U.S. Peavey Club

[58kites]

They are ceramic magnet. I can tell they sound somewhat jazz-like, but much beefier. I play almost all my gigs with a foundation body with those pickups and patriot neck.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. My favorite Jazz pickups have been the Dimarzio Model J because they are beefy and they don't hum.
....but now you should post a few pics of your Foundation/Patriot gigging bass so we can all enjoy some bass porn.

 

[58kites]

My experience with them matches your description. Please don’t hate me but I like them better than Super Ferrites. They are not particularly noisy but they are single coils and will pick up noise. They are hum canceling when both neck and bridge are at the same level.

Everybody has their preferences and some like 'em raw and raunchy for some genres of music and others like smooth and silky for other genres.
Clearly, lots of folks here like the sound of the "passive VFL" pickups and I hope I do too.
Thanks for providing good information right away.

 

[MNAirHead]

Okay fellas....

Please give me the details about the pickups that are on later Foundations that are housed in the VFL shells.
I remember seeing pics of a few that were flat but most look like they are in the active VFL shell.
I assume they're single coil passive but obviously different construction/materials than the old Foundation Super Ferrites.
I assume they are shielded well and not noisy for a single coil because that's how Peavey did it.

Fill in the blanks for me.
Thanks.

Hmmn... I've owned 95% of the american era basses.

For the life of my I do not "get" the t40 or ferrite legend... it's just me. Like the ferrite dyna... I can't hear a magician. What I do notice is that the entire bass design, setup and strings will create an output.

I can't tell you the number of times I've bought a "bad sounding" usa peavey... swapped the strings... did some setup and flipped it for a simple $50 net profit.

The only foundation I currently own is a 5 late model "vflish" it is in great shape.. sounds great... feels great... does not have the same expectation as I have for USA milleniums.

 

[Supadope]

Been busy and just now had time to work the Fury's neck. As @Gluvhand suggested, I flexed the neck. A counter clockwise turn, then about a full clockwise turn (1/4 at a time). Adjusted the bridge a bit more. And, damn. This thing is fine!

 

[58kites]

The loaded Foundation (1999 I think) body came in from Peavey last evening, so I just finished putting my spare '92 neck on it and got it set-up.
The neck fits the body well enough and all is working as it should.
Nice to be able to put that neck back to use.
Crappy under-lit cell phone pic but I gotta go do a favor for my girlfriend/wife so it's the best I could do.

 

[Shawn Luckman]

Looks nice

 

[ctmullins]

The loaded Foundation (1999 I think) body came in from Peavey last evening, so I just finished putting my spare '92 neck on it and got it set-up.
The neck fits the body well enough and all is working as it should.
Nice to be able to put that neck back to use.
Crappy under-lit cell phone pic but I gotta go do a favor for my girlfriend/wife so it's the best I could do.

View attachment 5210821

Congratulations, nice work!

And yes, best to keep your girlfriend and your wife both happy…..

 

[bigtone23]

The loaded Foundation (1999 I think) body came in from Peavey last evening, so I just finished putting my spare '92 neck on it and got it set-up.
The neck fits the body well enough and all is working as it should.
Nice to be able to put that neck back to use.
Crappy under-lit cell phone pic but I gotta go do a favor for my girlfriend/wife so it's the best I could do.

I like it! It's great to put unused parts to work, and Peavey parts all seem to bolt together nicely. Never have had a parts experiment not work at least satisfactorily.
A joke at my house is referring to my wife as my 'ex-girlfriend.' She rolls her eyes and I think it's clever.

 

[58kites]

I like it! It's great to put unused parts to work, and Peavey parts all seem to bolt together nicely. Never have had a parts experiment not work at least satisfactorily.
A joke at my house is referring to my wife as my 'ex-girlfriend.' She rolls her eyes and I think it's clever.

I have had no problems mixing and matching Peavey parts either.
We've been seeing each other for 50 years and married for 45 years so she is definitely my girlfriend/wife/best buddy/finance manager/personal chef and all around partner every step of the way. I very much appreciate that because I am more than a handful (super ADHD) and her ability to tolerate and manage me is singular.

 

[marinesci]

I own a pair of 1987 vintage Fury; the finish on the necks is different: one is satin and so is very smooth, the other lacquered. Was that normal? Seems unlikely that they would have been offered in two different finishes.

 

[MNAirHead]

I own a pair of 1987 vintage Fury; the finish on the necks is different: one is satin and so is very smooth, the other lacquered. Was that normal? Seems unlikely that they would have been offered in two different finishes.

During that era, they sold things from a blue catalog (think of it as a menu).

If you found the right store staff that had the right relationship, they'd pick up a phone and call through exactly what someone wanted to pay for.

This is why sometimes, there are small nuance changes. This is not custom shop, just menu pricing.

It was also "cool" during that time frame to knock down the shine on poly necks. Often, we'd disassemble the guitar and do the entire neck (and hope to not smudge it with our eyeliner or sticky it up with dipity doo)

 

[marinesci]

Thank you! I picked the one with the satin neck up a while back as a project to swap quarter pounders into. The body on that bass looked like it had "character" in the way of scrapes into the finish on the back; turned out that five minutes with a magic eraser revealed no damage at all, aside from actual dings into the finish that were evident.

