Hey everyone. I've posted here a few times after having acquired an old Riverhead Phantom Bass. The purpose of this acquisition is for an 80s cover band that will be starting up.
I was lucky enough to get the bass for only $150, down from a $500 asking price at the pawn shop. The reason for this crazy markdown is, as I inspected the bass, I noticed problem after problem. Chief among them, the 4 band EQ was just dead. All that worked was the master volume pot.
At first, this perplexed me. If it's an active-only bass, but the preamp isn't working, why is it making noise? Some of you here on the forum helped me figure out that the previous owner bypassed the circuit board. You can see a crude jumper cable passing over the whole thing.
Also, the previous owner lost the original master volume pot and SUPER GLUED a replacement knob.
I was lucky enough to find a new old stock replacement of the original master volume from AliExpress.
From there, I needed to start working on a refinish/restoration. I reached out to the eccentric repair man Johnny Long and his "HOBO DEPOT" repair shop. He has a good reputation, so I'm taking my first major gamble on him. So far, he's been super nice and helpful, and the bass is now with him.
On his recommendation, I ordered an Audere 4 band preamp which should be a drop-in replacement for this old mangled circuit. The original probably could have been restored, but many of you advised me that it would not only be cheaper and easier, but probably sound better to just use a modern preamp.
Before I sent the bass and parts to Mr. Long, I tried to reach out to Riverhead(now based in the Philippines) to get restoration decals. They did not have any. Since I work as an illustrator, I was able to reverse engineer them by hand. Here are the first couple test runs.
After doubling the resolution and making some final tweaks, I sent them to get made into waterslides.
The rest is in the hands of the HOBO DEPOT.
Follow along this thread if you want to see how things progress.
In terms of the color, since I'm not a big fan of white pearl, and since it's probably impossible to exactly match this color, I think I'm going to go with just a solid gloss white. Otherwise, we're going for as close to a full restoration as possible.
Any suggestions on color? I've got a couple weeks to make a final decision. I'm probably just going to go with solid gloss white, but I'm open to suggestions.
Here is Mr. Long's "before" video with a rundown of what he intends to do.
Thanks everyone! Wish me luck.
I was lucky enough to get the bass for only $150, down from a $500 asking price at the pawn shop. The reason for this crazy markdown is, as I inspected the bass, I noticed problem after problem. Chief among them, the 4 band EQ was just dead. All that worked was the master volume pot.
At first, this perplexed me. If it's an active-only bass, but the preamp isn't working, why is it making noise? Some of you here on the forum helped me figure out that the previous owner bypassed the circuit board. You can see a crude jumper cable passing over the whole thing.
Also, the previous owner lost the original master volume pot and SUPER GLUED a replacement knob.
I was lucky enough to find a new old stock replacement of the original master volume from AliExpress.
From there, I needed to start working on a refinish/restoration. I reached out to the eccentric repair man Johnny Long and his "HOBO DEPOT" repair shop. He has a good reputation, so I'm taking my first major gamble on him. So far, he's been super nice and helpful, and the bass is now with him.
On his recommendation, I ordered an Audere 4 band preamp which should be a drop-in replacement for this old mangled circuit. The original probably could have been restored, but many of you advised me that it would not only be cheaper and easier, but probably sound better to just use a modern preamp.
Before I sent the bass and parts to Mr. Long, I tried to reach out to Riverhead(now based in the Philippines) to get restoration decals. They did not have any. Since I work as an illustrator, I was able to reverse engineer them by hand. Here are the first couple test runs.
After doubling the resolution and making some final tweaks, I sent them to get made into waterslides.
The rest is in the hands of the HOBO DEPOT.
Follow along this thread if you want to see how things progress.
In terms of the color, since I'm not a big fan of white pearl, and since it's probably impossible to exactly match this color, I think I'm going to go with just a solid gloss white. Otherwise, we're going for as close to a full restoration as possible.
Any suggestions on color? I've got a couple weeks to make a final decision. I'm probably just going to go with solid gloss white, but I'm open to suggestions.
Here is Mr. Long's "before" video with a rundown of what he intends to do.
Thanks everyone! Wish me luck.
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