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Steinberger Spirits
- Thread starter Michael Vee
- Start date
Yeah, as @lug said, 25" scale is not gonna work for you. The leds are embedded in a clear tape strip at the correct positions for the scale length you order- you don't place them individually on the neck, you just put the whole tape strip on the side of the neck.The shorter the scale, the shorter the wire length that hangs around the battery holder? That’s my assumption, I sent an email again to Roz about my bass situation since I did not get a reply from him last night or today. So I’m in the dark till I get some kind of answer
The free "fix" for battery anxiety - when you put in a new battery, put a small piece of masking tape on the cavity cover and write the date on it. Change the battery when it's 6 months old. As long as you don't leave your bass plugged in, you will never have a battery die on you again.
This is a good practice whether or not you have an easy access battery compartment. Having a battery die in the middle of a gig is a thoroughly amateur move, no matter how quickly you can swap it out.
Thank you for that, I believe it’s going to be 6 months by the end of June lol so I’ll definitely be doing that.
Got an email reply from Roz and was very helpful, I explained to him about my bass being a headless and he went and changed my scale order to a 34” instead of 25”. Should be getting the fretlights done within the middle of July!
Some update about those fretlightz...
It didn’t work, the cable was long and awkward. I was able to fit the battery compartment but again, the wire was just too long to wrap around anywhere without it being visible. Back to the drawing board for me on this one
It didn’t work, the cable was long and awkward. I was able to fit the battery compartment but again, the wire was just too long to wrap around anywhere without it being visible. Back to the drawing board for me on this one
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I uploaded an audio clip on my personal Soundcloud for everyone to check out on my recent modification of the Steinberger Spirit Bass with Bartolini Pickups and Bartolini Pre. I also have it listed for sale on Reverb. Enjoy!
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Wow, nice, Astral. Very well thought out and played clip. That's definitely the Bartolini sound! A lot of range of tones shown there.
I may have missed it, but why are you selling the Bart Spirit?
Forgot to add why I'm selling it. I recently purchased a Vintage Steinberger XM2 Bass from Reverb and have been playing it a lot more than the Bart Spirit.
Got into a minor accident yesterday, need a door for my Audi now. If someone is interested in a nice, white Spirit fiver let me know; going to wait and see how insurance pans out over the next couple of weeks but I may post it to the classifieds. Ugh. 
I've been in touch with a Spirit owner in Singapore, @KaiHern, who had specific questions about the electronics in my Spirits. He'll probably post some here as well. He found a Invalid Link Removed online that he's thinking about getting. I think most everyone here who got an adapter bought the one from HeadlessUSA, right? Some others got them from eBay sources. Has anyone tried the Thomann adapter?
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The Thomann adapter is the original Steinberger Adapter, as also sold by Gibson/Epiphone. Works fine (I have the guitar version).
Looks pretty cool, might check it out for one of my Synapse Basses.
Edit: My Sunburst Spirit is still up on Reverb so I’m giving it a couple days until I take the listing down and just keeping it to add maybe 1 or 2 more pots to the bass.
Edit: My Sunburst Spirit is still up on Reverb so I’m giving it a couple days until I take the listing down and just keeping it to add maybe 1 or 2 more pots to the bass.
Hi all,
Recently tried to do a string change and the tuning pegs were hard to turn in general. Made lots of clicking noise as I turned and it caused my skin to tear
So i decided to disassemble the bridge to see how the doohickey works and also to grease it up.
Thought of a few options: graphite (from pencil), lubricating oil, vaseline.
Ended up using vaseline to lube. Reasons for choosing that is due to stickiness, so it will stay within the tuning housing for long, rather than having oil leaking out unto my strings/hands. Why I got vaseline instead of multipurpose grease was cos it was cheaper and also cleaner.
Coated the housing with it, esp the washers and the threads of the screws.
Also used the pencil to smoothed the contact point of the bridge intonation pieces.
Fixed it up and it worked good as new. Much easier to turn the knobs and it stopped making those clicky noises as i turned them. If you see the pics below, there were some sawdust inside the housing (or maybe just lots of dust) that caused the clicking sounds. Also the insides were dry and not lubricated.
Recently tried to do a string change and the tuning pegs were hard to turn in general. Made lots of clicking noise as I turned and it caused my skin to tear
So i decided to disassemble the bridge to see how the doohickey works and also to grease it up.
Thought of a few options: graphite (from pencil), lubricating oil, vaseline.
Ended up using vaseline to lube. Reasons for choosing that is due to stickiness, so it will stay within the tuning housing for long, rather than having oil leaking out unto my strings/hands. Why I got vaseline instead of multipurpose grease was cos it was cheaper and also cleaner.
Coated the housing with it, esp the washers and the threads of the screws.
Also used the pencil to smoothed the contact point of the bridge intonation pieces.
Fixed it up and it worked good as new. Much easier to turn the knobs and it stopped making those clicky noises as i turned them. If you see the pics below, there were some sawdust inside the housing (or maybe just lots of dust) that caused the clicking sounds. Also the insides were dry and not lubricated.
Hi all,
Recently tried to do a string change and the tuning pegs were hard to turn in general. Made lots of clicking noise as I turned and it caused my skin to tear
So i decided to disassemble the bridge to see how the doohickey works and also to grease it up.
Thought of a few options: graphite (from pencil), lubricating oil, vaseline.
Ended up using vaseline to lube. Reasons for choosing that is due to stickiness, so it will stay within the tuning housing for long, rather than having oil leaking out unto my strings/hands. Why I got vaseline instead of multipurpose grease was cos it was cheaper and also cleaner.
Coated the housing with it, esp the washers and the threads of the screws.
Also used the pencil to smoothed the contact point of the bridge intonation pieces.
Fixed it up and it worked good as new. Much easier to turn the knobs and it stopped making those clicky noises as i turned them. If you see the pics below, there were some sawdust inside the housing (or maybe just lots of dust) that caused the clicking sounds. Also the insides were dry and not lubricated.
View attachment 3509733 View attachment 3509734
Thank you so much for this post! I’ve been dealing with a pesky D tuning peg on an XM2 that’s been extremely hard to tune!!!
Others may know where the Steinberger bridges were manufactured - both the original basses and then the Spirits - but the manufacturing tolerances were probably somewhat different, hence why the Spirits bridges sometimes need a bit more work to get them to move and function better. The main thing is that if a Spirit owner puts the work into a cranky bridge, it can work just fine.
KaiHern, I didn't ask you, when we were PM'ing, what year your Spirit is? A recent one? An older one?
I agree with sonojono, I'm glad you posted your bridge tune in detail here!
Probably for most Spirit owners, basic lubrication (as with any bridge) and then the nylon washers for the tuning knob shafts should be sufficient.
-- MVee
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