What’s on *YOUR* workbench?
- Thread starter Bricksnbeatles
- Start date
KR Sound
Well-known member
If you take out that bottom left screw, does it want to flatten out? Find the offending holes and plug them and screw the pic guard back on. If the guard doesn’t want to lay flat by itself when you remove it, heat it up with a heat gun or hot hair dryer and place some heavy books on it for about 20 minutes so it becomes flat again.
Mentaltossflycoon
Well-known member
She used one on franlab today!If I recall, my original Frantone Cream Puff had a 1000uf for the power filtering
finebyfine
Well-known member
Getting ready to go full insane mode. This is for a Harley Benton Bass VI
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
I need the deets!
finebyfine
Well-known member
So the pickups you recommended have been backordered forever (although thank you again for the recommendation). I also reached out to bootstrappickups about doing a custom Bass VI jag set but haven't heard back. While waiting on both I kept thinking about how many bass guitars use active pickups, and how I'm not personally a big single coil guy to begin with. I like them in the neck position on strats and on these Bass VIs but that's about it. So the idea of having more flexibility by using an active system with onboard EQs has been rattling around in my head. I recently bought a second HB Bass VI to keep stock to feel more comfortable tearing into this one for whatever pickups I settled on.
Months ago I had googled "Bass VI active pickups" and after digging I found one guy on the offsetguitar.com forums who installed active pickups on his, 8 years ago. I was 90% sure which EMG set he used but he never said which outright in any posts. I saw my checking account balance recently and it was double what I expected, so I private messaged the guy that posted about it 8 years ago not expecting a response. He wrote back in 10 minutes confirming which set he used and some installation notes.
I'm a huge EMG fanboy in general and I think their general reputation for only metal sells them short - I mean David Gilmour's been using them forever now. I think they sound amazing with flatwounds, their clarity at lower volumes rules, and they're easy to install to boot (I am terrible at internal cavity wiring).
So when he wrote back I decided to pull the trigger and buy what mbene085 on offsetguitars.com used: the "S" ceramic active single coil set and EMG's SPC - which was designed to EQ a single coil pickup into a humbucker (Gilmour also uses this with his alcino emgs). The pickguard is loaded and ready to go (no pic yet, I just liked the idea of teasing it w/ the battery case). Conductive shielding paint is currently drying on the cavities after I routed out a bit more space.
tldr EMG's "S" ceramic active coil set with their SPC control are going into my Harley Benton Bass VI (HB calls it their Guitarbass VS for what it's worth)
Last edited:
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
Sounds awesome! So the battery compartment isn’t actually going on the front? Bc that would look pretty rad haha
Definitely dig the idea of the active VI, and I actually know exactly which thread from OSG you’re talking about— made me want to do an active VI too
What are you doing for pickup switching? Blade switch or individual slide switches?
I definitely agree about your assessment on EMGs— I haven’t used them in any of my guitars, but I have a PJAX set loaded in my 80s Fernandes PJ, and even though it’s a none-more-black pointy headstock shredfest on the outside, it’s absolutely fantastic for clean ultra-hifi jazz fusion stuff more than anything else!
finebyfine
Well-known member
Sounds awesome! So the battery compartment isn’t actually going on the front? Bc that would look pretty rad haha
Definitely dig the idea of the active VI, and I actually know exactly which thread from OSG you’re talking about— made me want to do an active VI too
What are you doing for pickup switching? Blade switch or individual slide switches?
I definitely agree about your assessment on EMGs— I haven’t used them in any of my guitars, but I have a PJAX set loaded in my 80s Fernandes PJ, and even though it’s a none-more-black pointy headstock shredfest on the outside, it’s absolutely fantastic for clean ultra-hifi jazz fusion stuff more than anything else!
Oh, nah: the battery compartment IS going on the front just as pictured.
I didn't want to buy a real router and learn how to use it to throw it on the back. But because it's going in the front I had to carve out some of the cavity to fit the 5 way strat switch I'm using in there. It's going just above the battery box.
I love how the individual slide switches look but the Harley Benton's don't come with them. I did buy a spare jag switch plate that I have laying around somewhere if I ever decide to try that instead of the blade switch that came with the EMG set.
Also I love that someone else has stumbled upon that post, lmao!
Passinwind
Well-known member
Today's folly: taking another stab at doing something with one of the Wavefront AL3201 (now Coolaudio V1000) boards I was given as a bonus in a big parts deal a few years ago. These boards were used in Fender and Genz-Benz amps in the typical limited 15 preset no adjustments format, and work at line level, so I get to do my own blend/summing/feedback implementation for starters, but I at least managed to find the right rotary encoders and won't have to use 4 toggle switches just to access the preset programs.
The chorus/verb presets already sound pretty good for bass as-is in my amp's parallel EFX loop, and mono--> stereo is easy to implement, so I reckon I should be able to make a viable pedal of some sort out of them. Looks like so:
I have quite a few of these boards and may do a giveaway contest if I can get anything useful out of them.
The chorus/verb presets already sound pretty good for bass as-is in my amp's parallel EFX loop, and mono--> stereo is easy to implement, so I reckon I should be able to make a viable pedal of some sort out of them. Looks like so:
I have quite a few of these boards and may do a giveaway contest if I can get anything useful out of them.
KR Sound
Well-known member
Very cool. What does the switch do?
DGWVI
Well-known member
Swaps out c6 for either 1u or 10n.
With the other tweaks, I can go from Pendulum Classique, or get into HF Modulator-like tones
KR Sound
Well-known member
Right, I should’ve asked what does it do to the tone rather? My bad.
DGWVI
Well-known member
Just alters the frequency range of the LFO- one mode does the whoosh n throb from slow phasery sweeps to funky vibrato-esque trems, the other starts as a super fast throbby trem and gets gross from there
KR Sound
Well-known member
Awesome, thanks! Sounds pretty cool
DGWVI
Well-known member
Here's a rough demo. Still playing around with values for the HF mode, so it'll probably change a bit before I box it up
cwsquared
Well-known member
This. My final write-up on the body/neck finishing it will be in the dedicated thread soon.
It's getting there... a little bit at a time. I want be "done" by the end of the year.
The control cavity is a rat's nest, which makes me sad. I really want to just play it, so I am going to use the kit's included preamp, for now. I have @Passinwind 's V2 preamp PCBs being fabbed at OSHpark right now, so that will help, but I should have planned ahead better. I am going to on-board a preamp with specs based around it being a pedal. Battery life may suck a bit, but it should look way nicer.
It's getting there... a little bit at a time. I want be "done" by the end of the year.
The control cavity is a rat's nest, which makes me sad. I really want to just play it, so I am going to use the kit's included preamp, for now. I have @Passinwind 's V2 preamp PCBs being fabbed at OSHpark right now, so that will help, but I should have planned ahead better. I am going to on-board a preamp with specs based around it being a pedal. Battery life may suck a bit, but it should look way nicer.