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Schecter Owners Club, part 3

Thanks to tuBass, I have a new (old) Schecter.

I do like the clear purple with the square-ish body.



Do I need to learn the secret hand shake before I can be a member and get a number? :)
 
Right!!! That I can do. It's a cheesy pic, though.
 

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I thought I would share my views regarding the electronics of my basses. Over the years I've taken a minimalist view of electronics. I really feel that if your using pedal effects, rack gear, iOS gear, and other things that are before the amp, the basses I've seen have too many knobs.

I'm not a big fan of the 1 knob per pickup wiring. Why do they do that? I'm not sure, because you can get the same exact sounds from one balance pot. 2 pots make it 2x harder to find the exact sound if the knobs get bumped. If I keep all the knobs I'll rewire the pickups using the attached drawing.

But.... In the past, I've used a MIDI programmable EQ, effects in a rack, and a GK 200MB on a stand set as flat as possible as a monitor. At one time, I even used an RTA to set the GK EQ as flat as it can get, but that's a story in itself.

Since I'm using iOS apps for effects to replace the rack gear, I have the same situation. The EQ, effects, and foot controller make it such that I have no need to make knob adjustments, except to turn the volume up and down when I don and doff the bass.

To this end, I usually make a few mods when I get basses.

Mod 1: Replace Vol pot with switch.
- In all my years, I've never used the volume pot to fade in or out, and/or play louder or softer. A slight dampen of the string near the bridge works well to fade me out. Volume pedals are used for the heavy lifting.

Mod 2: Find the blending sweet-spot between the 2 pickups.
- I've found that there's a place that I use all the time. Once I find that spot it's tough to find it with two knobs, and still tricky with one knob. When I find the sound, I mark the spot, measure the resistance of the pots, and put in resisters such that I always have that sound. Once there, 31-band and Parametric EQs are used when I'm looking for something darker or brighter. With the iOS cabinet and amp choices, I get even more options for different sounds. I just don't need a blending knob. With more then one bass with different strings, I change basses long before I make pickup changes.

Tone control:
- The pots usually go away. However, I love EMG's on-board bass expander. The Steinberger has the volume pots removed, but the active chip remains. The Stiletto has an active component, too. I will leave that, but will likely loose the tone pots. Again, with different basses that make totally different sounds, I'll grab a different instrument long before changing the tone knobs.

I've found that fiddling with all those knobs during gigs rarely helps my sound. In louder rooms (that I tried to avoid even when younger), you can't trust your ear anyway. The ringing in ears that comes after a short time makes it virtually impossible to EQ anything properly.

I know this line of thinking is not very popular, but I thought I'd share anyway in case someone was thinking of the same thing.
 

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I agree that, after awhile, there are too many knobs between my bass and my cabs. I set my basses' bass/treble and blend initially and then keep them there (and TBH, the alleged 'blend' on my Stiletto is really more of a three-way-switch with a LOT of slop, rather than a for-real way of blending of the pickups). I did replace the factory pre with an early Bartolini that gives me a passive switch, and that gets used more than anything else, control-wise.

I've seen vids of recent ZZ Top performances at things like the Crossroads Guitar Festival...Dusty's basses now are almost exclusively one-knob (and LORDY, does he have fat & stubby fingers).
 
Proud owner of a brand new SCHECTER HELLRAISER EXTREME......This thing sounds awesome.......

Cool. I have the same bass and finish in a 5 string. I tried several other brands at home in a head-to-head and at this price point (and even a couple of hundred over), it was the most versatile and best-sounding and playing bass.

Congrats!