Insert advice for mounting Roland pickup on finished bass

[00Funk]

Hi my names Andy, I am not a luthier. Im an electrician.

I have several basses I would like to afix, the Roland GK 3B pickup to
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Roland gives you the option of, temp. sticky back, or simply screwing, the pickup into the wood.

Theese pickups have to be set perfectly, for the polyphonics, to operate, at their full potential.

Using the sticky back, like Im doing now, does not afford you the ability, to adjust later.

Screwing into the wood, seems rather tacky to me. Especially into the clear coat, and all.

If you use spring and screws, you can fine tune your adjustment though.

Anyway, I spent most of the day yesterday, googling inserts. There are many different types I found out.

Im thinking a 6/32 insert would be perfect, for using with theese pickups.

One bass I want to do this on, is a wood body with clear coat, the otherI bass, has a body made from composite blackstone.

Using wood inserts, that screw in, seems dangerous to me. Couldnt it crack your clear coat, twisting it in ?
And on the blackstone, maybe it wouldnt even work.

MY MAIN question is, has anyone used theese inserts, and if so, would theese be right for this type application. Thanks




I bet you would need to use a drill press, to. To get the holes perfect


Heres what they say about their inserts :
Quickly install threaded holes in metal, plastic, fiberglass or any other rigid material with a minimum thickness of 3/32” (2.3812mm for metric sizes). All you need is a drilled or punched hole; no need for tapping, welding or brazing. Thread-Serts consist of an upper sleeve and a base with internal threads. During installation, the base is drawn upwards inside the upper sleeve, forcing a 360º contact between the sleeve and the application material.

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[vinny]

It appears that this type of insert uses the tapered portion to force the expansion of the cylindrical part. I would be careful of this. I'd be more comfortable using a splined/knurled press-in type.

[00Funk]

Originally Posted by vinny

It appears that this type of insert uses the tapered portion to force the expansion of the cylindrical part. I would be careful of this. I'd be more comfortable using a splined/knurled press-in type.

Hey thanks for the advice. Look what I just found.
Inserts for any application. It actually shows you inserts, for composits, and woods.
http://www.harrison-silverdale.co.uk...htm#composites

[jvbjr]

I would not ruin your bass doing this. Glue the pickup to a piece of wood, sand the wood until it is the perfect height. Seal the bottom of the wood piece so it is a clean dry, dust fee surface. Attach the coated wood piece via a piece of double sided Scotch tape. The foam tape compress and is wiggly, the wood shim will not giggle and the use of the flat double sided Scotch tape will be a sold contact if the shim has a coat of finish on it to seal it. I just made a thumb rest for my Rob Allen using a piece of molding and doublesided Scotch tape, it works fine. Had I not finished the taped side the piece would have fallen off in ten minutes.

[00Funk]

That sounds like a good idea. I really dont want to use the inserts.

The thing is, this pickup has to be exactly 1/16 " from each string. It has to be exact, for the polyphonics to funtion properly. They give you a little L shaped tool, to measure the space between string and pickup. It would be so much easier, if you could adjust with spring and screw.

Plus it would be nice, to take the unit off from time to time.

I dont know if its worth the trouble doing the inserts.

If I had a wood shop, and drill press, maybe.

I wish I was not hooked on synth bass

[jvbjr]

Originally Posted by 00Funk

The thing is, this pickup has to be exactly 1/16 " from each string.

Well most bass bridges have a height adjustment feature to them as well. The pick-up is a solid mass and can not be adjusted like the screws on a Les Paul's humbucker. At some point you will have to get the pick-up to a 'good enough' position and then adjust the bridge saddles to get to your ideal measurement.

Since we are talking about the bottom side of the strings being perfectly in line with the arc of the pick-up, we have to wonder if the radius of the neck and this pick-up are identical, probably not. Such that the top sides of the strings are not up and down like an EKG, you might want to experiment with string gauges to take the lumps out of the top side.

I have a Roland Synth on a guitar, my unit allows me to adjust the volume of each string to even out the response, since of course the string being a bit further away or closer alters the output. Since the guitar has a 12" radius Floyd Rose and the pick-up is more like 9" radius, I could only get the D and G within spec and used the volume function of the convertor to fix the other issues, it works just dandy.