Wired!

 

Figuring out everything can go through the solderless volume pot.

Tone pot and switch installed in the body.

What the switch and tone look like underneath.

Now everybody's here and the party is starting!

It works!!!

Time To Rebuild

Headstock fitted with tuning machines, bone nut, and truss-rod cover.

Aligning neck in pocket of the body.

Set neck with a thin wedge-shaped maple shim in edge of pocket.

All strung up and waiting for electronics.

Whippersnapper +1 Luck Guitar Custom Rebuild

(Hey! I see my face...)

I am laid up with a bad cold, but it so happens that all the parts (except strings) have arrived to rebuild the Whippersnapper +1 Luck Guitar gifted me from my friend Sick Rick. 

The guitar has always at very best intonated a hair sharp on the low E because the bridge saddle adjustment screw bottoms out. I thought it was perhaps because Sick mis-drilled the bridge-pin holes, but it turns out the original neck could be the culprit. 

That neck, a super thick and heavy piece of maple, had the 22nd fret sitting right above the bottom edge of the neck pocket. The replacement neck I found (same 24.75" scale length on a thinner piece of maple) has the 22nd fret sitting about between a 1/4-1/2" down the neck from there. Installing the neck will have the effect to shift the entire scale length away from the bridge providing I estimate a better range for the intonation adjustments on the new saddle without having to drill new post holes.

The rebuild upgrades are:

• Schaller Signum Bridge
• Schaller locking tuners
• Schaller Strap Locks
• Custom mid-scoop switch, 3-way Tone Pot (normal tone, push-pull pulled has bass cut and fixed wah), and volume pot all by KellingSound
• Maple 22-fret Guitar Neck
• Custom Waterslide Headstock Decal from PopsDecals
• Custom Truss Rod Cover by GuitarUpgrade

I am keeping whatever humbucker pickup Sick installed, it is a screamer. Also Sick had put a bone nut in that looks like it will pit perfectly on the new neck. 

Only thing is even if I get it all together this weekend strings won't arrive until Tuesday. :~P

P.S. Ohhhh, tired of force-feeding guitar through a 15" speaker bass rig I picked up a used early 1990s Fender Ultimate Chorus...

Complete and Still Work to Do

(Nice and clean-looking)

Last weekend I finished the soldering and tucked everything in nicely, only I was getting a weird crackle and cut out when the cable plugged into the output jack was moved. Tried to tighten down the jack a bit and ... POP! Something snapped and sound went dead.

(Wiring after troubles fixed, you can tell I've been in there...)

So this weekend unscrewed the wiring harness and found I pulled both the positive and ground wired out from the output jack, probably by rotating the innards whilst tightening. Ha, I also somehow soldered the positive leads to the tone POT to the wrong connection. Problems with working past your bedtime on a school night when there is a big test the next day. (Not really, but I did have a shit-ton of work to do.)

(Def mutant guitar, folks will wonder.)

Here is the almost final setup. After I got the wiring done and strings on, discovered the action's almost double what it should be. Playable, especially up towards the nut, but less so as you progress down to the higher frets. The Schaller roller-bridge I added is really a Gibson-style, where the stock bridge was much lower. The answer I found is to shim a little neck-angle at the heal of the neck ($37 from StewMac on Amazon). I also have a lighter set of strings coming in and some replacements posts from Schaller for my locking tuners (the inner post are of 2 sizes: 1 screw all the way to the top, 2nd only about 1/3 of the way for larger string and didn't grasp my D string. Schaller immediately shipped me the longer posts.) I should have things working perfect in a couple weeks.

(Closeup of the knob and switch board)

I did have a chance to set the pickups and everything sounds terrific, even the vintage stock Epiphone mid-PUP. I still enjoy the Fralin neck and bridge pickups together best. Daughter Resident Evil stopped by for a visit and wailed away, so much so I promised her the instrument after my demise (ha, I had already recently in the past few years gifted her brother my vintage 80s Yamaha SSC-500, and Resident Evil doesn't have a guit with a Bigsby).

Thus Far ...

 

So early, early Thursday morning I got the new Fralin neck and bridge pickups in (the middle is original vintage 70s Epiphone that is stock with the guitar). Also laid down faraday tape in the electronics cavity.

Similar earliness Friday attached the KellingSound electronic Pots wiring harness to guitar's cover of the electronics cavity. You can see the three black knobs for volume, single red knob for tone, and the chickenhead knob for the six-position rotary selector switch.

