I do not have a spare Vista pickup, but I do have a spare Seymour Duncan. I also listed the values of a bunch of Vista pups on an earlier page. Looking now...
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Here's a summary post I already reposted previously. It has resistance values. The original post is on page 32.
Cheers Burl. Very helpful. We have some very decent pickup manufacturers over here, I've emailed shed pickups, he's pretty local , just waiting for a reply.
If anyone can find a stock Vista pickup for you, it's Burl. He's the most knowledgeable Vista MM guy on TalkBass. Most of the members of this club - including myself - have 1 Vista MusicMaster.... Burl has the complete set
Just out of curiosity, how do you know it's actually the pickup that failed? Are you certain it's not some of the wiring or the jack? Pots?
I checked the output at the solder points on the pickup and there is nothing. I de-soldered the wires and tried again but my meter didn't read anything. It's not the wires coming from the pup they have continuity so I think its in the windings.
I measured some other pup's I have laying around just to make sure it's not me being a bafoon and thankfully I'm not. All the pots and other bits and pieces are fine as I fitted the charvel guitar pup, which I must say works great. I want to keep the original look so a rewind it is.
I measured some other pup's I have laying around just to make sure it's not me being a bafoon and thankfully I'm not. All the pots and other bits and pieces are fine as I fitted the charvel guitar pup, which I must say works great. I want to keep the original look so a rewind it is.
Before I start on the real topic of this post, a word about Vista cases. I am a hard case guy; I'm especially fond of the SKB-44. I have one for my Jaguar and one for my Pbass. They're tough and relatively light. Unfortunately it doesn't fit short scale basses and they don't make one like it for short scale basses. (A brief aside: while I'm sure the Fender Mustang bass case is probably very nice, I like the build of the SKB and the durable plastic exterior better.) After much scouring on the SKB website I discovered the 1SKB-62, made specifically for the Jaguar and Jazzmaster guitars. After some careful measuring I realized I had a winner and found one for a good price online.
Last night I finally got around to modifying the case I bought months ago for my Vistas. It's nearly a perfect fit, but those guitars have a more offset-style body (think Jazz bass) while the Vista is more symmetrical on the bottom (a la the P bass). Being the handyman I am, I went to the toolbox and started to work.
The first thing I did was lay my bass on the case as it would normally sit and noticed that only a little needed to be carved out to make it fit. I used an X-Acto knife to cut through the furry fabric. One note on cutting the fabric; it's much easier to first puncture the fabric to get the cut started, then turn your blade around and cut from the inside out. This allows you to cut the smooth backing without having to chop through all the fur.
Next I taped it back so I could cut the styrofoam. This photo shows the styrofoam already cut out.
And this one shows one of the big chunks of foam I took out.
After a quick test to confirm I'd removed enough foam I prepped for reattaching the fur. I used 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. It can be very messy, but it works really well. To save on messy overspray I cut a hole in a plastic grocery bag for the application area and used the rest of the bag as a shield. It worked perfectly. The only tricky part with the spray adhesive is to spray enough that the fur sticks nicely, but not so much that it starts to soak through the fur to the surface. Shockingly I did it right the first time. After that I quickly removed the bag and tape and pressed the fur back into place taking care not to push too hard (which could also lead to the adhesive soaking through). Below I show another quick test to make sure it still fits. After that I took the bass out and let the adhesive dry overnight with the case open.
And here's the final result! A nice tight-fitting SKB hard case.
For those that might be interested in duplicating my work, I noticed Music123 (via Walmart's website) has a sweet deal going right now on this case. It's only $79.15 with free shipping. I actually just bought another for myself. I had originally thought I'd only need one case but I've had many occassions where I brought out two Vistas to play and I just hate carrying them in gig bags. Now I won't have to worry about that.
Last night I finally got around to modifying the case I bought months ago for my Vistas. It's nearly a perfect fit, but those guitars have a more offset-style body (think Jazz bass) while the Vista is more symmetrical on the bottom (a la the P bass). Being the handyman I am, I went to the toolbox and started to work.
The first thing I did was lay my bass on the case as it would normally sit and noticed that only a little needed to be carved out to make it fit. I used an X-Acto knife to cut through the furry fabric. One note on cutting the fabric; it's much easier to first puncture the fabric to get the cut started, then turn your blade around and cut from the inside out. This allows you to cut the smooth backing without having to chop through all the fur.
Next I taped it back so I could cut the styrofoam. This photo shows the styrofoam already cut out.
And this one shows one of the big chunks of foam I took out.
After a quick test to confirm I'd removed enough foam I prepped for reattaching the fur. I used 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. It can be very messy, but it works really well. To save on messy overspray I cut a hole in a plastic grocery bag for the application area and used the rest of the bag as a shield. It worked perfectly. The only tricky part with the spray adhesive is to spray enough that the fur sticks nicely, but not so much that it starts to soak through the fur to the surface. Shockingly I did it right the first time. After that I quickly removed the bag and tape and pressed the fur back into place taking care not to push too hard (which could also lead to the adhesive soaking through). Below I show another quick test to make sure it still fits. After that I took the bass out and let the adhesive dry overnight with the case open.
And here's the final result! A nice tight-fitting SKB hard case.
For those that might be interested in duplicating my work, I noticed Music123 (via Walmart's website) has a sweet deal going right now on this case. It's only $79.15 with free shipping. I actually just bought another for myself. I had originally thought I'd only need one case but I've had many occassions where I brought out two Vistas to play and I just hate carrying them in gig bags. Now I won't have to worry about that.
my vista pickup is now on its journey to bare knuckle for a rewind. hopefully I will hear from them in a few days with some options after they have inspected it. exciting stuff, never had a rewind before.
Check out this modified Vista. It's for sale on some Euro website. The thing I find most intriguing about this particular bass is where the finish is rubbed off. Note that it used to be shell pink but was repainted blue, similar to one or two that I've seen in the past. Also note the difference in color from the finish aging. Most of the bass is aging towards green while just along the edge of the pink is what the blue must've originally looked like.
Hey guys, I am putting up together a 76 fender music master bass. Do you know where I can get a replacement bridge, which bushings and tuners will fit ? Regards
The spots on my black Vista that are rubbed off/damaged look blue, but I don't think it was refinished. I'll have to take another look when I get home.
As I mentioned previously when the subject came up, these have to be factory refins. My only guess is that they did way too many in pink and changed their minds. Now I have to go back and look for those posts....
I did a little digging and could only find my own one previous post about the pink under-finish. That one was also under a now-blue bass. I want to say I've seen the pink under a white one also, but I can't really remember.
That finish didn't rub off, more of a bad sandpaper 'relic' attempt. But it's a good point about the repainted Vistas. That obviously was a pink bass at some point. I've seen a couple like that and both were also pink underneath. My thought is they must have made more pink Vistas at the factory than were ordered by dealers and just repainted them to the more popular colors as they were ordered.
Are the letters on your headstock different colors? Mine match the blue that shows under the black.
Bare Knuckle re-wound vista pickup received, fitted and it sounds great nice and punchy. They phoned me up and explained that they tried to repair but there was a problem with the windings. they asked if I wanted it wound to the original spec or to a Tele P style winding that they do which uses a more modern wire and will give it a fatter sound. so I went for the fatter rewind and i'm very pleased. they used the original parts, so it still looks exactly the same.
This is what I was talking about. You can see the "Squier" logo (as well as the rest of the print) is in blue and the chip near the truss rod access is also blue.
Interesting. I'll have to look at mine, though I'm pretty sure the inner text on mine is nice and white.
