Short scale flats?

[gvbassman]

If you get the Guild Starfire? Yes, you will need "medium scale" strings (that pesky trapeze tailpiece). Mine wears GHS MS 3120 Precision Flats... The "short scale" TI's and Pyramids will probably fit it, too. A handful of "real" short scale strings may fit it, but.. not many. OTOH...
if you decide on the Newport? Then the short scale string world is your oyster...

First thing I always do is check the truss rod ,mine arrived with a broken rod and the dealer wouldn't do anything about it.

 

[Gary Conn]

I will strongly recommend that you try the Epi Newport bass before buying. And I mean testing the EXACT bass you are buying. I've seen mixed reviews so I won't rule out the possibility that there are some decent ones out there but the one I got was one of the worst basses I've ever laid my hands on. I won't go into all the details (I already did that in another thread) but the main issue was a completely useless weak sounding E-string (pickup issues) and severe fret buzz because the pickup was too close to the strings which caused a strong magnetic pull on the strings. The fretwork was horrible too but at least that was sorted out easily by levelling+crowning the frets. After a LOT of work I made the Newport into something halfway decent but I work at a guitar workshop. If I didn't have experience with repairing guitars it would have been firewood.

FWIW my favourite short scale flats BY FAR are Pyramid Golds. The winding length of these short scale sets is designed for short scale basses with a tailpiece (specifically Höfners) so they're comparable to medium scale from most (but not all) other brands. I haven't tried them on my Newport but I think they should work.

In the end I had to use D'Addario Chromes medium scale. I normally detest Chromes, they're too stiff and clanky sounding for my taste. But on the Newport they were the only strings I could find that were stiff enough to avoid severe fret buzz.

Horrible bass IMO and I know for certain that mine wasn't the only bad one. There are several other bad reviews out there. Such a huge disappointment after the brilliant Embassy Pro (well, apart from the huge batch of Embassy Pros where they had installed the bridge in the wrong position, which made them impossible to intonate... and Epiphone kept selling them long after they were aware of this issue... very poor!).

If you don't need the bridge pickup and want the mudbucker tone the Epi EB-0 is a far better bass. Basically the same bass with a different look but no bridge pickup.

I purchased the Epiphone NewPort and it was played so bad, I almost tossed it. The pickup configuration was so crazy. Decided to mod it and added a single humbucker, Hipshot bridge and hipshot tuners. Plays fantastic now. Please see attached photo.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

I purchased the Epiphone NewPort and it was played so bad, I almost tossed it. The pickup configuration was so crazy. Decided to mod it and added a single humbucker, Hipshot bridge and hipshot tuners. Plays fantastic now. Please see attached photo.

Looks great, and I bet it SOUNDS better than a stock Newport too! The stock pickups were a huge disappointment after the superb pickups in the Embassy Pro and the "vintage" Epi T-birds.

But the main problem with the stock Epiphone Newport actually turned out to be the string spacing, which was to wide for the "mudbucker" neck pickup. A mudbucker needs the spacing you get with a 3-point Gibson bridge. The string spacing on the "tune-o-matic"-style bridge on the Newport is too wide, which means that either the E-string or the G-string (or both) will end up outside the magnetic field of the neck pickup and sound weak.

This bass should never have left the drawing board.

The solution is to replace the stock bridge with a Hipshot SuperTone bridge, like you've aleady done. If anyone else are thinking about doing this: Make sure to get the 2-point version, and be aware that it might not be a perfect fit. On mine I needed to file the mounting screw holes on the SuperTone bridge slightly wider. I'm guessing this was caused by a metric vs inches issue. It didn't need a lot of filing, and was done in a couple of minutes with a standard round file. But of course, with the added cost of the SuperTone bridge you might as well buy a better bass instead. So basically, if you already own a Newport it's definitely worth fixing, but I will NOT recommend buying one unless they have sorted out the flawed design.

To be honest, I have no idea if Epiphone have fixed this problem in more recent batches. Based on my previous experience with the Epiphone Embassy Pro (where they had installed the bridge in the wrong position on a HUGE batch, making the basses impossible to intonate) Epiphone don't seem to care about their customers at all. When I contacted them about the faulty Embassy Pro they simply said that they were aware of the problem and that I should wait until the faulty batch had sold out... Utterly disgraceful. The right thing to do would have been a factory recall, but instead they decided to dump all these faulty Embassy Pros on their paying customers. Absolutely shocking!

And of course, the string spacing wasn't the ONLY problem with the Epi Newport, but you seem to have sorted it all out. Nice job!

