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Spector Club Part 6

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I use the dunlops on all 3 of my basses, never 1 issue and I play probably 30 hours a week. i actually hated the schallers when i tried them
To each their own I guess. Made in ???? (no indication of origin) Dunlops appear cheap and flimsy. Stamped cheap metal held together with a cheap retainer clip
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Made in Germany Schallers are secured via threaded nut and seem such much more solid to me.
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If you prefer the pushbutton release of the Dunlops, these appear to have sured up and improved on the Dunlop design.
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These made in Japan Gotohs look pretty sweet. Gotoh has high quality stuff.
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I quit playing my Q5 for a while because my medical conditions were making it tough to play a heavy bass. Since it was sitting there unloved, I was thinking of selling it. I figured I'd play it one last time before listing it and fell in love with it all over again. I experimented with different straps and stools and it's never getting sold now. So, I guess the lesson is, don't sell your Spectors until you clean them up, string and set them up, and play them. I do the same thing with vehicles all the time. Any time I think I need a new vehicle, I detail my current vehicle and forget all about selling it.
 
Question to you guys:

After about a year my Rebop 5 needs new strings.
I'd go for D'Addario, because I like them, the real decision is:
Rounds, Halfrounds or Flats?
over the past two months I really loved the sound of the strings, assuming they have been played hard for nearly a year, would flats maybe bring me the same tone right away?
Has anyone made any experiences with flats on a Rebop 5?

thanks,
Karl.
 
You probably got the strings all dirty. Sometimes they sound cool, and you can get a good tone doesn't scream 'bright new strings!'.

Personally, I like rounds and use Elixirs on my Rebop 4.

I use D'Addarios on my Wick. They are quite a bit 'duller'. That being said, I tried a Peavey Cirrus with new flats on 'em and they still sounded bright.
 
I put D'Addario half wounds on my Euro cause I found it too bright and almost clanky at times.
Really beefed up the tone and made it round, thumpy and full all while keeping the definition and clarity.

Thumbs up from me.
 
I hate to sound like a "Company Man"... but if you are replacing your original strings... you're replacing a set of Nickel Spector Strings.
All that comes on Spectors are the string that Stuart designed. Why not just get another set?
As for me. I love the nickel set that came on my NS-4. They're really perfect for that guitar.
 
Proud Spector owner here. I forget what my member number is, but I've a question regarding a modification.

I have a Spector NS2000/Q4 that has EMG HZ pickups. For a while I was thinking about going with the Aguilar and Nordstrand combo, but I've realized that the HZ pickups aren't THAT bad. I just want to add a little more punch to the bass. Would I be better off replacing the pickups or just adding something like the BQC control. I know the system will only work with active pickups, but the BQC control will give me more selection with the stacked midrange knob.

I am setting this bass up for BEAD so I would like to have a bit more growl and punch to it for the lower notes.

Also, I'm having trouble getting a good fuzz tone with this bass (through my Ampegs and through my Catalinbread SFT) because the pickups are too hot. Would this be the same for their active pickups or just the passives?
 
no question! The stock strings are great!
Should I decide to stay with rounds i'd play them. :cool:

Well the real question for me is: rounds, or something else?

edit: The suprisingly affordable spector 5 string set is 35" right?

Good question. The answer depends on what sound you are looking for (IMHO).

First, the majority of what I play requires a pick, although I can play fingerstyle (which is more like a guitar finger style because of my background).

I don't like the sound of stainless strings. I prefer nickel. I also do NOT like the feel of stainless. And they are more likely to damage frets and fingerboards in time.

I'm not a big fan of string noise... so in the past I've used half-wounds/ground-wounds, because they are less prone to finger noise. But they also sound a little flatter/duller. Not as bad as flats... but they loose the brighter tones of the rounds.

I converted my NS-2A over to a fretless. And although the neck has been refinished with boat epoxy (which I say hasn't colored the sound as many suggest), I opted for flat-wounds because I wanted that pure fretless sound... thuddy, no noise as you slide your fingers and they don't damage the neck.

I've tried a bunch of different strings and honestly I prefer the Spector strings. They are as good as they come. I just replaced a set of SIT nickels on my Euro4LX and went back to the Spector strings.

