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  #1  
Old 08-13-2007, 02:18 AM
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Question Starting out as a bass tehnician (setup/repair-guy)

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Dear TBers,

My name is Michi and I'm almost 22. I started playing bass over 4 years ago. I have the 4th bass right now and I noticed that I really like to set up / repair my basses on my own. Once I had a Yamaha RBX 375 with a faulty neck (action was at minimum at the bridge and strings were still to high - needed neck shimming) and I took her to a repairman in my town to set her up completly. When I got her back she was very shiny, smelled good (lemon oil) but the problem was still there, the repairman didn't removed the neck to try to reduce the neck/body angle... I payed like 20-30 $ for some polishing...
I sold the bass and ordered a Fender Jazz (that I have now for almost 2 years) and borrowed a backup cheapo bass (P-Bass copy) which was horrible. I took her apart, cleaned her, set her up and she played very nice. Then I realised that a good setup job brings the instrument to another level.
Last month I decided to (maybe) start out as a bass tech (setup/repair-guy). I read a book called "Guitar Player Repair Guide" by Dan Erlewine and that book answered me a lot of questions.
Now I'm asking you guys, what should I do next? What did YOU do when you were starting out as a tech?
That's what I thought about:

1. Set up / repair (minor repairs only, of course) as many basses as I can get. I get a used bass next week, a cheap 6 stringer. I can't wait to take it apart, clean it, set it up and maybe change the electronics to passive.
2. Read some books. What books? Can you reccomend me some books for setup / minor repairs or something, or is the book "Guitar Player Repair Guide" by Dan Erlewine the best I could read?
3. Buy tools. Actually I have no tools right now, only screwdriwers, allen wrenches and a cheap tuner. What should I buy next? What is absolutely necessary? I think a straightedge, a set of feeler gauges, steel wool, files etc. Do I need a strobe tuner? Or is a good tuner like the Korg DT 10 enough? I've seen a nice Peterson Strobe Flip. Is that the best tuner I can get? I don't want to buy the rack version, because it's so expensive.

Can you give me some other tips? What did you do / bought when you were staring out? What tools do you have right now and what tools do you use most often? Is there a "reference book" which is like the holy grail of all repairmen? All tips are welcome.

I noticed that website www.stewmac.com There's a lot of tools and stuff. Can you link me what do I need to buy from there?

Thanx a lot guys.

Michi


P.S. Should I start to learn to set up also guitars? Or should I stay only on bass? Setting up guitars may be a little bit easier, because of the more stable and short neck (that's what I read in the book listed above), but I'm afraid of those tremolos...
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  #2  
Old 08-13-2007, 03:43 AM
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I use Guitar Player Repair Guide, its pretty good. Covers alot of information on most things you would want to know about setting up a guitar.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Me...s.html#details

This guy comes in handy alot for me when doing setups.
  #3  
Old 08-17-2007, 12:38 AM
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Thanx guys, let's BUMP this up.
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"We think that Music stops at the ears. That is a mistake. Vibrations can be felt in all places and at all times, even with the eyes." - Victor L. Wooten
  #4  
Old 08-17-2007, 02:19 AM
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Try the luthier's forum.
  #5  
Old 08-19-2007, 01:04 AM
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@ Linas - Thank you so much for the tip, that seems like a very usefull tool. I actually don't have feeler gauges, I use allen wrenches or 2mm picks for setting string action, and I set neck relief by eye... I'll buy this next. It's expensive tough.

@ Joshua - In my town there is a dude, an older blues player and he is doing most of the setups in town. But he is Guitar specialized (but he does also bass setups, for money I guess). He polished my bass that I talked about in my first post. There is another guy, he's a roadie at a kinda famous rock band (he's the only roadie in the band, he does guitars, bass and drums). There are 3 major guitar stores in my town. One of them works with the older blues player, the other one with the roadie and the third one with nobody (I believe). That means that besides the older guy, there is noone from who I could learn from... There are for sure others but they do setups for friends only.
So that may ( MAY ) be an oportunity for me to do setups for the 3rd shop I talked about earlier. I haven't asked them yet, because I have no experience (compared to the other guys). The question is : Should I try to make them an offer so that they eventually hire me? I don't want to do setups for money, just because I like to grow the value of instruments
I could tell them that I set 5-10 of their instrumets up for free, so they see what I can do (or can't). Should I try this? It's a challenge...
Regarding the Stroboflip, it's very expensive (200$ in the USA, and I live in Romania, where stuff is much more expensive, so I expect 250 EUROs). I think I'll buy a Korg DT 10, with kinda like 90 EUROs, I think it's better then my 20$ Boss TU 80.
Tools are expensive, I know, but I can't buy them as I need them, because I have to order them from the net, and shipping from the US is very much (I live in Romania... = like 30$ shipping, even for small stuff...). So maybe I'll order some stuff that I will eventually need, but I don't know what, maybe you can list here the tools that you use when doing setups.

I have a set of allen wrenches (both milimetric and fractional / decimal), a philips head screwdriwer (that will be soon replaced by a better one, with rubber grip), WD-40. I use guitar picks as feeler gauges (but I cannot measure neckrelief, I have to buy thinner picks) and I set action using allen wrenches (I start from 2mm on G, 2,5mm on E and go from there until it feels comfotable). I clean all poly bodies using Pronto furniture spray.

I noticed a nice tool made by Planet Waves - The bass string winder and string cutter, it's nice, but I have to check if the winder works for both types of tuners (vintage, like on Fenders, or Modern like on Ibanez SRs).

Other suggestions regarding the setup work and tools?

And, ahh, Thank you guys!
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"We think that Music stops at the ears. That is a mistake. Vibrations can be felt in all places and at all times, even with the eyes." - Victor L. Wooten
  #6  
Old 08-20-2007, 09:18 AM
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hey. i'm new to talk bass. trying to get advice about a replacement neck for my 73 jazz.
the ones on ebay are around 90 bucks. any suggestions?
-roger
  #7  
Old 08-21-2007, 07:57 AM
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offtopic.

BUMP
__________________
"We think that Music stops at the ears. That is a mistake. Vibrations can be felt in all places and at all times, even with the eyes." - Victor L. Wooten
  #8  
Old 08-29-2007, 01:26 AM
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BUMP
__________________
"We think that Music stops at the ears. That is a mistake. Vibrations can be felt in all places and at all times, even with the eyes." - Victor L. Wooten
  #9  
Old 08-31-2007, 11:28 PM
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Hey guys, I got a new set of feeler gauges, and I love to work with them.
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"We think that Music stops at the ears. That is a mistake. Vibrations can be felt in all places and at all times, even with the eyes." - Victor L. Wooten
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