isaac42

Years ago, a band I was in tried the egg carton thing.

Didn't help much, if at all.

On 6/27/2021 at 6:12 AM, Jazz Ad said:

post

Why, yes. Yes, it is a post.

Also, this might be better addressed in the keyboard forum.

23 hours ago, gspointer said:

Awesome!

They always are.

On 5/18/2021 at 6:02 AM, 78pbass said:

wow, this thread is still going?  That's impressive, really.. 

That might depend on how you define 'going'.

1 hour ago, lug said:

I currently have a 1 in 12 chance of playing the correct note.  A fretless gives me infinitely more chances to play the wrong note. 

On a fretless, use lots of vibrato!

I bought a Glarry GJazz, did some setup work on it, and replaced the electronics. Pretty amazing for the price.

On 3/20/2021 at 11:30 AM, Hoot Owl said:

It works, so I guess I shouldn't worry about it, but I still don't understand why guitars are designed so the two measurements are the same if intonation works when they aren't the same. I would guess that it's best if they are equal. And at some point of different lengths intonation would become impossible. I must be within a reasonable difference that still allows intonation. But still, they aren't the same and it does intonate. WTF?

And I don't understand what you mean about string thickness relative to length. Strings are the same thickness over their entire length.

The BIG QUESTION I had, which nether of you answered, is: Is intonation the reason guitars are designed with the two measurements equal (nut to 12th fret and 12th fret to bridge)? That's what I always thought. Yet mine intonates even thought there is a 3/8-inch difference.

Yes, the string's thickness is the same over its entore length. So, if you change the length, as by fretting, you change the thickness to length ratio. That also changes the stiffness. As in pretty much everything, if you change any one thing, it affects everything.

As for the Big Question, it's actually the other way around. The frets are placed where they are in order to get the correct note, properly intonated, when you fret it. Early instruments didn't have adjustable bridges, so they had adjustable frets. The frets were pieces of string or gut wrapped around the neck, and the player adjusted the position of the fret to get the proper intonation. As it happens, the octave fret needed to be pretty close to exactly halfway between the nut and the bridge, which is right where you'd expect it to be.

Ideally, they'd be the same. But in the real world, when you press down on a string, a few things happen. One is that you increase the tension on the string slightly, which would cause it to go sharp. Another is that the string's proportions effectively change, becoming thicker relative to length. Both of those things require that there be some compensation at the bridge. Probably, there are other effects I'm not thinking of. But the important thing is that, if it works, it works.

On 2/23/2021 at 11:44 AM, ThudMaker said:

Amy sure knows her way around the fretboard! Very entertaining video.

And she's totes adorbs, too!

It sure is!

A new video from Clatter!

6 hours ago, ThudMaker said:

I’ve always wanted a blue Rick. That Fireglo looks good though.

I don't think they're available in blue.

Not yet, anyway.

On 1/24/2021 at 1:43 PM, DeepEnd said:

Happy (Pending) New Bass Day.  Let us know your impressions when it (finally) arrives.

Will do.

It's also available in Jetglo (shiny black). As always, opinions vary on which is better looking.

23 hours ago, PotatoDude said:

So.. I guess you have an sss squire and not an ssh(mini) 

Which I think might have different dimensions overall.

Tnx

Seems to me that, if there are correct positions for the neck and middle pickups (sweet spots), then they'll be the same, no mater if the bridge pickup is single coil or humbucker.

22 hours ago, daddymack said:

and...?

And what?

Okay, I had to have one, so I put in an order. Might be here by August.

I wasn't in love with the price on the bass, either, but you only live once, right? List is, I think, around $5200. There is, or was, one on Reverb for $5150. Sweetwater quoted me $4500. Wildwood Guitars $4099. Went with Wildwood. I've heard good things about them.

There are precedents for both models. For the guitar, the 480 model. The old ones go for less than this one, so, if you like the guitar, you can get an old one for less, but it won't be the 90th anniversary model.

As for the bass, the original 4005 was full scale (which, for Rics, is 33¼"). Not sure why this one is short scale, but it should make it easier to play.

The 480 guitar even came in a short-lived slanted fret version, the 481.

https://www.myrareguitars.com/vintage-1973-rickenbacker-481-electric-guitar

I don't have anything like that. Being a bass player, I don't have any need for Strat pickguards laying around!

