U.S. Peavey Club

[Chuck M]

Most of the tiny fractures found at neck joints are caused by improper removal of the neck or loose neck screws. If you have ANY tension on the strings when you remove the neck you are almost certainly going to damage the body usually with cracks but sometimes paint will come off. The only exception to this that I am aware of is Zon graphite necked basses. Those basses seem to always develop those small cracks due to presumably too tight neck joints.

 

[kodiakblair]

David
I shipped a bass to a kid in West Africa couple of year back with no problems,cardboard box made it safely too

 

[DavidEdenAria]

Most of the tiny fractures found at neck joints are caused by improper removal of the neck or loose neck screws. If you have ANY tension on the strings when you remove the neck you are almost certainly going to damage the body usually with cracks but sometimes paint will come off. The only exception to this that I am aware of is Zon graphite necked basses. Those basses seem to always develop those small cracks due to presumably too tight neck joints.

Bottom line is the neck/body joint is the most susceptible other than headstock from what ive gathered.

You have to acknowledge guitars often do get knocked over.....it happens a lot from what luthiers have told me thru the years....improper cases are another issue......ask me how i got my 65 SG Special for pennies on the $!

 

[DavidEdenAria]

David
I shipped a bass to a kid in West Africa couple of year back with no problems,cardboard box made it safely too

Hey i dont doubt it.....how did you pack the box?

 

[MNAirHead]

Case... box etc put it to oversize.. I don't have the exact measurements

so yes...cased and boxed makes it oversize.


.....

@DavidEdenAria

You might think it makes sense but it doesn't woirk like that. A neck's roughly 34 - 35" long including the headstock,body will be 14" - 16" wide. Minimum box size would be 36" x 16" x say 6". Allow 12lb for weight and ask for a USPS quote to France, just picked a random European country. Quote comes back $97.35. Change the length to 48" for neck on,width and height remain the same. Quite now reads $97.35 !! Proposed contents value was $800.

Couriers work on set sizes. Send a box to Europe with any dimension over 12" and it costs you $97.35. The maximum shipping size is 108" of which the length can't exceed 60". That allows you 20" for width and another 20" for height.

No idea who MNAirHead was using to ship but both him and the recipient were getting ripped off royally.

 

[kodiakblair]

Hey i dont doubt it.....how did you pack the box?

I got some double-walled cardboard boxes that vegatable suppliers use and cut slots out for the neck and body. Bass got bubblewrap then laid in the boxes,3 boxes were used and were taped end to end. Any dead space got cardboard wedges. Another couple of single skin cardboard boxes got split to make an outer skin,again taped with gaffa tape. Some brown paper and it was off on it's 5000 mile journey.

The 2 things that concerned me were it getting stolen and customs charges,damage was not on my mind. I was donating the bass to a kid in Ghana but had no way of paying the custom charges,that really worried me. They get levied on entry.Would have been a terrible thing for the kid, if after some stranger sending him a bass,he didn't have the money to collect it. Thankfully he'd been saving to buy an old bass so had just enough to cover customs

 

[kodiakblair]

Case... box etc put it to oversize.. I don't have the exact measurements
so yes...cased and boxed makes it oversize.
.....

Peavey case is 50" x 16" x 5". 81" in total,27" under the limit.

 

[Persona87]

I'm ready to claim my member number!

I picked up this USA Millennium a little while back in a trade. It's a Plus model (as far as I can tell), with the blue-purple color shift paint and a pao ferro board. I'm not 100% sold on the pickups yet, but the preamp and the playability/build quality are both really nice.

What do you guys think about the stock pickups?

 

[mech]

There was, until I saw this post. US made Peavey five, number 12 is coming to daddy.

Thank you. That walnut bolt on was SOOOOOO tempting and I really don't need another mouth to feed.

 

[BassikLee]

Glad I could help....

 

[BassikLee]

That Milly is a regular one, not the plus. Plus had figured maple tops. I actually have that same finish on my milly five. Mine currently wears a GV neck. Stock pickups and preamp are incredibly good.

