Squier Owners Club (Part 3)

[mogpipe]

^^ Looks like a nice starter! How does it sound, feel,....

....and welcome to the club. The Squier Owners Club!
Just put it in you sig.

[Deechord]

Have been using a friends Fender Jazz. His string height is ungodly high. Mine has been set up...the action is low...and I find it plays so much easier. Also I love the SPB-2 pups. I can get way better tones. This bass is in such cherry shape....not a scratch or ding on it. I am stoked!!

[Flux Jetson]

Originally Posted by msact

I put on some new strings and messed around with the setup a bit. Made a big difference. Now I am thinking about doing some mods. I am doing this as a learning experience not in an effort to make it into something that it isn't. Where would you get a replacement pickguard for an Affinity P Bass? In terms of pickups, do any P-bass style pickups fit? Also, what bridge replacements fit this bass? As I said, this is mostly an experiment/learning experience for me. I wouldn't probably mess with this stuff on one of my regular basses.

Says the first time smack user! Tread oh-so lightly my friend. Or you too will join the ranks of us that have created wonderful Frankenbasses with additions and mods worth 4x the cost of the bass!

As I've said before, these (ahem) "cheapo" Squiers make excellent starting points for bass build ups, and they usually turn out really nice. It's very easy to find yourself hot rodding the heck out of one of these things, and then they become "one of your regular basses". Sometimes even to the point that your ~better~ basses become closet dwellers.

"Oh, but that won't ever happen to me!"

Uh huh .. yea. Right.

Have fun! It's easy to do with these things.

[96tbird]

Originally Posted by Deechord

Squier Protone made in Korea...modded with CTS pot's etc. Seymor Duncan SPB 2's...Hipshot drop D tuner. Supposed to be a P bass body...jazz neck. It's my first bass.

Nice! But I have one question: why do you consider CTS pots a mod? I only see it as a repair. Never any need to if the existing pots work. Just wondering, I hear this all the time on TB and it puzzles me.

Back to your gorgeous bass. I had a Late 80's Squier HM5. Those Korean workers did really great work. I'm sure it will serve you well.

Edit one more thing: get yourself a real cable.

[jweber76]

Lolz

[Deechord]

Could be my lack of expertise on electronics. I may be under the impression (misguided?) that CTS were better. As for the cable...I do have a better one...but at the time of arrival...this one was on the table...so I grabbed it. I am trying to educate myself...that's why I hang out here.

[jweber76]

There are a couple camps regarding switching out pots... In theory any 250k pot regardless of who made it should sound the same. Some feel different than others, some claim to be more "linear" (I think that's what we're calling it now) in terms of how the tone or volume changes as you turn the knob.
I personally subscribe to the notion that if your pots work and aren't noisy then don't touch them. All that being said, it's just my opinion... Which ain't worth much!
As far as the cord goes, we were just bustin' you a little... All in good fun man!
Beautiful bass btw! Love the P/J!

[Deechord]

LOL....apparently the previous owner decided the CTS were better.

[Flux Jetson]

I have to say that on single pickup basses, like the P, the volume control probably (stress probably) isn't as critical. But on basses with more than one pickup, where the likelyhood of actually mixing the pickups in varying amounts is high, then volume pots that have a more linear curve are very helpful.

I modified my own VMJ to have independent outputs (one for each pickup). I began to use a modular synth signal mixer for mixing the pickups after I did the 2-channel mod to the bass. Using the synth mixer, I immediately noticed FAR better control over the pickup mix after I did the mod and used something other than the stock Squier volume pots for dealing with pickup mixing. I can only imagine that using better quality pots would have something close to the same results. I have no personal experience with the "CTS" pots, but if they are even a little better than what was installed on the bass from the factory it has to be an improvement.

I did, however, change the pots to Alpha 250k pots (some I had kicking around for amplifiers) and that seemed to be an improvement over the stock ~stuffs~. It's like the operational curve of the stock ones is far too logarithmic, meaning ~nothing~ seems to happen until the last 20% of the sweep is used, at which point there is a large change making the volume controls very touchy.

