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Guild Pilot bass club?

#401
tildeslash said:
Just bought a Guild Pilot and it came with EMG looking pickups but no battery inside.
Did they ever make one without active EMGs. Serial # is BE104215
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No battery, or no battery connector? Do the pickups say "EMG" on them? The battery was wrapped up in a bit of foam and floating inside the control cavity.

All the DiMarzio equipped Pilots I've seen had pole pieces, and didn't look like EMGs.

John
 
#403
Flashback Bass said:
Hey tildeslash,

I just answered this question for you over on the "Let's Talk Guild" forum but I'll answer it here again for all the Guild Talkbass fans.

Guild made a model SB-600 Pilot bass with passive DiMarzio pick-ups that look just like the EMG's minus the logo and also as you noted, there's no battery. If you pull out one of the "P" pick-ups and pry the plastic cover off the coil, inside the cover it should say "DiMarzio".

I have one that I gig with since it's nice and thumpy for the classic rock we play and I never have to worry about remembering to unplug it between sets so I don't kill the battery!
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OK- I've not seen them, but I've seen very few of the DiMarzio ones anyway. That's new information for me.

BTW, the battery in the EMG circuit will last a LONG time. I've been playing active basses since my first Music Man StingRay in '79- I've gigged with two pre EB StingRays, a Guild SB-602 Pilot, a Pilot Pr0-4 with the Mighty Mite 2-band active preamp, a bass with the Duncan Steve Bailey pre-amp, and three Lakland 4-94 with their Bartolini preamps. I've only had a battery crap out on stage once (and I was gigging at least every weekend for two 4-hour gigs plus rehearsal, practice, and teaching). The one time a battery failed on me was the one time I did NOT use a Duracell- it was the Rabbit alkaline one. I never unplug between sets, I just don't leave it plugged in overnight. But sometimes while teaching one of the active basses could be plugged in for six hours or longer.

Heck the original Music Man StingRay preamp didn't even switch off when you unplugged it, because the current draw was so small. There are a lot of legitimate reasons for someone to elect to prefer passive to active, but battery life shouldn't be one of them.

John
 
#404
tildeslash said:
They look exactly like EMGs. I have 4 pilots (all EMGs) and this would be the only one without and I never knew a Pilot exists without EMGs.
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The bass on the left is my SB-600 with the DiMarzios;

SB-600s.gif


Just for the record, the bass in the center is a rare SB-601. The one on the right is a SB-602

JTE, I've had batteries crap out twice on me at gigs! I'm lucky that way.
 
#405
Flashback Bass said:
The bass on the left is my SB-600 with the DiMarzios;

SB-600s.gif


Just for the record, the bass in the center is a rare SB-601. The one on the right is a SB-602

JTE, I've had batteries crap out twice on me at gigs! I'm lucky that way.
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They never made a Pilot 5-String with only DiMarzios, did they?
I replaced the SB-605 in my bass with DiMarzios and had my tech add different pots to make it completely passive.

Also, I put flats on mine. I've been trying to straighten my neck a little, but the truss system on the Pilot is the worst I've seen yet - you really need special tools to adjust it. I asked for an English mini nut driver set to use on this for Christmas. What tools have you guys used to adjust the truss on your Pilots?
 
#406
ggvicviper said:
They never made a Pilot 5-String with only DiMarzios, did they?
I replaced the SB-605 in my bass with DiMarzios and had my tech add different pots to make it completely passive.

Also, I put flats on mine. I've been trying to straighten my neck a little, but the truss system on the Pilot is the worst I've seen yet - you really need special tools to adjust it. I asked for an English mini nut driver set to use on this for Christmas. What tools have you guys used to adjust the truss on your Pilots?
Click to expand...

A right-angle 1/4" driver sold as a truss rod tool. I don't recall if I got mine from Carvin of Stew-Mac. The #6104 from this link (Invalid Link Removed) should do the trick. Of course, you DO have to loosen the D and A strings generally.

John
 
#407
JTE said:
A right-angle 1/4" driver sold as a truss rod tool. I don't recall if I got mine from Carvin of Stew-Mac. The #6104 from this link (Invalid Link Removed) should do the trick. Of course, you DO have to loosen the D and A strings generally.

John
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Thanks, I ordered a wrench similar to this a long time ago, and it wouldn't fit in the awkward pilot truss rod slot under the cover.

I also tried removing the string tree and loosening the D & A too with a regular 1/4" nut driver, but it was so awkward and it felt like the driver was starting to strip the bolt a little. Still, it worked a little bit.

I like these options better. Much appreciated. Let's also see how the xmas nut drivers work.
 
#411
I find that odd, as the Rosewood was an option for these basses. I've seen tons of maple boards, but only a few of the rosewoods.

I'll have to see if Mark Dronge remembers anything.

tom

Flashback Bass said:
Welcome to the club jetsrush!

Nice Pilot, I've got one just like it but with the later black bridge.

rt099-1.gif


The maple fretboards are somewhat rare.


I guess when they switched over from chrome hardware to black, they had more bridges then tuner sets so they built a few with mixed hardware. Here's my rosewood fretboard Pilot with a chrome bridge.

rt108.gif
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#412
As a dealer we only ordered one maple board Pilot, and we had to specify maple. If I recall correctly, rosewood was the default, both for fretted and fretless Pilots.

In fact, except for the one maple board we ordered for a customer, the only other maple board I ever saw was at a summer NAMM showwhere Guild had a single maple board one on display along with a bunch of rosewood ones.

John
 
#413
JTE said:
As a dealer we only ordered one maple board Pilot, and we had to specify maple. If I recall correctly, rosewood was the default, both for fretted and fretless Pilots.

In fact, except for the one maple board we ordered for a customer, the only other maple board I ever saw was at a summer NAMM showwhere Guild had a single maple board one on display along with a bunch of rosewood ones.

John
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I'll see if Mark remembers anything. I have lit that shows the rosewood as the option. Which, as you know, in this industry is never set in gold.

Tom
 

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