 

[MNAirHead]

That Milly is a regular one, not the plus. Plus had figured maple tops. I actually have that same finish on my milly five. Mine currently wears a GV neck. Stock pickups and preamp are incredibly good.

How do you like the GV plus Millenium combo? I've thought about doing this (had in the past)... I'm reluctant as my Mill5 is a unicorn.

 

[ahbass2500]

What do you guys think about the stock pickups?

I was not a fan of them. I am used to more power out of an MM pickup than the Millennium could provide. Comparing it to my L2500 or Growler, the MM just sounded weak to me. I know it is not necessarily a fair comparison, but I wanted a little more from it than it could give.

Pulled my stock preamp and pickups. Sold them on here. Swapped in the following...
Neck Pup: Bartolini 9CBJD-LN1 Split Coil Jazz
Bridge Pup: Bartolini MM42CBJD3 Quad Coil MM
Preamp: Audere Z-Mode Wired Volume/Blend, Low-Mid/Bass, High-Mid/Treble, Z-Mode Switch, MM Coil Tap (Series, Bridge Split Single Coil, Parallel), 18-Volts

Really any standard MM sized pickup should fit. Any long neck jazz pickup that does not have exposed poles should fit. There are probably some exposed pole ones that fit, but I did not measure that far. By long neck jazz pickup, I am referring to a Fender Bridge sized Jazz pickup, but wired for the neck position. Fender typically uses a smaller sized pickup for the neck position, so many Jazz neck pickups will not be an exact swap.

More info on my swap over in the USA Millennium club. Peavey Millennium USA Club, part 2

I find the new setup to be significantly more versatile than the stock setup. Overall the tone on the new setup is more to my liking. I know most people love the stock preamp, but I have never liked variable mids. I like being able to control my mids. However, I find myself playing with the variable frequency way too much and never really settling on a tone. This is not really a problem with the preamp, but a problem with how I prefer to approach equalization. I debated on swapping the Millennium preamp into my GV, but decided against it after I realized this is what I did not like about the pre.

 

[MNAirHead]

What do you guys think about the stock pickups? View attachment 2840682 View attachment 2840684 View attachment 2840685

I'm blessed to own some $$$$$$ basses.

Sincerely, I'd not dork with a Millenium. Out of all of the basses I own, the Millenium 5 is the one that pro career sound staff all prefer (yes all of them).

I will note that the preamp does take a bit of "blending" to get your desired sound dialed in. My opinion is also that strings, touch/technique etc all are best mated to this instrument.

There's a trick to getting the neck angle improved..... I've yet to set one that couldn't use a better neck angle.

 

[MNAirHead]

There's a trick to getting the neck angle improved..... I've yet to set one that couldn't use a better neck angle.

If someone has clear pix of the neck pocket and neck bottom (near the bolting) -- I could show exactly where the standard shim goes.

 

[BassikLee]

How do you like the GV plus Millenium combo? I've thought about doing this (had in the past)... I'm reluctant as my Mill5 is a unicorn.

I like it very much. I actually prefer the GV neck profile over the Milly. To me, the Milly necks are a tad too thing. While the GV neck is not fat by any means, it's got a little more meat to it.

 

[MNAirHead]

I like it very much.
I actually prefer the GV neck profile over the Milly. To me, the Milly necks are a tad too thing. While the GV neck is not fat by any means, it's got a little more meat to it.

Funny that I prefer thin necks.. and mostly gig Conklin 7 or Acoustic Upright....

I've thought about neck swapping one of my GV to my milly...

Thank you

 

[BassikLee]

I know you can't tell from the pic, but that's her. What appears to be a gap on the bass side (it's a bass, aren't all sides of it "Bass sides" by definition??) is a shadow. She's my number two. My GV with Milly pre wins out by a very narrow margin. I think it's the radiussed pickups. I'm one of those pickup/ramp guys, so....

 

[MNAirHead]

My GV with Milly pre wins out by a very narrow margin. I think it's the radiussed pickups. I'm one of those pickup/ramp guys, so....

When life settles down, I'm doing this.

 

[kazamamaster]

Posted in another thread and didn't get a response. Is there a particular wood combo that closely emulates that Smith tone more than another in your ears in the Cirrus Bass?