Double Bass The DEFINITIVE Palatino EUB Modification Thread

[spoonido]

So many modifications, so little time!

Actually, after 5 years, I'm still playing mine right out of the box and am loving it. And it's sooo much fun to play. The only thing I've done is tried the bicycle tube under the bridge, and removed the bridge adjusters to lower the action.

Of course my Pally needs a custom set up and new strings, but that would cost more than I paid for it! Tone wise, I think it sounds fine. If I wanted better acoustic tone, I'd buy an acoustic bass... and probably will.

Palatino for sale!

 

[krizaps]

The battery door on my Palatino has broken. Where can I get a spare one - is there a site to order it?

 

[spoonido]

Oh, man. Good luck with that. Parts from overseas instruments can be really hard to obtain.

Duct tape, anyone?

 

[Hux]

krizaps - I recommend you just find another battery box. Palatino U.S.A. has notoriously horrible customer service. You should be able to find a replacement box at just about any online guitar parts store... they are pretty standard as far as size goes.

 

[lundborg]

Anyone know much about rewiring electronics (or a resource for lookup)? I got a new preamp with a stacked knob two-band equalizer. I want to keep the headphone jack setup but I'm not sure how to wire it.

The headphone wire has three leads: black (ground), white, and red. I am assuming the red is some kind of powered lead from the 9volt? And the white should go to some kind of output from the volume pot.....?

I could take the whole mess to a pro, but I'm a DIY kind of guy and I know this stuff ain't brain surgery...

You probably found out already, but the black wire is most likely ground, read and white should be R/L channel. Check for absence of 9V to be sure...

 

[ScottGee]

I have been playing bass for about 9 months and 4 days (started on September 1st). I'm a keyboard player/vocalist that has wanted to play the bass forever so I finally gave in. I love the Upright Bass and could never afford an actual acoustic upright. I found a Paly on Ebay that was $195 due to it having heel separation and no bridge and the electronics didn't work.

SO... I fixed the neck/heel problem (furniture building hobbyist), got 3 used bridges for $10 each at a strings shop here in Austin and cut and sanded... opened up the unit and took out the Electronics (a little electric tape for $1.32 made for an easy fix), a stop at walmart for $425 worth of that rubber drawer liner material (used a couple of inches and have an entire roll left) and... 2 bridges and about 4 hours after it arrived I have an awesome sounding Paly!!!

Thanks so much to this forum and all of the helpful tips that I have been reading on here. I was also blessed to get a Palatino that didn't have any serious issued like a fingerboard that needed planing or anything.

All in all... A great bass.

It didn't come with the support arm that you lean it against your body with so I think I'm going to explore that next.

But thanks a million and I look forward to learning more and hanging out here.
Link Removed

 

[phillockwood]

One simple mod - replace the rubber foot before it wears out and tears up your floor.

The tube size is 3/4". I bought a better replacement using a rubber Walking Cane Tip from CVS (a nearby drugstore), a 2 pack was around $5 and they're much higher quality than the original.

This was the specific one I bought:

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[joenoone]

The biggest complaint I have with mine is with the location of the stand peg being behind the bass it makes it want to turn around backwards when you tilt it which is awkward when you try to play it with a bow. Anyone have an easy workaround for that?

 

[MariBass]

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! Can someone post a good picture of their tuner box???? I've already bought two sets of tuners, neither of which will work. The 'EUB tuners' from Gollihur do not have a long enough post.

I've written politely to Palatino about a dozen times over the last few weeks and they obviously don't give a s*#t, since I haven't heard one word from them (why do companies even post 'contact information' if they are not going to reply? Its extremely rare they ever get back to you...).

I have no idea how the original PAL tuners fit.... Are they standard looking upright bass tuners? Do they have ferrules that slide over the post into the holes in the tuner box?

THANKS IN ADVANCE! I really need some help here, this the last thing I need to get done to get my PAL playing!

I do not have any "help" for you, but I do have "empathy", I also have a Palatino and have been trying for over a month to find the correct tuner/gear, no help from Palatino. I can't imagine what is so difficult for them to send a replacement?!?!?

