Prostheta

Shot of the preamp circuit.... ....and the obverse.... ....so it looks like the LED is being current limited by R1, however I can't find a photo of that component's value and I haven't traced this circuit out to a schematic (yet). I would suspect that the Mitsubishi SIL IC (N1, Mitsubishi N5232L) is being powered at the full 18v supply, so the LED will be running at I=(Vcc-Vfv)/R; I'd suspect that the resistor colour coding is red-purple-orange (27kOhm) which would make the current something like 6mA or so assuming a 2v forward voltage drop over the LED. Let me know if you can eyeball those values on the component and I'll redo the math. That's about right for a typical "standard" LED but a lot of waste current....a low current red LED consumes something like 1mA-2mA for reasonable brightness and is kinder on the batteries. That would require changing out the resistor though, but that's your call. In principle you should be able to put any standard 5mm through-hole LED there and it'll work. I've never been much of a fan of these "modern" preamps and wiring harnesses as they were made down to a cost rather than up to a standard like the original SB-1000s out of the Matsumoku factory. It isn't to say that it's bad by any means....when up and running this bass will be a beast. It's like comparing engine blocks that came out of a factory during a period that were known to be ultra-reliable and/or tunable....that Japanese SB-1000s were unreal like that. I digress. Hopefully this should get you across the finish line?

It's celluloid tort binding....it must be matte from being mid-sanding or something.

I'm unsure of the orientation with that circuit. I presume the current limiting resistor will be on the PCB. Generally I'd locate the resistor, identify the supply voltage behind that and replace it with one suited to whichever LED I selected. Bear with me till this afternoon....

Okay! So this one is slightly different. It looks like a SB-1000RI (reissue) which is a modern model, not one of the 70s/80s Matsumoku models. The preamp circuit isn't quite the same as the originals, but in principle it does the same job. This is the schematic you need. It looks like the LED has been cut off for some reason, which corresponds to the red and grey wires. This acts differently to the original "dumb" LED blinker in that I think it blinks when the power is low. This long Mitsubishi SIL chip is a low-power alarm IC for that purpose. When routing for the pickup, bear in mind that if this bass was an SB-CB then the footprint of the original pickup may not match the repro from Veijo. Some of the reissues had weird soapbars instead of original MB-type pickups. If that's the case, I'd go by the new pickup's size adding a mm in size. No more since there is a draft angle on the case moulding that exaggerates perimeter relief after a point. How does that help?

Damn, should've given me a shout! Did you see my adventures in casting resin with luminescent powders? Tomasz in Poland at chaostrade.eu has tons of different grades that can be bought to suit the end purpose. I have a bunch of his M-JNW450 aluminium strontate which is bright as all hell when fired up with a blacklight, however the L-JNW500 is probably as strong as you can get without significant crashing. https://chaostrade.eu/Comparison-table-of-luminescent-pigments

Okay, let's have a look here. It sounds like the bass is an SB-1000 rather than the "SB Black n' Gold I" which Cliff favoured. The 80s SB-1000 model had the LED, and the pickup was a big dual ceramic mag humbucker. Cliff had a black SB-1000 for a very short period of time, but never got on with it. The weight, weird neck taper and maybe the active circuit in combination with that big humbucker....the SB Black n' Gold I (essentially the same as the Aria Pro II Elite-I and SB-R60) had a pickup more like an AlNiCo P-bass type. I recorded a value of 25mm as the pickup rout depth in my plan, however if you have pickup from Veijo then it might be wise to rout 26-28mm. the pickup is tensioned against foam blocks in the base with machine screws in threaded inserts to adjust height. 25mm might bottom out the pickup as Veijo's can be a mm taller sometimes. Bear in mind when re-routing that the original inserts may still be present. I think these were zinc, so not as problematic as steel but still not something you want to rout into at full bore! The LED circuit was separate from the rest of the preamp circuitry. I'd considered placing that onto the preamps that I make for SB-1000s, however the blinking induces too much noise into the audio via the supply lines. Generally I found that replacing the LED with a low current red LED to indicate battery presence was sufficient, and it's even possible to switch this using the unused fourth pole on the active/passive switch to either indicate "on in active mode", or using a bi-colour LED, when the bass is in active or passive mode. Where is this red/grey wire coming from? Drop a photo and I'll tell you what I see.

