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NBD Peavey Palaedium
- Thread starter woodyng2
- Start date
I used to own a Koa Dyna/Unity bass. Wonderful neck and Spectorish curved body.
I would imagine a fretless Palaedium would sound fantastic.
A pity - otherwise I might have tried to track one down. I could always buy another fretted one and have the fingerboard replaced, I suppose.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to though....
Love the darker color of your bass. (Although i really love the caramel color of mine as well.)
Was noticing the headstock lettering of your bass in your avatar pic, very different to mine.
These basses were amazingly well-made. They are very rare. Hartley told me they hardly made any of them. This was from the era when they were really striving to make superb instruments. The RJ-4 was from this same era, off the heals of the TL series which were also amazing instruments.
Peavey was always ahead of their time with the CNC T-40 as well as the MidiBass which was 20 years before its time as well.
It's a shame Peavey is just now getting the respect they always deserved, now that their USA operations are completely dead. A damn shame.
Peavey was always ahead of their time with the CNC T-40 as well as the MidiBass which was 20 years before its time as well.
It's a shame Peavey is just now getting the respect they always deserved, now that their USA operations are completely dead. A damn shame.
Mine has the original style logo (‘91?) and yours is the later (‘92?) version. I don’t know why they decided to change to the different font and placement - I don’t think that it’s an improvement.
But that’s just my opinion....
Back in 1991 I asked my Peavey dealer if he could try and get me a Palaedium - he told me they were like “hen’s teeth” and that I’d be lucky.....
(Bear in mind that I live on the Isle of Man, there wasn’t another dealer and this was before interweb stuff....).
Anyway, for years I regretted not trying harder to get one - it is the one bass that might have been made for me, I just wish that I’d had one sooner.
And yes, it is a real shame that it has taken until now for Peavey to get much respect. Personally I’ve always thought that they’ve made some of the best basses ever, especially in the early nineties.
Well, if i were to nitpick,
, i really like the larger script/cooler font they used for the Palaedium name as is on yours,but not crazy about the little Peavy symbol at the far end of the headstock. So there’s things about both versions I like. A minor non-issue, really.
Hipshot kickass bridge and knobs arrived today....I think I’m gonna swap....now to start searching for suitable black tuning key replacements.
Gotoh GB7 ??
Although seeing your photo with the black hardware has pretty much convinced me to leave mine as it is - gold.
Strange, because I’m not usually a “gold” kind of person....
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Jeff Berlin obviously did have a liking for gold hardware - I’ve seen video footage of him in his Bruford days with a black Jazz Bass and that blonde much-modified Precision. Both with gold hardware (Baddass bridges) and both with Hi-A (later to become Bartolini) p’ups.
Although the Precision has two p’ups, according to Jeff only the bridge p’up worked.
Here the pots for the neck p’up have been removed and the knob from the tone pot, probably.
I think you’re right about the gotohs. They look the same as the Peavys. I was looking at hipshot ultralights but i think that would mean drillling new holes, which I want to avoid.
I’m a bit torn about swapping the bridge /tuners. The gold finish is very worn, (which is actually kind of cool),so the appearance is more of a swirled goldish chrome. I like gold hardware on dark colors (like the red palaedium), but not so much on light yellowy wood tones. All these mods would be have to be reversible, without needing any additional drilling,etc. The kickass bridge is pretty identical to the BAII,with the exception of being slightly longer in the back to hide the ball ends of the strings. (A nice thing if the bridge isn’t mounted too close to the body edge...i’ve seen a few pics where the bridge is protruding and it’s a bad look. Doesn’t look to be an issue for this one.
Well, that seemed to be his sound. (Bridge pickup solo’d with tone rolled off).
I like that sound a lot, but tend to use my neck pickup for more full grindy tones.
Gotoh gb707 perfect fit. Digging this already.
I just have to take the bass in to a guitar tech to have the bridges swapped and set up.
I just have to take the bass in to a guitar tech to have the bridges swapped and set up.
If the screw holes are in the same position that should be a straightforward job anyway - if you could swap the tuners you could swap bridges yourself too.
If the existing bridge is correctly centered (sometimes they’re not...) I always mark the position both sides with masking tape and on that tape mark the existing bridge saddle position for correct intonation.
That way, getting new bridge positioned is simple.
I could swap the bridges, but i don’t do setups, so I will just wait and let my tech guy do the swap.
If it needs any realignment, he’d be more capable of getting the job done correctly.
