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U.S. Peavey Club

#12,581
bigtone23 said:
You might look into a simple resistor or cap swap or addition to tame the preamp. I have a '83 G&L El Toro and they are known for being rather bright sounding basses, much like the Stingrays and active Fenders of the same era. I was on the Basses By Leo/G&L bass forum and the man who designed the preamps for G&L is a regular poster and fountain of info there. He told me of a simple mod by placing an additional resistor in series with the hot signal wire right at the input of the preamp to tame the brightness. I played with resistor values and landed on one that mimics the treble content of the bass in passive mode. It didn't have any effect on other frequencies except the treble. Cheap, simple and effective.

Another mod is adding a loading cap across the hot and ground of the pickup(s). These lower the resonant frequency and can quickly and cheaply revoice a pickup to be less bright.
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I'm actually having the opposite problem this time around. I have to really boost the treble control to get some decent brightness out of it. The preamp seems to be more subtle than I remember it being.
 
#12,583
Chuck M said:
So my beautiful Millennium 4 arrived. I tuned it up and was disappointed with the tone. I played a lot with the preamp controls and could improve it some but I thought "this is not for me".

The bass had some strings on it that I did not recognize...they feel like stainless and have black silk on both ends. I dug around in my used string collection and found a set of TI flats and put them on the bass. Wow! What an amazing transformation. The bass sounds great and responds nicely to changes in right hand position.

I believe that is the most dramatic change I have ever experienced with different strings. This bass was supposed to be a new old stock bass that the guy I bought it from got from the store that originally got it new from Peavey. Well, if it had those strings on it in the store I see why it didn't sell.

I'll have to remove the strings again because the frets need polishing and I will want to do a really nice wax job to get the accumulation of fingerprints off it. I'll post photos after I get it polished up.
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Man.....depending on how old the bass is I wonder if those strings were original Peavey strings from back in the day??
 
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#12,586
jjk2007 said:
I'm no collector....I just remember I used to buy the Peavey strings back in the day! Pretty sure they had the black silk, correct?
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They did. I've had an unbelievable amount of Peavey's come to me still wearing those strings from the factory. Considering how old they were, they still sounded great.
 
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#12,591
My B Quad 5 needed a setup, the guy over there said one of the tuners is almost broken and that in general they used cheap tuners. Would these fit instead of the existing ones?
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5742284_1528908780.jpg


(not my bass in the photo, mine has gold hardware)
 
#12,592
sgl said:
My B Quad 5 needed a setup, the guy over there said one of the tuners is almost broken and that in general they used cheap tuners. Would these fit instead of the existing ones?
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View attachment 3191698

(not my bass in the photo, mine has gold hardware)
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Wanna sell it ??? Lol

On my b quad 4 I used hipshot ultralites
 
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#12,593
Tuners ---
Commonly, these used a commodity type tuner. Unsure if they're unbranded major manufacturer or an import copy.

"cheap" is relative... I believe that many tuners work for most of us.

IF you take it out, measure it--- there are commodity replacments on ebay.

----
My gig basses are ridden VERY hard (lives in my Minnesota trunk all year long)... periodically I'll have a tuner corrode and snap off... doesn't mean they're cheap... just means I gig 200ish times a year... and never dry off my gear... and let it live in my trunk -40 to +150

it's silly I beat a conklin like this -- and then polish my USA peaveys.

irrational me...

sgl said:
My B Quad 5 needed a setup, the guy over there said one of the tuners is almost broken and that in general they used cheap tuners. Would these fit instead of the existing ones?
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

View attachment 3191698

(not my bass in the photo, mine has gold hardware)
Click to expand...
 
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#12,598
MNAirHead said:
Foundation Pickups
it's more of an era question than exact year.... round 91-93 began the morph toward what we now consider vfl (cirrrus like soap bars).. dynas and TL received the non ferrite first.
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While the pickups in the foundations had a similar look to that of the VFL, they were different pickups. Foundations were single coils.
 
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#12,599
MNAirHead said:
Foundation Pickups
it's more of an era question than exact year.... round 91-93 began the morph toward what we now consider vfl (cirrrus like soap bars).. dynas and TL received the non ferrite first.
Click to expand...
Given that "ferrite" is just another word for ceramic,didn't they stick with ceramics/only less winds ? I reckon if they'd went with AlNiCO it'd be in the spec sheets. Seems like every other company blows the Alnico trumpet if they use them :laugh:
 

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