On a side note, I'm glad that I did the 2 channel mods for many reasons, but I never thought that getting a better pickup mix with greater ease would be one of them.

[96tbird]

Jweber76, pots are of 2 varieties: linear and audio. Linear drops the resistance in a straight line over the rotation. Audio drops resistance in a curve.
Like this: I (

[Deechord]

So...is there anyway to figure out if mine are linear or audio??

[Flux Jetson]

Originally Posted by 96tbird

Jweber76, pots are of 2 varieties: linear and audio. Linear drops the resistance in a straight line over the rotation. Audio drops resistance in a curve.
Like this: I (

Actually there are more than two curves, for the most part three are used in most constructs. Log ~aka "audio"~ (which look like a "ski jump"), linear (which is pretty much a straight line from zero to max), and reverse log which climbs very quickly then has a mellow trail off.

Log ("audio") pots are usually called "A" curves.

Linear pots are usually called "B" curves.

Reverse Log are usually called "C" curves.

Hence, you see references to pots such as "A250k" or "B100K" and so on.

[Flux Jetson]

Originally Posted by Deechord

So...is there anyway to figure out if mine are linear or audio??

The best way is to plot out the resistance, making a hand drawn graph of what the actual resistance is at even points along the sweep, using the standard "clock" positioning. For instance...

7: = 0 ohms.

8: = 10k.

9: = 20k.

10: = 50k.

And so on. If there is a large rise near the end of the sweep, like the last three or four "hours" then you have a LOG ("audio") pot. If the readings stay very constant all the way through the sweep, you have a LINEAR pot. Experienced techs/modders/DIYers can tell usually just by observing how the ohmmeter responds to turning the knob, but if this isn't your strongest suit, just plot it out, it doesn't take long (five minutes maybe?)

The human hearing ensemble (ears, brain, and psyche) will fool the heck out of you sometimes, so simply saying that if the sound gets loud really quickly at the end of the sweep promises that you have LOG ("audio") pots is not necessarily true. Depending on certain circuits, even a linear pot can be PERCEIVED as logarithmically curved. The only certain method is through measurement.

Or, you can spend $2.50 on a linear pot and do the "try and see if there is a difference" method.

[96tbird]

CTS and other name brands will have A,B or C stamped on the can as part of its ID like Flux just said. B250k. Oh, and let's not forget MN taper blend pots!

[jweber76]

Wow, you learn something every day! I was kind of generalizing in my explanation but I never even knew about the "reverse" pots! Also, somehow I never figured out what the A, B, C on the pots meant... I blame no one but myself for missing that! Thanks guys!

[Deechord]

[msact]

Sorry if this question has been posted here millions of times already. I would like to swap out the white pickguard on my affinity P bass but everyone I have contacted wants me to send a tracing and do a custom cut. Mine has 13 holes, so I was wondering if a standard p bass pickguard with 13 holes would fit? Anyone here had any experiences with replacing an affinity pickguard? Dumb question I know. I am trying to replace it without spending more for it than I did the bass itself.

[C.Linton]

Replacing a PG on an Affiniy without extra work to get it to fit can be hit or miss. If you're lucky, you may be able to get it to fit with maybe only having to re-drill one or two of the holes in the body. Then again, you may have to redrill most, if not all of the holes, and even may have to reshape the cutout of the neck pocket. You won't know for sure until you get a PG and try it out. The only way to be absolutely sure is to get a custom fit.

[msact]

Originally Posted by C.Linton

Replacing a PG on an Affiniy without extra work to get it to fit can be hit or miss. If you're lucky, you may be able to get it to fit with maybe only having to re-drill one or two of the holes in the body. Then again, you may have to redrill most, if not all of the holes, and even may have to reshape the cutout of the neck pocket. You won't know for sure until you get a PG and try it out. The only way to be absolutely sure is to get a custom fit.

Not wanting to pay more for the PG than I did the bass, perhaps I will try spray painting it or just living with the tuxedo look.

[Deechord]

Well...don't forget to take before and after pic's so we can judge your caliber of work!!