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isaac42

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3 hours ago, lug said:

I sincerely apologize for any grief my post has caused you.  I should have said your Rolls Royce and your fancy potato farm.   

Thanks. I'm over it, anyway. Besides, there's a lot of interesting history between the Irish and the Scots.

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Back to the GJazz.

Someone on talkbass posted that the problem with the low output wasn't the pickups, but the strings, so I did an experiment. I took off the E and A strings and replaced them with some old d'Addarios. The difference is considerable. The output of the Glarry strings is much, much lower. Unfortunately, because of the shape of the headstock, my old G string won't fit. Won't reach the tuner. So, it looks as though I'm going to have to go buy some actual new strings for it!

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  • 4 weeks later...
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Messed with the GJazz this morning. Took the stock pickups out and put the Bartolinis in. No mods necessary to the body; even the screw holes lined up. However, the pick guard doesn't quite fit anymore. Getting too hot in my workspace, so I took a break and had lunch.

While I had the pickups out, I took the opportunity to measure the DC resistance.
Glarry pickups: neck, 5.75K ohms bridge, 6.79K ohms
Bartolini 9W4s: neck, 5.57K ohms bridge, 7.08K ohms

Resistances are pretty similar, but I don't know about other factors. I'm pretty sure that the Glarrys (Glarries?) are long single coils. The Barts, I think, are four individual single coils, but I'm not sure about that. I also don't know about magnet strength. Until I plug the bass in, I won't know about output, and I may not have a good idea until I take it to a band practice.

So now, I have to do a bit of filing and sanding to get the pickguard to fit. No worries there, it's just plastic. I haven't installed the Bart preamp yet. Should be interesting to hear how it sounds just by changing the pickups.

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Sounds nice. I'm not getting a huge difference in the sound, but it is, after all, the same bass, with pickups in the same locations. Too bad there's no way to switch back and forth between new pickups and old. Also would be nice to play it in a band context. Might could do that on Saturday. If I do, I'd better bring another bass, just in case.

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Played the GJazz with the Bartolini pickups at a gig this evening, and I was quite impressed. Really got the job done. I raised the bridge pickup before the gig, and I think it made a big difference. It was too low, sounded weak, and dragged the rest of the sound down. After raising it, it sounded much better.

Tuesday, I'll play it at a band practice, where I've played it before, which will give me a basis for comparison.

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I went to install the preamp into the GJazz. Got all of the electrical work done and the parts affixed to the plate, only to discover that there is not sufficient space in the cavity for everything, including the battery.

I'll figure something out, but I had to play a different bass last night. 

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On 8/31/2020 at 7:28 AM, lug said:

ECHO 20 in. 59.8 cc Gas 2-Stroke Cycle Chainsaw-CS-590-20AA - The Home Depot

Pretty much what I ended up doing!

I had fantasies of doing a really clean, professional job with a router, but a couple of days ago, I just grabbed my drill. That got it started. Then, I used a "chisel" (said chisel being a flat headed screwdriver) to gouge out a battery compartment. The wood is extremely soft. Anyway, the bass now has the Bart pups and preamp, and it makes sound. Hard to get a good idea of what it sounds like through my little practice amp, though. None of my bands are rehearsing these days, so I don't have a way to judge the sound through a bigger rig, with the rest of the band playing. Maybe next week.

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The saga continues...

Put it back together and took it to band practice. Everything worked, but oddly. The bridge volume control worked backwards, was the main thing. Interactions between the controls were odd, too. I figured that I had probably wired something wrong. And I was right.

Opening it back up, I discovered that I had put the bridge pickup ground on the wrong tab, which I had thought was the most likely cause. Put it back together again, and everything works as it should. Sounds good through my little practice amp. No more band practices for the rest of the year, so no opportunity to test it in the mix with a band.

Maybe next year...

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It went great! Bass sounded really good. Everything worked as it's supposed to. Think I might want to adjust the truss rod a bit, and experiment with different tones available with active tone controls. But it's definitely fun. Best $78 I ever spent on a bass!

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6 hours ago, isaac42 said:

Looks nice. What kind of pickups are those?

The screen printing says "Destiny CNC Wound." You can find their guitar pickups on Reverb.com and their bass pickups mentioned on Talkbass.com. That's thanks to Google and it's all I know. :idk:

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