I say hone in on what you are looking for in regards of tone. Try a few different types of strings.

And a quick analogy, I'm an expert marksman... l used to do tactical competitions and compete against former Marines and FBI... And I NEVER, EVER, EVER use cheap ammo in my guns. Even for practice shooting. I always use competition match-grade rounds. More expensive but worth it. I've gone through 15,000 rounds and replaced two barrels from wear in my Italian-Made Beretta Model 96 .40S&W. If I used crap rounds and didn't do things like clean my gun after each use... it would have died years ago.

Bass strings are no different.

Don't put cheap strings on your bass. You get what you pay for. Hex core, brand-name strings is the way to go. You'll see that the quality of the string does affect the tone.

And clean your strings. Take care of them. I have the original factory strings on my NS-2JA-R and they are still like new.
 
Proud Spector owner here. I forget what my member number is, but I've a question regarding a modification.

I have a Spector NS2000/Q4 that has EMG HZ pickups. For a while I was thinking about going with the Aguilar and Nordstrand combo, but I've realized that the HZ pickups aren't THAT bad. I just want to add a little more punch to the bass. Would I be better off replacing the pickups or just adding something like the BQC control. I know the system will only work with active pickups, but the BQC control will give me more selection with the stacked midrange knob.

I am setting this bass up for BEAD so I would like to have a bit more growl and punch to it for the lower notes.

Also, I'm having trouble getting a good fuzz tone with this bass (through my Ampegs and through my Catalinbread SFT) because the pickups are too hot. Would this be the same for their active pickups or just the passives?

Hi there!

My very first Spector was a Amber Q4. Great bass.
The HZ's are a bit brighter in my opinion. And the output not as strong being they are passive. The tone circuit isn't bad, but it's not an EMG BQ circuit. So that should help.

Very cool on the BEAD setup. Let us know how that goes. Getting the string height at the nut will be the trick and it's a 34 inch scale... so I'll be interested to see if your B string is a little... "flabby". I've done a bunch of drop D recording lately with my NS-4... My tuning has been DGDG... hey... it's a NIN song... what can you say? And I wish I had asked Stuart to make my NS-4 a 35" scale (although it would have been an experiement... the USA Workshop doesn't really do 35" scale 4 strings).

My only Spector with Humbuckers is my USA NS-4. And the Dual DC pups, although more mid-treble heavy than the P/J's but less mid-treble heavy than my J/J NS-2... have so much more tonal range than the HZ's. So you might think about upping your HZ's to DC's. I'm still not sold on the TW's. I had a set for my Q4 but sold them and the bass before installing them.

I know several USA Bolt-On NS owners who rave about the TW's in those basses. I'm really gassing for a 35" Euro4LX of Euro5LX and when that happens... I'll get to test out those TWs.

Lately I've been running my NS-4 and Euro4LX directly into an Ampeg SVT-450, clean... and the SVT's pre out into a Fostex VF160EX Multi-Tracker. And the sound is amazingly clean and crisp, even the low-end stuff.

Then I take the tracks and mixdown the clean track, running through several customized filters in the Fostex out to my computer where I use Native Instrument's GuitarRig4 to add additional effects (chorus/flanger distortion, etc...).

Lastly I use ProTools and Sony Vegas to put the tracks into whatever songs I'm working on to be mastered.

I'll put some NS-4 tracks up for you to hear so you can see what the DC's sound like. Of course they're pumping through the USA 18V Spector Tone Circuit. But still. You're going to hear tones/notes that are really hard to get out of the HZ pups.
 
Thanks a lot for the help, man! You've given me a lot to think about here. I'd love to hear those sound clips. I've heard a lot of good things about the DC pickups as well as the DC/CS combo. Like yourself, I can't say I'm sold on the TW pickups just yet.

I may end up going with the DC pickups as the preamp isn't that bad, aside from the fact it has no control for mids.
 
I'm contemplating installing the Hipshot detuner on my Forte 4. I'm sure the headstock is the NS standard headstock. Can anyone tell me for sure if I'll have any space issues? Will it fit? It looks really close. Is it a bad idea for any reason?
Thanks
-Mick
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