My Yamaha Bass Guitar

Hi Everyone,

Yes, here's yet another new thread started by me, anyway, this thread is about my other Bass guitar which I bought back home from Uni today, it is a Yamaha ERB 300 24 Fret 4 String Bass guitar, here's a pic so you can see what it looks like:


Attachment 12275


I scored the Bass guitar off a friend of mine, like my Peavey TKO 80 Bass amp, it was in a bit of a dilapidated state, so I did some work on it to get it to a playable condition, if my memory serves me right, the original bridge needed replacing, it was all rusty and the intonation screws were all bent and seized up, the new replacement bridge is made by Gotoh, I tried playing the Bass guitar through my bedroom studio and found that while the pickups and etc worked, the signal I was getting was noisy and hissy, so I'm looking at replacing all the electronics soon, I may even build/install a preamp in it since I've got a schematic for one.

good stuff Doc you got plenty of projects on the go now to keep you busy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wokkaboy

good stuff Doc you got plenty of projects on the go now to keep you busy

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Haha, yep....you can never have too many projects to work on mate, I wonder what DB would have to say about my TKO Bass amp and the Yamaha Bass?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrNomis_44

Haha, yep....you can never have too many projects to work on mate...

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Ohhhh, yes you can!

hey Doc,

Nice bass. I haven't seen floor covering like that since school in the 70's

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andy40

hey Doc,

Nice bass. I haven't seen floor covering like that since school in the 70's

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Haha...yeah I agree with you on that mate, as it turns out, where I'm currently living used to be an Australian Airforce accommodation site back in the 70's.


I'm considering doing a pickup upgrade on the Yamaha Bass soon.

Update:


I've been having some slight noise issues with my Yamaha ERB 300 Bass guitar, so I thought I would do some work on the control wiring to hopefully fix it, I opened up the control cavity and it looked like a rat's nest inside, so it's going to be all re-done, fortunately I have a copy of the pdf manual which includes a circuit and wiring diagram, rather than posting a copy of the manual here for you and risking issues with copyright, I thought I would do something cool for you guys and make a hand-drawn version of the circuit diagram, I'll post a pic of it here for you shortly once I've got it all organized.


The noise issue I'm getting with this Bass guitar is basically a slight trebly hiss when I plug it into my Digi002 Firewire Audio Interface, the noise is intrusive enough to make it hard to get a good recording of the Bass guitar, in terms of signal level and sound, next fortnight I'm going to seriously look at ordering some new Pickups from Pitbull Guitars for both this Bass Guitar, and my Squier P-Bass, I'm going to go with some Entwistles with Neodymium Magnets in them because the stock Pups in my Basses are a bit wimpy.

The slight trebly hiss seems to occur each time I play a note on the Bass Guitar, so I'm thinking it's an RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) issue caused by a possible bad earth, bad pots, or maybe bad shielding, or it could even be the pickups themselves.


Here's a bit of trivia for you:

Have you ever wondered where the brand name "Yamaha" comes from?, I did, one day I met a person from Japan and they said that the word "Yamaha" means "Horse" in Japanese, so there you have it.


Here we go, here's the wiring diagram as promised, if you find this in any way useful for your PBG Bass builds feel free to download a copy:

Attachment 12354

Just took the neck off my Yamaha Bass and guess what?, on the back of the neck where it fits into the neck pocket, I see ERB 300 stamped in red ink on the wood, so, it's official, what I have here is a Genuine Yamaha ERB 300 Bass guitar.


Here's a couple more pics:


Firstly here's a pic of the back of the neck heel:

Attachment 12355


And secondly, here's a pic of the back of the headstock, showing the serial number and where the ERB 300 was made:

Attachment 12356

cool bass, Doc, what you have is a genuine ERB300 Bass Guitar .... neck
I assume the rest is gen as well though
love the hand drawn diagram

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stan

cool bass, Doc, what you have is a genuine ERB300 Bass Guitar .... neck
I assume the rest is gen as well though
love the hand drawn diagram

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Haha...yeah, I hadn't thought of that, the body looks like it has been attached to the neck since the time of manufacture, it appears to be made of solid wood rather than plywood.


Hopefully no one has fobbed me off with another Chibson....haha.

My Pacifica was also made in Indonesia and is an Alder body. Fairly light to mid weight if that helps any in trying to identify the wood species. The PUP's in that axe are Vintage single coils and an Alnico 5 Humbucker with coil split and see no reason to upgrade them as fine as they are. Same goes for my eldest Son's Yammy Bass, RBX270 I think, and also for the BB1000 I owned about 30 years ago. Tend to think you may spend a lot of money on upgrading PUP's for negligible sound quality difference compared to originals.

Blows me away how good Yamaha stuff is made irrespective of country or factory it may have come out of. Pretty much the Toyota of the instrument world in that they may not necessarily be everyone's 1st choice but well built and damn reliable.

Oh, they also make lots of motorised things too such as Motor Bikes, Generators, and also worked closely with Toyota on the last Celica made and possibly the last MR2, both of which were about the most thrilling thing Toyota made at the time which was about 10-15 years ago.