On this view clockwise starting straight up at 12 o'clock is the rotary selector switch, then from around the horn to the right next is neck pickup volume, then Iron Age momentary killswitch, universal tone Pot, middle pickup volume, and last next to the output jack is bridge pickup volume. A weird layout to be sure, but perfectly functional for me and looks cool with all the knobs in place (ha, you'll need to wait for the final).

All-Together Now (All-together Now!) All-Together Now ...

 So here is where things started out Sunday afternoon installing new guts for my 1995 Fender MB-4 bass...

Basically, everything was soldered excepting the grounds. I needed to widen the holes just a bit for the new pots and also fashion a new hole in the cavity for a momentary kill switch (ala Buckethead).

First thing I did though is shield the cavity with some Faraday Tape.

Next widened the pot holes using a hand wood reamer and added hole/momentary kill switch.

And finally got everything connected and seated...  (Ha, my friend J.A.S. would say, "You can tell I've been in there.")

Looks pretty good from the outside!

Below is the finished guitar: New pot assembly from KellingSound88 on eBay and new P/J pickups from Fralin Pickups out of Richmond, Virginia.

All was not without friction however, when I had everything put together the pickups wouldn't engage except when the instrument cable was only about halfway inserted. And even then the momentary kill switch, which did work, had kind of "pop" when activated (this indicated the switch was just cutting the hot wire instead of grounding it as the design was supposed to).

So I figured some kind of short was created when I flattened out the wires into the cavity to put the cover plate back on. Opening everything up I didn't see anything unexpected, so I just took extra care that no bare wire was crossed anywhere then sealed the guitar back up.

Then the bass played extra fine and the instrument cable jack was as normal. There also was just the most minimal of noise at high volume (hiss noise from the original pickups are what started me down this project). The Fralin pickups a superb. Coupled with the new pot assembly I can get everything from an acoustic-sounding low-end to a very crunchy overtone-laden mids/highs.

Unfortunately the momentary kill switch no longer works. Not sure whether there is an internal bad connection that broke. I checked the wires and everything was connected as it should be before re-installing the cavity plate. Right now I am just enjoying the bass as it is. I might look for a different kill switch that will fit the 12mm hole I drilled. Ha, the button looks cool by itself even if it does not actually do anything.

New Pot Assembly

So... the tone on the new (to me) vintage Fender MB-4 is awesome. Except that I have an annoying A/C signal hum. Not really noticeable when jamming along, but it's certainly there when I want to be silent.

Checked everything out - it's not pedals or cable or amp or any intervening device - the noise is coming from the bass. I went and found Seymour Duncan has a wiring diagram for P/J pickups with a blend knob, and their schematic shows a bunch of grounds going to the master volume pot. However in the MB-4 it appears there has been some wiring work done, and the majority of grounds have ended up on the volume pot (see below). 

Now, J.A.S. my friendly tech friend, says that should not be a problem although any loose ground will act just like an antenna for AC or other frequency hum. Ha, advice from Sick Rick was "I don't mess around with other people's work anymore, I just buy a new assembly."

I went on eBay looking around and found this dude KellingSound88 who makes all sorts of pot assemblies, 5,767 reviews since 2002... 100% positive! And I found a P/J with blend assembly.

Per KellingSound88: P/J Bass Harness with Bridge pickup blend pot, this wiring is perfect for the P/J setup this allows you to blend in the bridge pickup a little or all the way with the Neck pickup, but it doesn't give the bridge by itself. The blend pot is A500k and is no load so when its all the way up its out of the circuit giving a fuller sound. The Volume is A250k with a treble bleed circuit. The tone pot is A500k with a .082 Vitamin Q paper in oil capacitor this gives a smooth taper adding a little treble cut but will give dark tone when all the way down than a .047 giving a wider range of tone options.

And the piece arrived with a nice handwritten note of where to wire the pickups and grounds.

I am looking to install sometime before our next Dismalhead jam and I am really looking forward to it. The assembly is total craftsmanship down to cloth-wrapped wires and rubber-covered connections for the jack. Ha, however it is funny for once I want something that IS a buzz kill.

B-minor Variations

"Pentatonic Bm Variations on 3rd, 4th, 7th, Chromatic and Time" by Luminous Red Nova.