On my Squier Strat, the measurement from the bridge to the neck appears to be the same as in the linked drawing. Distance from the bridge cutout on the pickguard to the center of the neck pickup is 145mm. To the center of the middle pickup is 85mm. Center-to-center distance is therefore 60mm. Mine has a bridge single coil, so I can't help you with a mini humbucker measurement, but to the center of the bridge single coil looks to be 28 or 29mm.

I'm using a tape measure, so I could be off a little. I doubt that 1mm will make a noticeable difference, though.

Rickenbacker has announced two new models for their 90th anniversary: the 480XC guitar and the 4005XC bass.

The bass looks to me like it's a 360 guitar body with a short scale neck attached. From what I've read it's a short scale (30.5"). 24 frets. Toaster pickups. It should feel, play and sound different from any other Ric bass currently in production.

Naturally, I had to have one!

Of course, there are more powerful magnets. Some people use 60mmx10mmx3mm magnets for this trick. I imagine that they are considerably more powerful than the ones I used.

What difference does it make?

With a more powerful magnet, output will increase, which is good. If the magnet is too powerful, the pull on the strings can have undesirable effects. One guy said he got fret buzz when he did it. The magnets were pulling the strings closer to the frets. Then there's something called wolf tones, and too strong a magnet (or having the pickups too close to the strings) can reduce sustain.

On a couple of my Rics, I've not liked the sound of the bridge pickup until I lowered them.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-players-room/eliminating-wolf-tones

On 11/2/2020 at 12:03 PM, daddymack said:

anything that makes a Ric bass sound bassier is

I wonder what would happen with some 'rare earth' magnets...y'know the kind you can just barely get apart if they touch...?

These are rare earth magnets. Neodymium is a rare earth element.

Took the "magnetized" Ric to band practice yesterday. I like it there because it's a noisy environment, and I've done the RWRP mod on that bass, so it's quiet.

As I was playing, I noticed that the low end seemed more solid, and the sound seemed more balanced across the board. Sounded good all around.

These are the magnets that I used:

https://www.amazon.com/30x10x2mm-Retangle-Multi-use-Refrigerator-Projects/dp/B07QK8PHP7/

16 hours ago, DeepEnd said:

Sounds like we need to set up a GoFundMe page to buy you a Gauss meter.

Great idea!

2 hours ago, Mikeo said:

Weird.

 

I know Ricky guitar have a blend knob, but couldn't you just turn down the volume a bit on the pick up with the hotter output.

I guess, If you like, you like.

Personally I wouldn't have done anything like this.

 

Any idea what pull magnets you used?

No blend knob on the basses.

Yes, could turn the bridge pickup down, but where's the fun in that?  Besides, there are some advantages to doing it this way. Electrical noise is a function of the windings. Increasing the strength of the magnet increases the output form the strings, but doesn't increase the electrical noise, so the signal to noise ratio is higher. Additionally, this particular bass has another modification, the RWRP(reverse wound, reverse polarity) mod. That mod turns the two single coil pickups into a humbucking pair. If they are run at the same volume, then the electrical noise induced in the two pickups cancels out, leaving the bass very quiet. Turning down either of the pickups reduces that effect. This way, I get balanced pickups at equal volume settings. And philosophically, I just like the idea of the pickups being more or less equal in volume at equal settings; it seems to me that that is the way it should be.

Why would you have not done anything like this? It's not as if it somehow damages the instrument.

No idea. Is there a definition of "pull" as a magnet characteristic? I'm familiar with teslas and gauss as measurements of magnet strength, but not pull.

15 hours ago, 1001gear said:

Yeah that's what I wanted to know. Never occurred to me that you could goose a pickup without opening it.  Thx.

Cool.

I think a lot of people get hung up on the windings. Makes sense, as we can measure the DC resistance of the coils easily. That gives us something we can talk about and compare. But very few of us have magnetometers or gauss meters to measure the magnetic fields of our pickups, so we can't compare the magnetic strength of different pickups, leaving us with nothing to talk about.

I have enough electric theory to know kinda how pickups work, so I've known for a long time that magnets were important. It was driven home to me a few years ago, when I changed out the pickups on a P-style bass. Frankly, I couldn't hear all that much difference, even though the windings had very different resistances. With similar basic construction but very different windings, the magnet strength had to be different, too.

Anyway, I'm having fun, and it isn't costing me much.