I can. Just heading out to work, but I'll respond fully later today.

It works well. Vintage bursts shaped like a teardrop are a bit too extreme for my taste (unless deeply faded) and the consistent margin types aren't either. Somewhere between the two, taking the contours into account makes for a much more tasteful transition.

I'm unsure if that would be homage or violent plagiarism.

Sure. I was referring to adjustment of a pickup and/or its poles relative to the strings. The difference is not purely volume, it also changes the dynamics and timbre.

I'd say that with most pickups, pole/pickup height in relation to the strings changes timbre as well as output. Boost as a mitigator is nice if you require that space for non tonal reasons!

This aspect can be completely discounted. Even though metal changes dimension measurably, wood does moreso. To get the metals used in fretwork to change size enough that they would have issues in a specifically-sized fret slot, they'd need to be heated/cooled to temperatures beyond that where a guitar could be physically touched, or wood doesn't self-combust or fracture. This is not a worthwhile path to pursue.

Alright, alright, time to dial it back a little I think but I will add a little about fret looseness. The way a fret seats is entirely dependent on the material properties of the substrate. If you pressed a fret into clay or other completely plastic material, the barbs describe a path into the material that is also the same way out of that material. Wood is not like this, however not all woods are the same. The barbs compress wood fibres on their path into the fret slot, with those fibres experiencing a degree of deformation that is a mixture of displacement, compression, etc. Frets are retaining by virtue of these fibres elastically regaining a degree of their original form; the path created by the barbs closing back up and locking the location in place. This is why I prefer to press frets with a modified f-clamp these days, so the fret can be held tightly whilst the fibres lock it up (the spritz of water I do may or may not provably help). A fret can vibrate in place, yet still be retained. A combination of incorrectly-sized fret slots and incomplete reversal of fibre displacement/deformation can easily cause this. The fret may not fall out - or that might simply be a matter of time - but it is far from seated adequately. Glue might be an option here, however it really should not be necessary unless the wood is particularly fractious in not "springing back". I know of no good "real wood" examples, but composites and torrefied ("roasted", "baked", "caramelised", "boiled/burnt/toasted/poached") woods, or - as stated - refretting into slots that are worn from previous fret insertion. Again, this is why I don't like hammering frets since any springing back of the fret itself can feasibly re-deform fibres in "the barb path" until a greater proportion of them fail, reducing final retention. Dead blow hammers are the best solution if hammering is absolutely necessary. Think about how you run your thumb down a hair comb, your thumb being the barb and the comb being the leading edge of the end grain in the fret slot. Thermal expansion of metals is unlikely to be a factor by comparison to other aspects of fret seating and retention. Wood is definitely far less stable than metals in response to heat and moisture, but not so much that a fret slot will be affected. I'd recommend consulting different species' properties with regards to longitudinal movement (in line with the grain/fibres) versus radial and tangential; generally the movement in response to heat and moisture is so small as to be negligible. I don't think that even centuries-old guitar fingerboards express the wood shrinking back between (well-seated) frets so much that they lose them or they vibrate. I might be wrong on that one. I see no reason to use glue in a new installation of fretwork unless the frets do not have barbs (say, custom-milled True Temperament which I don't think are even available uninstalled, or Martin-style bar frets) or the wood is not entirely behaving like most woods. The example of torrefied woods' brittle nature being one that is most likely to be seen. Even then, good fret slotting and fret prep/insertion practice avoids pretty much all of these issues. SS is springier than EVO and nowhere near as deformable as soft standard NS. SS is absolutely less forgiving of anything other than perfect fret slotting, bevelling and insertion practice. If it starts bouncing, it gets messy very quickly. If it's over-radiused too much, expect more bouncing and unseating. The only way I would fit SS these days is pressing. The fret slots need to be cut to the right kerf using a slotting box or jig. The wire would need to be radiused to almost the same radius as the board itself. ---- Find consensus, work on the discussion together in the same direction guys. Arguments and disagreement solve nothing other than side-taking. This should be an elevation and description of ideas, not one of muddying, opinionating or general obscurantism.

Celluloid is very delicate by comparison, yes. Careful of contaminating wood with celluloid in acetone. It gets where you don't want it to.

