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G&L Club Part 7

#5,825
Hi everyone. What an amazing thread! I've spent weeks going through it. Here's my beloved L-2000. My favorite bass.

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#5,828
musicianwarrior said:
It's a kill button I wired in. It is gold like everything else, just reflecting a bit of light.
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Kill button? Does it administer a severe shock to the drummer? The guitarist? The sound guy? Great idea!! I knew there was a reason that G&Ls have so many darn knobs and switches!! (LB-100 and SB-1 here.) :D
 
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#5,829
A weird thing happened with my '86 L2000 at practice tonight. I haven't played it in a while and never through the amp that is at the rehearsal studio (Ampeg PF500). With the Series/Parallel switch in series (which is where I always keep it) there was a really loud buzz - in passive or active mode. Switching to parallel fixed it. I brought it home and tried it in my amp (Aguilar Tone Hammer 350) and there is no problem in series with it. It appears the Ampeg is the problem. Now I haven't used my electronics training in a couple of decades, but I was in tech school when this preamp was designed so I should understand it. For the life of me I can't see how switching it to series would do that. It is still humbucking either way. Any electronics guys have any ideas?
 
#5,830
Showdown said:
Any electronics guys have any ideas?
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When I got my L-2500 it was new old stock and had been sitting in a storeroom for a few years. One of the switches didn't work properly (long time ago and don't remember the details). I think they have silver contacts that can tarnish if not used for a while.

I ran a drop of contact cleaner (with lubricant) down the switch toggle and exercised it for a few seconds and it has been fine since. I did the other 2 switches just to be sure.
 
#5,831
An '86 would have the two "OMG" caps, and on a stock bass, they both are wired to the neck-side coil, meaning that they're not really humbucking. The pickups will hum like a single coil, and both together will hum twice as much. I'm guessing the rehearsal space isn't well grounded and really accentuated the single coil hum that you would get from the two unaffected coils.

Two solutions -
1) remove the caps. You get true humbucking series mode, but you lose the "OMG" tone
2) rewire one of the pickups to have the cap affect the bridge side coil. This would create a humbucker when both were on, but still give you the single coil hum when either pickup was solo'd.
 
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#5,832
TDR1138 said:
An '86 would have the two "OMG" caps, and on a stock bass, they both are wired to the neck-side coil, meaning that they're not really humbucking. The pickups will hum like a single coil, and both together will hum twice as much. I'm guessing the rehearsal space isn't well grounded and really accentuated the single coil hum that you would get from the two unaffected coils.

Two solutions -
1) remove the caps. You get true humbucking series mode, but you lose the "OMG" tone
2) rewire one of the pickups to have the cap affect the bridge side coil. This would create a humbucker when both were on, but still give you the single coil hum when neither pickup was solo'd.
Click to expand...

I see what you are saying. Interesting. It is weird that this is the first time since I bought it in 2006 that it has done that. I never played it at that studio before though.
 
#5,834
Question for those who have been around G&L's a while:

I see the SB-2 has a MFD humbucker in the middle "P" position, but the bridge jazz style is a single coil. How much single coil hum bleeds through? The church I play in on a regular basis has allot of stray RF noise. I ended up gutting the electronics on my Fender Aerodyne and installing a DiMarzio humbucking PJ set.

The MFD pickups are such an integral part of the G&L tone I would not want to change them. I'd hate to buy an SB-2 and find its not a usable bass for me, there's no local G&L dealers for me; so it would all be mail order trial.
 
#5,837
jefff100 said:
I see the SB-2 has a MFD humbucker in the middle "P" position, but the bridge jazz style is a single coil. How much single coil hum bleeds through? The church I play in on a regular basis has allot of stray RF noise. I ended up gutting the electronics on my Fender Aerodyne and installing a DiMarzio humbucking PJ set.
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I don't think the hum is that bad, but if the Aerodyne's bridge pickup produced too much noise in that venue, the SB-2's probably will as well. And problem is, you can't get noiseless replacements as you can with a standard J pickup.

Of course, the simple solution is to leave the bridge pickup off. The MFD split-coil is a monster on its own, and I've rarely used the bridge pickup at all. But I know some players usually blend it in to some degree.
 
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#5,838
Nedmundo said:
Of course, the simple solution is to leave the bridge pickup off. The MFD split-coil is a monster on its own, and I've rarely used the bridge pickup at all. But I know some players usually blend it in to some degree.
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I second this, a simple solution that sounds great. But then I always leave the bridge pickup off on my SB-2, as I do on any other P/J. I like the P sound and adding in the bridge pickup changes that sound.
 
#5,839
Lowendtech said:
Fed Pol with his new Kiloton 5. Cool.
View attachment 1141212
Quote from Fed:
A very good friend and fine bassist himself, Ron Moreno, told me about the Kiloton 5. I'd known Ron since the late '80s, when we used to spend countless hours hanging out at the Bass Centre in Los Angeles. Recently, I was in L.A. rehearsing for the Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie tour and with me I had all the basses I thought would work for this gig. Ron suggested I check out the Kiloton 5, so of course I'd give it a try and tell him what I thought. Well, that changed the minute I plugged in the bass. The front-of-house engineer, monitor engineer and crew all raved about the incredible sound of the Kiloton 5. The verdict was unanimous: the bass sounded fantastic. I ended up playing it the rest of the day and now I have my own Kiloton 5
Click to expand...

Not to resurrect an old post, but I saw Fed playing live with Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie on the CBS Saturday Morning show a couple weeks back. He was playing the Kiloton... Sounded fantastic through his Trickfish rig!
 
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#5,840
pulled out the 2011 sb-2 yesterday with the alleva coppolo flats and I turned both pickups to full and I pulled the bright and bass knobs on the mesa and wow, that had to be the most cutting, clear, and punchy sound I've experienced in 25 years of playing bass, damn

it sounded way way better than my usual method of trying to get it to imitate a p or a j
 
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