 

[Gary Conn]

Looks great, and I bet it SOUNDS better than a stock Newport too! The stock pickups were a huge disappointment after the superb pickups in the Embassy Pro and the "vintage" Epi T-birds.

But the main problem with the stock Epiphone Newport actually turned out to be the string spacing, which was to wide for the "mudbucker" neck pickup. A mudbucker needs the spacing you get with a 3-point Gibson bridge. The string spacing on the "tune-o-matic"-style bridge on the Newport is too wide, which means that either the E-string or the G-string (or both) will end up outside the magnetic field of the neck pickup and sound weak.

This bass should never have left the drawing board.

The solution is to replace the stock bridge with a Hipshot SuperTone bridge, like you've aleady done. If anyone else are thinking about doing this: Make sure to get the 2-point version, and be aware that it might not be a perfect fit. On mine I needed to file the mounting screw holes on the SuperTone bridge slightly wider. I'm guessing this was caused by a metric vs inches issue. It didn't need a lot of filing, and was done in a couple of minutes with a standard round file. But of course, with the added cost of the SuperTone bridge you might as well buy a better bass instead. So basically, if you already own a Newport it's definitely worth fixing, but I will NOT recommend buying one unless they have sorted out the flawed design.

To be honest, I have no idea if Epiphone have fixed this problem in more recent batches. Based on my previous experience with the Epiphone Embassy Pro (where they had installed the bridge in the wrong position on a HUGE batch, making the basses impossible to intonate) Epiphone don't seem to care about their customers at all. When I contacted them about the faulty Embassy Pro they simply said that they were aware of the problem and that I should wait until the faulty batch had sold out... Utterly disgraceful. The right thing to do would have been a factory recall, but instead they decided to dump all these faulty Embassy Pros on their paying customers. Absolutely shocking!

And of course, the string spacing wasn't the ONLY problem with the Epi Newport, but you seem to have sorted it all out. Nice job!

Thanks SF Sorrow. Yes, we both had the same experience with the sorry pickup configuration and the "too wide" string spacing. The entire bass was a joke. However, it was a lightweight, Mahagony, non-bolted neck that had the classic "old school" Newport design that begged for modification. Also, the Epiphone Newport was pretty cheap too.

Serek Basses out of Chicago produces a fantastic design using the Epiphone Newport configuration: https://serekbasses.com/basses/midwestern/

He uses all Hipshot accessories, and I decided to follow his lead and do the same thing with my modified Newport. I filled the hole for the Thunderbird pickup and one of the selector holes and placed his pickup guard design to cover the mud bucker pickup hole. Then I purchased a single Serek B90 single-coil pickup. I think it will be fine as a single pickup.

Colored it and modeled off this Serek Midwestern Bass:

It plays fantastic and now it is a keeper.

​

 

[Mustang Surly]

D'Addario ECB81M "Chromes" are a perfect fit for the Guild Starfires with the "harp" bridge and Bi-Sonic pups (see my avatar). Haven't owned the newer SF-I with the single, split pup, so can't say about those.

 

[TomB]

Thanks SF Sorrow. Yes, we both had the same experience with the sorry pickup configuration and the "too wide" string spacing. The entire bass was a joke. However, it was a lightweight, Mahagony, non-bolted neck that had the classic "old school" Newport design that begged for modification. Also, the Epiphone Newport was pretty cheap too.

Serek Basses out of Chicago produces a fantastic design using the Epiphone Newport configuration: https://serekbasses.com/basses/midwestern/

He uses all Hipshot accessories, and I decided to follow his lead and do the same thing with my modified Newport. I filled the hole for the Thunderbird pickup and one of the selector holes and placed his pickup guard design to cover the mud bucker pickup hole. Then I purchased a single Serek B90 single-coil pickup. I think it will be fine as a single pickup.

Colored it and modeled off this Serek Midwestern Bass:

It plays fantastic and now it is a keeper.

​

That Serek single has some magic in it, both B90 and the original, IME. Good choice!

 

[bassboysam]

La Bellas for a smoother, softer sound, the Pyramid Hofner flats for a dirtier, garage, rock sound, especially if you're using dirt pedals.

 

[Buchada Azeda]

I purchased the Epiphone NewPort and it was played so bad, I almost tossed it. The pickup configuration was so crazy. Decided to mod it and added a single humbucker, Hipshot bridge and hipshot tuners. Plays fantastic now. Please see attached photo.

Where did you buy that pickguard? (or did you make it yourself?)