Oh yikes.

Zombie thread, also I take back everything I said about TurboCAD. Whilst I wish you success with your CNC software venture, I think you should be making it abundantly apparent that you are in fact advertising @brob

I'm still knee-deep in Line6 gear. The Helix floor has been excellent for me for a number of years now. I still find ways to squeeze out some new textures within driven amp models. A particularly fun one was/is a straight JCM800 driven by a TS808 followed by both a Mesa oversize and a standard Mesa 4x12 with different mics and a few tweaks such as parametric EQ afterwards, and finally pitch widening a couple of cents either side for breadth. For whatever reason this makes pinch harmonics absolutely squeal with texture. Kind of like twisting polystyrene. Don't even get me started on some of my other patches! So much flavour, so few stomps.

Hah, yeah that's a bit crazy. I'm hanging my Frankenstrat from the ceiling using a hook that I put in there. It marries well with the eye loop in the back.

Yeah, the dry cold will play all sorts of hell with the paint. It's defrosting and refreezing here in Varsinais-Suomi, so I don't like leaving myself outside either!

Getting there, bit by bit.

Very true. One of the instruments that I seem to have been drawn into being a "go-to guy" on, the Aria Pro II SB-1000 had an LED indicator added in the 80s version. Old LEDs were just absolute pigs for current, even over an 18v supply. Then again, old silicon was also pretty greedy as well. I'm unsure if that display is backlit or not? If so, then yes, that'll be a weak link. The Rick-O-Sound circuit is fascinating, since you can in theory send each pickup to separate inputs on amps or processors. In theory, you could stomp patches that provide specific pickup combos and tones with them. The only requirement being a stereo cable.

I'm pretty simple when it comes to pickups, at least in these builds. Neck or bridge. No middle position. No splits, parallel/series. I'd do that for another instrument (the LPish PE that haunts me) but one that is intended for a very player-oriented use doesn't need that distraction in order to be an absolute player. That's just my interpretation anyway. Even with a dual humbucker guitar that has three-way switching plus series/parallel and taps, I'd probably want to geek myself down the path of more complex digital multiplexing. Noiseless, buffered and totally geeky. Mechanical signal routing is so 19th century, but the mechanical switches can be put to use still. I think that LCDs such as those are only consuming power when changes are made to the display. Maintaining it is pretty frugal, but I might be wrong or thinking about something else. @curtisa might have something to chime in here. In principle that sort of system shouldn't be that difficult to develop, but gaining enough market traction to fuel development....that's another story entirely. Funny thing about signal processing is that you can do a lot of things that are otherwise impossible with simple routing of the "real" signal. Take the neck-most coil of a neck humbucker, use its signal with the other coil and you have a humbucker. You can duplicate that signal independent of that humbucker and mix it with some other coil elsewhere, or have it as a second signal. Stereo output (think, Rickenbacker Rick-O-Sound) can drive multiple amps seperately, especially with signal processors like my Helix with multiple inputs and processing paths. It doesn't take a lot to get really autistic about this and end up far from the path you intended.

Yep, its got the tones that you want from the type of guitar. If it sounded like a Dano, I'd be withdrawing any GOTM support forthwith.

That's a bit overwrought! I was thinking of "simple as required for the purpose". That would be great if it combined coils by phase, level and other powerful presetting. It looks like a gadgety multiplexer, slow to use in practice.

I'm hanging back instead of rushing these to completion. I'm running an idea in my head about a switching circuit as an alternative to a blade switch, likely for a future build anyway. I'm starting a new position with a large established company working with their CNCs, however as to whether I can pursue own projects....not yet known. The idea is to take the switching of pickups and make it electronically-controlled rather than mechanically. I hate switch noise. My idea is to construct a CMOS SR flip flop fron NAND gates ahead of an audio multiplexing IC. Change the pickup selector to an (ON)-OFF-(ON) momentary, and instantly we have a way of switching from the bridge to neck pickup (and vice versa) noiselessly. For me this is a nice setup as I use pickups individually rather than with a middle position. Moving on from these two guitars and producing the copy of my old carved top Mirage/Horizon transitional prototype would be ideal for this setup. If anything the idea provides a simple distraction whilst I get things in order with a new job and how best to finish these two guitars up. I need some polishing compound....