I keep forgetting to answer the 5-string bass question. It's an 80s Peavey Cirrus-style bass that I bought off eBay a long time ago. It had some Peavey Custom Shop stickers on it with a serial number of 88888, but it wasn't very well finished - no grain filler - so it may well have been a prototype. It had a 2-band active preamp in it with passive pickups. The pickups were very growly, like a Thunderbird, and the bottom B sounded really dull. Its a narrow string spacing so I've got to stick with the original bridge, but I've now drilled out the B-string hole in it so a string actually fits through it properly.
I'm halfway through putting a proper shiny finish on it using Solarez UV curing products, but it's a side project, something to do when I'm waiting for finishes to dry. I also need decent sunshine and that is pretty patchy ATM here. I'll be rewiring the pickups for parallel operation for (hopefully) more clarity and less output and will start out with passive controls and find out what that sounds like. I'll maybe add a preamp in if I think it will benefit from it. Room enough in the control cavity for some boards and a battery.
Oh, and I did stain it to darken its looks but it ended up rather patchy in take-up and the light bits went a lot darker than planned. But I haven't got any emotional investment in the bass, so I'm just leaving it and finishing it as-is. A lightly distressed look under the shine.
Last edited by Simon Barden; 31-08-2020 at 11:18 PM.
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