• Peavey Fury IV, 
• Electro Harmonix Muff Pi,
• Kustom Deep End 300HD, and
• Eminence Deltalite II 2515.

Diddling Around with Carlos

"Corona" by The Minutemen.

Pedalboard Update

 

Ok, going around the horn...

SYSTECH PHASE SHIFTER. Our oldest pedal, someone picked this thing up probably around 1983 and I ended up with it. Not really appropriate for the beginning of a signal chain, but I do enjoy plugging in right there at the top and the sounds coming through have not disappointed.

BOSS OCTAVE OC-5. The last pedal I added to the board. Was looking for some occasional deep synth-bass, also can get an organ-like tone.

DO THE WEASEL STOMP. (Newer version) A clone of the Systech Harmonic Energizer popularized by Frank Zappa. A filter/harmonic expander type pedal used as a treble or bass boost, which I basically leave the expression pedal at max bass unless I want to go in and out of the treble for this weird wah effect.

AMT Electronics EX-50. A mini expression pedal. I really wanted all metal pedals and this was the best of the minis I could find. Ordered direct from Russia.

ELECTRO-HARMONIX DELUXE BIG MUFF PI. Saw this pitched by none other than Tony Levin. The Big Muff is the first pedal I bought just for bass. Super versatile from growly fuzz to tight overdrive.

TC ELECTRONIC POLYTUNE 3 MINI. I lost my $10 Snark clip-on tuner and thought it would be cool to get a good tuner on the board. Being toward the end of the chain also works as a kill switch when tuning is activated. Incredibly accurate and visible but cost a butt ton of dough for a tuner.

MORLEY 20/20 VOLUME PLUS. The cool thing about this volume pedal is that a footswitch activates an adjustable minimum volume setting, so you can't accidently step on the pedal too hard and die off.

SINGULAR SOUND BEAT BUDDY AND FOOT SWITCH. Our drummer keeps exploding! (Ha, my fault. Sorry Dean.) This isn't technically in the chain, anyhow drummers are always a pain in the ass to round up and keep. So I went on a search for what would be the best drum machine when you can't get a live drummer and the Beat Buddy showed up.

SL Waber EPC-100 ESD TOUCH PLATE POWER CENTER SWITCH HUB 5-PORT SURGE PROTECTOR. Found it lying around left over from Owl Man's LAN party days. Powers everything either directly or through my AZOR Pedal Power Supply Adapter with 5 Way Daisy Chain Cables fit for 9V DC 1A (1000mA) Negative Tip Guitar Effect Pedal. (Hmmms, Does it really make sense to power $1,000 worth of pedals through a $12 daisy chain?)

Uninverted

Okay, enough of the inverted 5th for the time being. I enjoyed the bizarre sounds from the special tuning. However, I found the lower end "D" string was super muddy with my amp/cab setup which limited the range. And also my dexterity-limited range provided for only the simplest of single-note runs or arpeggios.

Alas so I am back to standard tuning for the time being. It makes the most sense for jamming with the fellas and my amplification rig. Here is a preliminary run...

Set List: Yoshime, Knights In White Satin, House of the Rising Sun, Heaven, For the Turnstiles, After Dark, Tangled Up In Blue, Powderfinger, Sweetleaf.

Pick Test

I got it in my head that I could try jamming on the inverted 5th tuning as on a regular 6-string guitbox. It took a few takes to fuddle with the volume and tone, and I probably need to adjust the string heights. Seems to be a workable project although I don't know if I would ever adjust to the Takamine acoustic inverted 5th if'n I was going to play by plectum...

Set List: Farewell Ride, For the Turnstiles, Run On for A Long Time, Heaven, Helpless, House of the Rising Sun, Knights in White Satin, Hurt, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Mad World, Malicious Hallucinations, Nebraska, Rats, Dominance and Submission, Sedan Delivery, Girlfriend In a Coma, You're A Big Girl.

Inverted Jam

Had an interesting inverted jam this evening. I taped up some inverted bass. Plus, given the old Sony camera has defects, I am recording with the GoPro (Omdaughter rediscovered it in her shit).

I'll post some of the awful recording here.

Set List: Nebraska, Powderfinger, Down the Line, Sedan Delivery, Submission, Last Days of May, Big Girl, Yoshimi, Time, Adam Raised a Cane, After Dark, Dwight Frye, Blowin' In the Wind, Comfortably Numb, Creep, Dead Flowers, Dominance, Factory.

