@steve_rolfeca: Man, I wish I had anybody like you to work on my instruments around here! Thank you for the detailed and thoughtful response. I know just enough about setting up instruments to know I should bring mine to somebody who knows better, but I have found truly great techs lacking in my area. I will probably bring a printout of this with me when I bring the instrument in.
So it wasn't just me, haha/groan.
Just the screw ... so far ...
I don't mean to overstate the imbalance between strings as currently set up; a lighter attack on the D and G mostly evens things out. I doubt a defect, but also hadn't considered it. Noted.
I had planned on having the new pickguard (black) and bridge (Hipshot Kickass) and electronics (M&V, not-cheap guts) all installed at once, but with the delay on the M&V, this convinces me to hold off on the electronics and see what I get with the new bridge and adjustments to the stock pickup (assuming somebody can get that totally stripped screw out, haha/groan again). I think I'm mostly after a classic P-into-B15 sound, only supercharged (hot pickup into Mesa Buster! 200 1x15" combo).
A bit of both. For a different sound, I like my Ibanez ATKs (early models, both 4- and 5-string); those have serviceable 3-band preamps, but I barely use the EQ. That's part of what attracted me to Lace pickups. I have a Lace Aluma-P in the instrument in my avatar and love it, which led me to get my hopes up (and subsequently dashed) about using the 5-string arrangement shown in their wiring diagram. I also have a stock Westone Spectrum GT with one of those crazy hot '80s Japanese P-in-a-bar arrangement, and I think that does the supercharged P thing well; it doesn't have the low end of the Aluma-P, but it has noticeably more than the stock Squier pickup as currently installed.
If the SD QP still sounds like a P but with more lows, that just might work.
Ah: if I wanted soapbars, I could have found a suitable bass with those much more easily and wouldn't think of getting one of these only to modify it beyond recognition. I have a Spector Legend 5 Classic, and I don't think I've ever owned a better looking or better playing instrument, but none of the sounds I get out of it sound like "me." I had the Tone Pump Jr preamp removed and Lace Alumitone soapbars installed, and still. I needed a 5-string Precision, and I want it to sound like it ... just moreso.
So it wasn't just me, haha/groan.
Just the screw ... so far ...
I don't mean to overstate the imbalance between strings as currently set up; a lighter attack on the D and G mostly evens things out. I doubt a defect, but also hadn't considered it. Noted.
I had planned on having the new pickguard (black) and bridge (Hipshot Kickass) and electronics (M&V, not-cheap guts) all installed at once, but with the delay on the M&V, this convinces me to hold off on the electronics and see what I get with the new bridge and adjustments to the stock pickup (assuming somebody can get that totally stripped screw out, haha/groan again). I think I'm mostly after a classic P-into-B15 sound, only supercharged (hot pickup into Mesa Buster! 200 1x15" combo).
A bit of both. For a different sound, I like my Ibanez ATKs (early models, both 4- and 5-string); those have serviceable 3-band preamps, but I barely use the EQ. That's part of what attracted me to Lace pickups. I have a Lace Aluma-P in the instrument in my avatar and love it, which led me to get my hopes up (and subsequently dashed) about using the 5-string arrangement shown in their wiring diagram. I also have a stock Westone Spectrum GT with one of those crazy hot '80s Japanese P-in-a-bar arrangement, and I think that does the supercharged P thing well; it doesn't have the low end of the Aluma-P, but it has noticeably more than the stock Squier pickup as currently installed.
If the SD QP still sounds like a P but with more lows, that just might work.
Ah: if I wanted soapbars, I could have found a suitable bass with those much more easily and wouldn't think of getting one of these only to modify it beyond recognition. I have a Spector Legend 5 Classic, and I don't think I've ever owned a better looking or better playing instrument, but none of the sounds I get out of it sound like "me." I had the Tone Pump Jr preamp removed and Lace Alumitone soapbars installed, and still. I needed a 5-string Precision, and I want it to sound like it ... just moreso.
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