 

[Bleecker]

I own a pair of 1987 vintage Fury; the finish on the necks is different: one is satin and so is very smooth, the other lacquered. Was that normal? Seems unlikely that they would have been offered in two different finishes.

Pictures or it didn't happen...plus we like pictures!

 

[Runnerman]

I own a pair of 1987 vintage Fury; the finish on the necks is different: one is satin and so is very smooth, the other lacquered. Was that normal? Seems unlikely that they would have been offered in two different finishes.

That's pretty interesting. The 90's Fury has a satin single piece neck with board. I thought all the 80's necks were bilaminated (2 piece) and gloss. I've never come across a satin one (unless I scuffed it down with scotchbrite to remove the gloss).

 

[marinesci]

I'll probably have time to take photos tomorrow, assuming good light outdoors. I'm pretty much riding the Fury wave at the moment; the neck on my first '87 is the most comfortable that I have handled, so I figured I'd just pick up a second one and swap the pickups just to have something with a different edge but same feel.

 

[C Stone]

Been busy and just now had time to work the Fury's neck. As @Gluvhand suggested, I flexed the neck. A counter clockwise turn, then about a full clockwise turn (1/4 at a time). Adjusted the bridge a bit more. And, damn. This thing is fine!
View attachment 5209232

Stoked for you, glad it worked out! They are great basses, I have a couple Fury’s.

A joke at my house is referring to my wife as my 'ex-girlfriend.' She rolls her eyes and I think it's clever.

Funny, I recently was saying at a get together the best times I ever had were with my ex girlfriend…meaning my wife.

 

[58kites]

My 1987 Peaveys have had great necks, bi-laminated construction with a thick glassy gloss finish.
I've had two 1990 and the finish was still glossy like 1987.
I've got two 1992 here and the gloss is there but not as thick and glassy looking.
I had an Axcellerator that had a more satin finish on the neck back with a rosewood fretboard.
I've liked the bi-laminated necks better than the later years with one piece neck with fretboard on top.

 

[KJMO]

Here's all my Peaveys. Threaveys.

The last pic is the Patriot where the neck for the foundation originated. I was effing with it pretty heavily and had a dual-coil jazz pickup in it. The original pick guard is pretty thrashed and obviously didn't fit the jazz pup ;-)

The Foundation looks eerily like 58kite's. I got the body from someone who bought one of those "lots" of bass parts from Peavey in Meridian, MS. I think Peavey sprayed it the wrong color (red?), then resprayed it white, and it came out a little greenish. It was obviously never sold. I like it a lot though and use it in my 80's band.

I never noticed the Fury doesn't have the bilaminate neck. It doesn't feel quite as good. The Axcelerator does have the bilaminate, which seems odd to me. My favorite is the Patriot/Foundation neck. It's seriously bunged up, thick gloss, hardly any fret left, but it plays ridiculously nicely.

 

[58kites]

Here's all my Peaveys. Threaveys.

View attachment 5218830 View attachment 5218831 View attachment 5218834 View attachment 5218838

The last pic is the Patriot where the neck for the foundation originated. I was effing with it pretty heavily and had a dual-coil jazz pickup in it. The original pick guard is pretty thrashed and obviously didn't fit the jazz pup ;-)

The Foundation looks eerily like 58kite's. I got the body from someone who bought one of those "lots" of bass parts from Peavey in Meridian, MS. I think Peavey sprayed it the wrong color (red?), then resprayed it white, and it came out a little greenish. It was obviously never sold. I like it a lot though and use it in my 80's band.

I never noticed the Fury doesn't have the bilaminate neck. It doesn't feel quite as good. The Axcelerator does have the bi-laminate, which seems odd to me.
My favorite is the Patriot/Foundation neck. It's seriously bunged up, thick gloss, hardly any fret left, but it plays ridiculously nicely.

Patriot necks from 1987 were very nice IMO, I would guess that is '87 or close to that by the logo fonts.
What happened to the pickup that was originally in the Patriot body?
The Foundation body looks like it was from the same batch as the one I bought from Peavey, mine does not appear to have red under the white though.
Amber (former Peavey employee) bought a bunch of stuff from Peavey some time ago and sells on her Brown Eyed Girl Ebay site.
Not sure it that's where you got it but she has sold a bunch of stuff to some of the fellas here.
I have seen more that one color on Peavey basses and on Fender basses too, they don't seem shy about changing the color for whatever reason, you pull a neck off and see that it was once another color first.

 

[Hammertime3]

Attn. KJMO... Is that a Patriot in the third picture, the black with pearloid PG? I'm asking because I just looked at a '85 Patrijot that had only one pickup in the same place. I asked about this bass several pages back on this forum, and had the opportunity to take a closer look today. It has some kind of a replacement pickup in it that doesn't fit. I haven't seen that many Peaveys but I was surprised to see only one pickup on this, and your, bass. What pickup was standard for that year, or this '85 I'm talking about? Still haven't ruled out buying it, but like to know about the availability of the correct pickup for it. Thanks..Any more info about an '85 will help also.