 

[Peter van Brucken]

Hey all, if anyone's still following stuff on the Palatino - I've just finished some interesting mods.
Firstly, I wanted to try adding coil pickups just below the fingerboard. I read a few posts on this and it sounded a cool idea as the Palatino does suffer from resonance issues, especially when you get it on a stage with a large PA. So, I first looked at mounting some cheap P style coils on a plate I was going to glue onto the fingerboard, but ran out of depth for the pickup magnets. Then I thought I'd make a mounting bridge which didn't connect to the fingerboard. This had the advantage of hiding the output wire down to the preamp. Which leads into the next mod. That preamp had to go! Too basic for my liking. I got a Guitar Fuel preamp, with pickup balance and parametric mids. Much more control I made a mounting plate for the 5 pots (including one stacked) and cut the body to fit. Initially I used the Palatino preamp to feed into the new preamp, and replaced the full pots with trimpots. After reading the Guitar Fuel specs, it seemed like it would handle the piezo bridge pickup directly, so removed the Palatino preamp completely. One less item for the battery to power up! Sounds ok, although the piezo has more output than the coil. No prob, with a bit of balance and volume control, you can blend the two nicely. The last mod, was a contact tuner built into the body where the support rod went. I never used this anyway, so no great loss. It sounds very cool and even the bridge pickup alone has much more body. The neck coil pickups give a unique and very solid sound. Different to a regular fretless bass, so great for original stuff as very few could emulate that sound. Oh, and one more - I found it a pain to leave the Palatino resting anywhere on stage, so built a small support stand that tucks into the body while you're playing. Sorted! Will put up pics if anyone's interested.

 

[GKon]

Hey all, if anyone's still following stuff on the Palatino - I've just finished some interesting mods.
Firstly, I wanted to try adding coil pickups just below the fingerboard. I read a few posts on this and it sounded a cool idea as the Palatino does suffer from resonance issues, especially when you get it on a stage with a large PA. So, I first looked at mounting some cheap P style coils on a plate I was going to glue onto the fingerboard, but ran out of depth for the pickup magnets. Then I thought I'd make a mounting bridge which didn't connect to the fingerboard. This had the advantage of hiding the output wire down to the preamp. Which leads into the next mod. That preamp had to go! Too basic for my liking. I got a Guitar Fuel preamp, with pickup balance and parametric mids. Much more control I made a mounting plate for the 5 pots (including one stacked) and cut the body to fit. Initially I used the Palatino preamp to feed into the new preamp, and replaced the full pots with trimpots. After reading the Guitar Fuel specs, it seemed like it would handle the piezo bridge pickup directly, so removed the Palatino preamp completely. One less item for the battery to power up! Sounds ok, although the piezo has more output than the coil. No prob, with a bit of balance and volume control, you can blend the two nicely. The last mod, was a contact tuner built into the body where the support rod went. I never used this anyway, so no great loss. It sounds very cool and even the bridge pickup alone has much more body. The neck coil pickups give a unique and very solid sound. Different to a regular fretless bass, so great for original stuff as very few could emulate that sound. Oh, and one more - I found it a pain to leave the Palatino resting anywhere on stage, so built a small support stand that tucks into the body while you're playing. Sorted! Will put up pics if anyone's interested.

It all sounds very interesting. I'd definitely like to see pictures!

 

[carl h.]

I was contemplating buying the Noll system, but[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]looks more affordable, considering the price of the instrument. Thanks for the tip!

Did you go 9 or 18 volt?

Yes, lets see the pics!

 

[carl h.]

PVB seems to have vanished, but I went ahead and ordered this preamp. It is MUCH less expensive than the Noll I was planning on so I figured I'd try it out. If I don't care for it I can put it in something else and go back to plan A. It was the sweep mid I was most interested in adding so a $150 savings is good by me.

Anybody know if the stock jack is TRS on this bass?

 

[carl h.]

Here is the preamp in all its glory before installation. Purchased from Guitar Fuel Performance Products, it's the TONE MONSTER SBK-3AD. Bass: +/-12 dB at 100 Hz, Treble: +/-12 dB at 4 kHz. No knobs included, though the stock Palatino knob fit the volume fine and matched the cheap ebay concentric knobs (picked up for under $5 shipped) close enough. The standard pots have a 6mm shaft and the concentric are 6mm top/8mm bottom.

I cut the female jack from the stock preamp harness to use in this install to keep the plug intact on the piezo and make for easier future servicing. The pot next to the jack (the one with the green box) is discarded and the jack is wired in its place. The jack and the pickup are the only things retained from the original electronics.

