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Project Vista Sonic (rut row, JIO's at it again!)

#461
Matt Liebenau said:
Looking good! It was probably covered before but I’m pretty sure “Wild Dog” is just 2 of the pickups out of phase which isn’t even useful that often on guitar much less bass.
Click to expand...

Even if never used, having WILD DOG as an option is good enough. ;) :bassist:
 
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#464
So I made a serviceable truss-rod adjustment tool for the Burns tr. It started its life as a Campagnolo (aluminum) aero rim spoke tensioner. Anyone seriously cycling/racing in the '90s would have an idea of what I'm talking about... anyway, no use for it anymore so I devised a way to convert it into something that would work to turn the truss-rod shaft. Working on it reminded me of a Mad Magazine cartoon poking fun at "Popular Mechanics" (which at one point turned into a political right-wing "tool" taking on the debunking of 9-11 conspiracies as a article topic. ???...and what does that have to do with PM?) Anyway - it used to be a quaint harmless guide for DIY'rs at one time and Mad's take was showing a (cartoon illustration) frame of a screwdriver, next frame something that the screwdriver could be converted into, next frame another conversion until it got to the last frame as a... screwdriver!

Not perfect - but it works for the little time it will be used. Found a sturdy steel bolt with a nice big slotted round head.
5265B047-C300-4EE6-BDE1-35A1AC65A90C_1_201_a.jpeg

First task was drilling-out the 6-sided (for spoke nipple) opening. Buried it in a piece of wood so I could drill into it straight.
B984B122-20EB-415B-9463-DD413E022D8D_1_201_a.jpeg

Once the bolt was tapped and tightly screwed into the tool shaft, I then I ground/filed the head of the bolt to conform with the shaft and continued the slot depth with a band saw. A metal (short throw) band-saw (not sure what it's called) would have been preferable but wasn't available.
A9E1B93C-1249-4BA5-86F4-A15317364361_1_201_a.jpeg

My trusty file being the same width of the tr shaft finished the job.
3B4A24FB-9ACC-4625-8BAE-70B9122673E3_1_201_a.jpeg

Strayed a bit with my slot but the goal was to get something that worked - which it does. Mission accomplished.
F54C4BCF-A7F6-45B3-A39C-2B57102B5609_1_201_a.jpeg
 
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#471
Didn't have a lot of time to spend on the VS today, but discovered a couple of things. One, the BASS (rotary switch) option works, but is at a very low output. So next to TREBLE and CONTRA BASS - it was sort of inaudible. I need to resolve this as it sounded good otherwise. TREBLE is ok as well - just needs tone-shaping to get it into a useable arena. I also cranked the tr - a lot, using my fabricated tool. The internal mechanism works well. The issue is in the "cash register" (1-7th fret) which is buzzing. Tweaking the tr mechanism helped straighten the neck but there is still fret-buzzing there. Adjusting a neck in this manor is a long-term thing.., so I'll be revisiting it in a few day to see what is left to do to correct the fret-buzz issue. A Plek job would be ideal... but if I can do targeted fret-work to resolve the issue... well, it would be much more... cost effective. The story continues ...
 
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#473
Jon Clegg said:
I wonder if maybe there is a dirty contact on that switch, maybe some Deoxit would help.
Click to expand...

Could be - just have limited time right now to address it. Oh, and while organizing after our recent move - I found my muti-meter. So how do I use it to test the center pu to see if it's weak? (as its output is weak compared to the other two) The way the selector options work is pretty straight forward; neck pu only is CONTRA BASS, center pu only is BASS, bridge pu only is TREBLE and WILD DOG is center and bridge pu's out of phase. Which begs the question - could those pu's be rewired to put them in phase? And if so, it should create a useable sound right?
 
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#474
First I'd check resistance from the hot lead of the pickup to the output jack when that pickup is selected -- should read around 0 ohms. Next to check the individual pickup measure the resistance across the leads on that pickup and compare to the others, I don't know that much about those pickups, but they should be in the same ballpark of a couple of k-ohms, if the the suspect one is way low, you may have a shorted coil and the pickup may need to be rewound. The last possibility would be that if the magnets are Alnico, they may need to be remagnetized (particularly with a bass this old)

Yeah, you could reverse the leads on the center pickup which would put it in phase with the bridge and yield a more useful tone.
 
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#475
JIO said:
Could be - just have limited time right now to address it. Oh, and while organizing after our recent move - I found my muti-meter. So how do I use it to test the center pu to see if it's weak? (as its output is weak compared to the other two) The way the selector options work is pretty straight forward; neck pu only is CONTRA BASS, center pu only is BASS, bridge pu only is TREBLE and WILD DOG is center and bridge pu's out of phase. Which begs the question - could those pu's be rewired to put them in phase? And if so, it should create a useable sound right?
Click to expand...

I once sat down and started figuring out how many different pickup combinations there were considering each half of each of the three pickups is wired separately, and I think I came up with at least two dozen before I gave up. And we were given four. I’m sure a number of them would have been far more useful than at least two of those provided. (On mine, I find both Bass and Contrabass useable, with Bass having a bit more clarity.) For all of Jim Burns’s love of complexity, I’m sure he could have come up with a more flexible switching scheme.
 
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#476
farace said:
I once sat down and started figuring out how many different pickup combinations there were considering each half of each of the three pickups is wired separately, and I think I came up with at least two dozen before I gave up. And we were given four. I’m sure a number of them would have been far more useful than at least two of those provided. (On mine, I find both Bass and Contrabass useable, with Bass having a bit more clarity.) For all of Jim Burns’s love of complexity, I’m sure he could have come up with a more flexible switching scheme.
Click to expand...

So I wasn't aware of the pu's being wired in half. Is that something that only Burns did? Being single-coil, exactly how would that work? A 'split-coil' single make sense (to hum-buck) but these have single coil hum when the treble is boosted. When I remove the pg to troubleshoot, I'm going to do a schematic drawing to try and make sense of the harness. Apparently an official Burns schematic isn't available anywhere.
 
#477
Unless I'm missing something in the pics, only the Neck pickup in your bass is split -- I only see two wires coming out of the bridge and middle pickups. It looks like the neck may be a three wire. Yours may be from a different year than Farace's.
 
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