Quick and easy mod for Ministar Basstar

[andk5591]

Just picked up one of these off of ebay. Not too bad of an instrument except was a little more "thunderous" than I liked. Removed the control plate cover to see how the pups were wired. Pretty simple set up. 2 wires (red and white) were soldered together, green to hot and black to ground.

After sorting out what was what and doing some tests with clip leads, did a real simple mod that gives you more of a cleaner jazz sound. Simply installed a DPDT from the parts box (SPDT would be fine, but that meant I would have to run into town) Connect the red and white to the center lug and a ground to one of the end lugs - effectively shorting the one coil in one position and leaving it stock in the other. Really made a difference.

While I was at it, I brought the pups a little closer to the strings, set it up with DR Hi-beams mediums and did some tweaking to the nut and truss rod. Way nicer.

Played around some more this morning - I like my bass at a medium playing position. It was tilted back a little too much and it felt like it was digging in a little. No big beer gut or anything, but not washboard abs either. If I dropped it a bit, then it was fine - but not as comfortable to play. Took the "upper horn" bar and put it in a vice and bent the arm back about an inch and a half. Now its perfect.