Inverted 5th Tuning

I previously related my efforts to get my $2,500 Takamine fretless acoustic bass somewhat stage-worthy. While I mostly solved the feedback problem, I was running into issues with the "presence" of that bass's noise. Individual notes in the middle register of the instrument were often lost and chords seemed muddy and indistinct.

As a longtime fan of Peter Gabriel and King Crimson bassist Tony Levin, I always enjoyed the sounds he made on the Chapman Stick. Poking around the interwebs I tried to find out how much one of those instruments cost. In the course of that inquiry I learned about Emmitt Chapman's inverted 5th tunings.

In 1964 Chapman wanted to make chordal accompanyment as easy as possible, given the complex jazz progressions he was playing together at the time on the 34" scall 8-string guitar he had built at the time. He found the bass element easier to negotiate if those strings were somewhere in the middle of the sequence. Around '67 he created the bass 5ths tuning on that 8-string guitar by dropping the D at the 6th position down an octave, extending my overall range by a whole step, and raising the E at the 8th position up an octave. The A was left as is, thus all lettered notes remained the same. Soon after, I added a 9th string (B, a 5th above the 8th E).

On a 4-string bass these tunings resulted in reversing the order of the strings, with the heavier gauge low strings toward the bottom rather than the top. And while the letter notes of each string followed the standard pattern of the top 4 strings of a 5-string bass (B-E-A-D), each 5th was actually a full octave apart from string to string.

I was interesting in attempting these tunings, but first I had to find an instrument where I could reverse the normal string gauges, essentially turning a right-handed guitar into a left handed guiter, before I could attempt the inverted 5th tuning.

I did NOT want to experiment first on my expensive Takamine, so I looked to my el cheapo Dean acoustic bass, but the holes to set the string ends were bored different sized to accommodate each string. Then I remembered Omdaughter's Peavey Fury IV bass that had been temporarily residing at our home. The bridge on the Peavey had standard bores for the strings all the same size, but string channels in the nut were different sizes. Ha, so I received permission from Omdaughter to tap out the nut and slip it back in the neck opposite. Thankfully the process was perfect.

Next I strung up the bass with strings and tuned to the inverted 5ths. Now, when compared with standard tunings, a standard set of bass strings in the inverted 5th are tuned (except the A string) are tuned to different notes and tensions than for which they were normally designed. 

Here is the outline of how the strings are tunes differently:

• Standard low E string is tuned down 1 full step to D
• Standard A string is tuned the same to A
• Standard D string is tuned up 1 full step to E
• Standard high G string is tuned up 2 full steps to B

The problem was tuning that high G string up 2 full steps to a high B, the sets of strings I had (La Bella 760 FS Deep Talkin' Bass extra long flatwounds) just weren't designed to handle the tension of being tuned up 2 full steps. (Ha, thankfully La Bella was kind enough to sell me 2 individual G strings to replace the ones I busted so I still had a couple new sets.) What to do?

I knew I wanted flatwound strings, and it turned out D'Addario has a string tension guide for their strings that lists the tensions of various gauge strings at a variety of tunings. The purpose of this is because apparently some players want an even tension across all their strings (I never even thought of that), but the effect was I found a proper gauge flatwound G string in an extra long bass set that had a tension listing for a high B. Eureka!

Below is the guitar now. It is a trip to play as the chordings are super strange and the guitar easily slaps in almost a Les Claypool/Primus style (not that I am remotely near Les!). One thing is I had to swap the location for balance and volume knobs as I kept bumping my vol. Band mates are going with the flow for now, so we'll see where this musical tangent goes. Way to be.

Classical Carlos Jam Video - BORKED!

I had a nice, long, video-taped (yes, actual tape) Classical Carlos jam at Ur-daughter's home with Tahoe the Cat. Unfortunately I dropped the camera setting up and scrambled the audio pickup. Dang!

Anyhow, here is the setlist: Creep, Heaven, Rain Dogs, There is a Light That Never Goes Out, Tender is the Night, Old Country Waltz, Her Diamonds, Yoshimi, Doolin Dalton, Sweet Jane, Waiting for the Great Leap Forward, Your Racist Friend, God's Gonna Cut You Down, Hurricane, Sedan Delivery, Dominance and Submission, Don't Cry No Tears, Desperado, Pumped Up Kicks, Soldier Sign.

