A weekend work conference. Everyone's idea of fun. Enjoy!
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A weekend work conference. Everyone's idea of fun. Enjoy!
We have them twice a year and they are pretty dull except for the Saturday night dinner where plenty of booze gets consumed. Not me this time as I have cut back as part of my weight loss mission that does not allow for too many drinks nor desserts for that matter.
Never that much fun when all around you are indulging and you have to stay relatively sober.
All good Simon, no longer a teenager so hangovers tend to hit a lot harder and since cutting back to one session per week about 6 months ago, rather than a couple of drinks each night, these days it only takes about 4 drinks for me to start feeling tipsy and therefore time to stop.
Finally got around to working on this again tonight.
Removed the PUP's, measured them against the standard ones and they are 5mm taller. Also realised that I had put some high density foam underneath them to act as a bit of cushioning and guess what, that was about 5mm thick too so easiest job was to remove such and screwed down the PUP's. Whilst I was at it the sunken PUP pole pieces were protruding out the bottom and were easily pushed back into place.
Strung it back up, re-tuned and then proceeded to lower action at the bridge as it was now way too high and no chance of touching the PUP's. Dropped the saddles down onto their bellies as they wouldn't go any lower and whilst still a little bit high on the upper frets it is low enough for where I mostly play. Only required a slight tweak of the intonation and now the G string is behaving itself. On another day or night I will swap over to the Gotoh Bridge as it has more mass plus a bit more fore & aft saddle travel.
Well, couldn't help myself as it was eating at me all day at work today so after dinner proceeded to swap bridges. Here are the before shots...
Attachment 15392Attachment 15393Attachment 15394
Thankfully original mounting holes lined up in exactly the same place for the Gotoh bridge and here are the after shots....
Attachment 15396Attachment 15397
Retuned intonation and all perfect now that there is a bit more fore & aft adjustment room. Had a blast playing this then the EX-5, onto the Ric 4003 and back & forth for an hour or so just to make sure all were functioning properly plus to help get a better perspective on the tonal sound differences between each Bass.
Gotta say, the more I play a 5 string it makes a lot more sense and actually becomes easier to play as you have a bigger spread of patterns in any block position up and down the neck. Pink Floyd's Money is not so easy on a 4 string compared to a fiver and there are plenty of other tunes where using a lower note higher up the neck is not as big a stretch.
Only job/s left on this might be a replacement nut and one of the original tuners on the D string feels a bit dodgy when tensioning up. These jobs will have to wait for another day as they are OK enough for now.
I like it when a plan comes together.
Thanks Simon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Re-checked intonation after lowering the PUP's and it was still off a bit on the G so as there was very little adjustment room left to work with that forced me into fitting the replacement. Unfortunately the theory about magnetic forces pulling on the strings because PUP's were too high may not have been contributing much to the intonation woes. It could have affected the harmonics a small amount but was too hard to identify and the fretted 12th on the G was still reading off by enough to be noticeable.
Did you find the bottom B string hard to fit through the hole in the rear of the bridge? I've got an 80's Peavey 5-string that I'm refinishing (and is currently part sanded and all in bits). Whilst it is supposed to be from their custom shop, its serial number of 888888 (on a holographic Peavey custom shop label) leads me to think that it might have been a prototype, especially as it was very poorly finished with no grain filling. The bridge is quite robust, with a thick rear bar, but I really had to pull the B string through using pliers and a lot of force.
Attachment 15399
As a result, I want to get a different bridge, but most of that style of bridge use the same sized holes for all the strings - and the same size as all the holes in the equivalent 4-string bridges. This strikes me as wrong. I may also look at rear string mounting bridges, as I'm now happier about drilling through the body and fitting ferrules. But again, all the string ferrules seem to have the same sized holes! It may be time to get the drill out on those as well.
Also, the bottom B sounded very dull indeed in comparison to the other four strings, with far less sustain, even though there was a decent break angle over the nut and bridge saddle. This was with two sets of strings. Is this normal?
I suppose this might be something to do with the pickups, which I also want to change, but they are all encapsulated in resin, so I can't take them apart to see if they might possibly have 4-string innards. It did have active treble and bass controls, but they weren't nice sounding and the overall tone was very growly, so I may first try the pickups in a passive mode in case they can be redeemed, but they will more likely be swapped for some other soapbar pickups.
Hi Simon, my fiver is the EX-5 and bridge looks similar to the one on your Peavey except the holes are big enough to take the ball ends into the base as per this shot. It is the standard PBG bridge that comes with the kit and have seen many that look similar on eBay.
Attachment 15400
I am guessing that it is the ball ends that are protruding as they are doing the same on the Red J Bass as seen in last shot on the lower RHS of that post where the strings used are D'addario. Can't remember what are on the EX-5 and tend to think they are more a mid priced set as I have only been playing it on & off for the past 6 months. Must say that the string holes do seem to have a bigger diameter.
Not sure rear loading would solve the problem unless you can find ferrules big enough to swallow the ball ends. There are some of the top mounted 'claw' styles that might work where the string is brought in through a groove at the back edge.
Low B was quite dull on mine too and reckon that had something to do with the much lower subsonics as it is also much harder to tune with a tuner too. Thickness of string plus string tension are probably affecting sustain too but I found this was more of an issue on open B and up to C and rarely play those anyway.
Swapping to better PUP's made a huge difference and all the strings now have same volume level and tonal clarity. Mine measure 102mm x 40mm and replaced with John Benson Customs for USD $200 plus $20 postage & handling. They had to be ordered via Adam at PBG as a special order and took a couple of months to arrive.
Hope some of this helps and makes sense.