside of the GI-20 is that your GK signal is converted to MIDI, which in turn drives a MIDI synth. The advantage of a dedicated guitar synth like the GR-20 is that the GK signal is processed directly by ithe GR-20 without going through a MIDI conversion. 1 conversion to MIDI and 1 conversion from MIDI means 2 additional conversions that you avoid using a dedicated synth. That results in faster, better tracking overall no matter what pickup system you use.

Ibanez use a 330pF on the volume control of many of their guitars:

Ibanez Humbucker Guitar

Then you could use my SPDT circuit in your footswitch instead. You don't need 2 poles for that. However, you could use the second pole of a DPDT for your LEDs.

If you use a make-before-break switch, the click shouldn't be too noticeable.

On the other hand, I don't know how your guitar/bass is wired but couldn't you just do this with the selector on your guitar:

For the push-pull pot/switch, you can always try e-mailing Rich at Ibanezrules.com. Don't go by what's listed on his website because he doesn't update it often. The pot number is 3VR1MA0001 and you can find it here: https://cs.hoshinogakki.co.jp/i-public/faces/Login00.jsp

Pete, that's exactly how I feel about creating and playing music. I was never motivated to learn famous tunes note for note. I learned Satch Boogie once but didn't bother to learn the solos note-for-note. I only learned the main riff and the tap solo, and winged the rest. I never felt any gratification in learning someone else's work to perfection. Of course, there's a lot of stuff out there that I couldn't play if my life depended on it. But I get more pleasure in creating my own stuff whether people want to hear it or not. One advantage that I may have is the fact that I've played a bit of drums before so programming a midi drum track is not too much of a problem.

Thanks Pete! I guess it isn't really work when you're having fun doing it.

Usually, I work most parts of a tune out in my head, first. I prefer doing that over writing with a guitar in my hands. That way I end up writing stuff that I can't already play, learn how to play it, and then record it on computer. This helps my playing to evolve.

I write the drums and bass midi sequences in Cakewalk and play guitar and do vocals if the song has any. Sometimes I'll first program the guitar as a midi sequence before learning to play it, to hear how it fits. Then I'll do rough recordings of the different guitar parts, and once all the details are worked out, I re-record the guitar track properly. It's a lot of work but but I'm pretty happy with the results.

You can hear the only 2 vocal tunes that I've written here:

Larry O'Meara

If the above is what you are trying to achieve, then you could do it with a SPDT in this way:

The thing I don't like about the typical installation of the GK pickup is that the long end protrudes above the lo-E string where it comes in contact with my picking hand. I reversed the six pickup wires so that I could place the protruding end out of the way below the Hi-E string.

Why didn't you just install it the other way round? That's what I did with my external GK in my JEM and it works fine. You just have to configure your VG box so it knows you're that way round. Or perhaps that's only possible with the VG-99? Was this not possible with the VG-88 and VG-8?

Not all Roland guitar synths have that option, the older ones in particular.

The thing I don't like about the typical installation of the GK pickup is that the long end protrudes above the lo-E string where it comes in contact with my picking hand. I reversed the six pickup wires so that I could place the protruding end out of the way below the Hi-E string.

I'll also try to have a look and see if I can work out what the GK circuit is doing. I'd post up some piccies of the board but I don't wanna risk violating any laws or anything.

A while back, I traced out the circuit of the GK-2A and have a hand-drawn schematic of it. I don't want to violate any copyright or anything by posting it, either. But if someone would PM me an e-mail address, I'd be glad to send a scan of it. Then you could post it or do whatever you want with it.

BTW this is how I installed the GK-Kit on my Ibanez 540S. The pickup almost touches the trem. I filed down the pickup ring so I could place the GK pickup over it and have enough clearance between it and the strings. There's another hole in the top from a previous installation of a GK-2A pickup that I took apart so I could install its board internally. And you can see that I replaced the 1/4" jack with the GK jack.

I tried the isp decimator,it works great...but it works best for feedback,rather than background noise.

Which Decimator version are you referring to? The original Decimator pedal, the ProRackG, or the new G String pedal?

Eric Johnson Strat for me.

Glad to help.

What exactly is your XLR-1/4" converter? Is it something like THIS with a transformer? Or is it a simple XLR-1/4"mono cable? Or is it an XLR-1/4"TRS cable. And is your 1/4"-1/8" adapter mono or stereo (TRS)? Whatever components you're using and how you combine them can make or break your signal.

My choice of all of those would be the XLR-1/4" adapter with transformer through a mono 1/4"-1/8" adapter.

Or go to your local Radio Shack or electronics supply store.

I saw him busking in a Montreal subway station (Berri-UQAM) a few years ago and was simply dazzled by his tapping style. You just have to go to his website for links to his videos and other stuff. If you're ever in Montreal during the jazz fest, you can usually catch his playing on the street just off the festival site. He also spends a lot of time practising at Carré St-Louis on nice summer days

You might have the wrong type of pot. Your problem sounds similar to this guy's.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=303190

Here's another picture from that other forum. If someone had this board in their possession, it shouldn't be too difficult to trace out the circuit, measure the surface-mount components, and see if it matched typical op-amp circuit configurations.

Seeing that they're active pickups, I've always wondered if EMG didn't just use identical coils (of a very wide, flat frequency response) for all their models and just use different tone-shaping active circuitry to give each model its own sound. It makes one think.

Like jnewman was trying to explain, the efficiency or "sensitivity" of the speaker is the spec that determines how loud it is, and it's quoted as the number of dB measured at 1W,1m.

A difference of 3dB is equivalent to double the power in Watts. So for example, a Vintage 30 that's rated at 100dB will sound as loud with 10W pumped into it as a G12T-75 that's rated at 97dB will sound with 20W pumped into it. So maybe the Jensens just have a lower sensitivity.

Of course, all this applies only if the speakers that you are comparing are of the same impedance.

Edit: Nevermind, jnewman posted as I was typing.