Classic Carlos Jam re: Burn

Housesitting for omdaughter and her hubster during the Burning Man festival and had an opportunity to jam on the Classical Carlos! I must bring a tune book...

Beat to the Bass

While I have pretty much spent the past 2-3 years getting acquainted with the guitar, my background is bass guitar. Funny, I was jamming with a bunch of old mates back in April and everyone expected I would be playing bass guitar - which I hadn't practiced for years having given my electric 5-string bass off to middlin-son the Owl Man.

I kinda had second thoughts before the jam and was looking to find a decent bass on eBay hopefully for around $100, when I realized I had this $2,500 Takamine fretless acoustic-electric just cased-up down in my living room. There was no way I ought to spend any money when I have this expensive instrument existing as a mere conversation piece.

The Takamine bass entered my life more than 15 years ago (last musical instrument purchased PWI - Purchasing While Intoxicated), but I never was really able to use it because of feedback problems in the various loud bands I hung with.

So, while I jammed regular guitar back at April's informal gig, I resolved to figure out how to get this rig playable. The journey of the past couple months was basically #1 - solve feedback issue, and #2 - learn fretless.

Here is my first impromptu set (flubs and all) after about 6-7 weeks practicing: Jesus and Tequila, State Trooper, People Just Ain't No Good, Swamp, Dead Flowers, Jane Says, Keep the Glove, Corona, Moonchild.

New Puppy!

(My slowly evolving Ibanez 2383)

J.A.S. dropped a new el cheapo brand-Asia neck pickup into my Ibanez. Before I had strung up my Ibanez I heard the bridge pickup in one of J.A.S.'s guitars (an electric Takamine) where J.A.S. had replaced the stock magnet with a new ALNICO magnet.

I remembered I had the magnet from the original, non-functioning Epiphone pickup - so I did a mag-brain transplant! The original magnet turned out to be waaaay stronger than brand-Asia, and I am getting much more sustain. Very happy the pickup has a bit of the original in it and is truly a mutant!

PS The Gibson pickup covers I bought are a hair too narrow for brand-Asia, which is why that pickup is nude.
PPS A new roller bridge is on there too.

Anyhow, here is the weirdness, when I have 3-way switch in the middle, both neck and bridge pickups on, there is no volume unless I have the top volume knob right in the middle. It is not a sweep or anything like that, basically, once I hit 5 the pickups light up and the lower volume knob controls the volume.

Involuntary Acoustic

Old bandmate J.A.S. (Geo Pigs, Ripon, Scratch Elder) stopped by last night and helped me troubleshoot a dead pup in my Ibanez SG copy. Unfortunately the pup was dead, dead, dead. J.A. is gonna drop in a new one for me, but he took the electric home not to be returned until April 15th.

So I find myself with the residence to myself late Saturday morning and ended up running my Ovation classical guitar through my electric rig. J.A. Also gave me some advice on how to set the old bass practice amp for vocals. It's typically productive like that when J.A. visits.

Also, I paired down my song selections to a limited set list. I wanted to work on a particular variety of tunes and here it is. I just need to focus in getting through the set and not dilly-dally over errors

Set List: Bigmouth Strikes Again, Creep, Dead Flowers, Death Is Not the End, Desperado, Dominance and Submission, Doolin-Dalton, Don't Cry No Tears, Easy Wind, God's Gonna Cut You Down, Heaven, Helpless, Her Diamonds, Hurricane, Jane Says, Old Country Waltz, People Just Ain't No Good, Pumped Up Kicks, Rain Dogs, Sedan Delivery, Soldier Side, Tender Is the Night, There is a Light That Never Goes Out, Waiting for the Great Leap Forward, Yoshimi, Your Racist Friend, Farewell Ride, For the Turnstiles, Girlfriend in a Coma.

New Rigs

Nothing to see hear...

Actually out of view is my old bass amp with 15" speaker cab that I am using for the guitar. That freed up daughter #1's bass practice amp that I slapped a chorus pedal on and am using for vocals. The vocal volume is a little low in these tunes because the amp is cranked. I wanted a brief practice run whilst wifey was out of the premises for a bit...

Set list: People Just Aint No Good, Creep, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, Bigmouth Strikes Again, Mad World, Dominance and Submission, Easy Wind, God's Gonna Cut You Down, Her Diamonds, Hurricane, Institutionalized, Jane Says, Jockey Full of Bourbon, Johnny 99.