Here is the bass/treble & mid/sweep mounted on the volume/tone plate.
The pot has been removed and the jack wired in its place.

Here are the two wires left behind - the ground wire and the piezo. If you look at the top you will notice some fresh bare wood to the right in the taped off area. I needed to open up the cavity to fit the mid sweep control board (pot mounted). There is plenty of space to open it up. One surprising thing I learned is that the clearcoat is rather brittle and using the wrong masking tape will lift it when you pull the tape off. I grabbed the first tape I found in the basement, and wish I had looked for my easy release tape. There is a dark stain under the clearcoat so it isn't TOO obvious, but it is what it is now.

Here is everything loosely put into its place to check that everything reaches, and everything falls perfectly into place. I used the headphone jack/power switch plate as a template for making a new plate to mount the volume pot in its place. Drill the pot to one side of the plate (towards a mounting screw, but still centered on the line between the mounting screws) so the wires don't have to make such a tight bend and it fits perfectly. The ground wire is soldered to the back of the volume pot - there is already a blob of solder in place so it is a quick job. The battery box is retained as is the mounting plate for the new TRS jack.

 

[carl h.]

Here is the final mounting for now. (The blue is a reflection of the sky.)

My 3 complaints with this job: 1-one of the washers for the concentric pot mounting nuts was too small, 2-the cheap ebay knobs had to be cleaned out internally of metal from the tapping of the lock screw before they would fully slide onto the pot, 3-that darned masking tape!!

It is now a more useful beast. I replaced the crappy strings with Helicore hybrids and exchanged the piece of suede I originally tried under the piezo for a piece of bicycle inner tube I managed to scrounge up. I also put squares of tube under the bridge feet.

It totally changed the character of the beast. Tone is much better, signal is hotter and no piezo ducks anymore. The bass knob adds a heft to the tone that was missing before, the treble and mid seem less useful with pizz. I'll put a bow to it later and see how those work with arco, I suspect they will be quite useful there.

I'm wondering if the Emminence bridge is a significant improvement on the stock thing. It may be my next change from stock. For now I'm content to play it for a while as it currently sits.

 

[carl h.]

Update.
I emailed Guitar fuel to tell them how pleased I was with their Preamp and mentioned the washer size. Today I got 4 new washers in the mail!

If this proves to be gig stable I may be a returning customer for future projects. They reply promptly to emails and seem determined to give satisfaction to their customers.


Update PT II

I took it to a rehearsal this morning. All unevenness between strings was gone. No idea what specifically fixed that, but it's a done deal. On a Tchaikovsky transcription, double and triple stops were clear and resonant. I never figured it would handle that one so well. Generally I use an ABG for this group but I needed a test of the setup before taking it out on a gig.

Mid and treble are still less effective than the bass knob when playing pizz. I found myself playing with very little boost, all knobs at detent. Occasionally twiddling the bass knob on long sustained notes just for giggles. (WOWWOWWOW )

The nut is stock height. It is too high. That will be the next tweak. Playing a Vivaldi transcription with 3 minutes of octave 32nd notes just about killed me, major cramping. Action is coming down further as well.

I did take a bow to it. As I suspected the mid and treble were very useful here. I was able to dial down the "string noise" and get the nice warm sound of a bowed upright. VERY impressed with how drastic the change is here. This really opens up bowed options for attack and color onboard! The stock bridge is too flat to really dig in with a bow so I'll reshape that when I do the nut.

I did get some tailpiece resonances which were annoying. I ended up stuffing my glove in the tailpiece. I don't like the towel/sponge or whatever as I don't like that kind of look on my rigs. I have an idea or two on this one and will post whatever I come up with as a minimally intrusive resolution to this problem.

 

[bassfacer22]

How can I tell if I have the 500 or 550 version?

 

[carl h.]

How can I tell if I have the 500 or 550 version?

As far as I can find, there is no difference. 550 seems to be a number with one more 5 and one less zero than 500.

I checked the wholesaler catalog and there is no 550 listing. I checked the [This invalid link has been removed] and found no 550. The online guys seem to be advertising a 550, but it may be a data entry error that lives on.

 

[bassfacer22]

So this is a 500.. I assume

 

[carl h.]

Probably.

?