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U.S. Peavey Club

#13,882
BassikLee said:
I gig my Peaveys. My main bass is a black GV with a Millenium preamp installed.
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Sure, lots of people do but why don't MORE people gig with Peaveys? Not that there's anything wrong with Fender, Alembic, etc. but lots of people are paying substantially more for brands that aren't any better and sometimes are actually worse in tone and reliability. There's no real reason why a 1990 Peavey bass is half the price (if not less) of a 1990 Fender bass.
 
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#13,885
jmlee said:
A 1994 Axcelerator Plus in sunburst and very interesting tort just arrived, all the way from Medicine Hat, Alberta. (Thanks Steve!) Very punchy and articulate instrument with the active (Cirrus-like) VFLs and a nice 18V, 2-way EQ. It's interesting that the headstock is tilted back 8° so there's no string tree. Slightly blingy gold light tuners, heavy-ish bridge and heavy knobs. Very slender J-wide, thin-through neck with pau ferro fingerboard. I was surprised that it only weighs 7.9 lbs. The Pluses were apparently made from swamp ash but chambered somewhat under the pickguard for weight and body resonance. I'll have to have a look. It's certainly very resonant and loud when not plugged in. It reminds me *a lot* in sound and character of a Guild Pilot I (twice) had, but better put together. That bass was, I think, made from poplar.

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Congratulations! Great looking bass! I just got the same bass in a different color delivered last week. Found a great deal on the Guitar Center used site ($239!!). I agree with your comments on the tone. Super easy playing neck. Jazz like for sure. Mine is super lightweight as well. Thrilled to pieces with mine! I do need to bring it to my tech as the 12th fret is dead on the G string (you can see the fret is lifted just a hair). Should be a super easy fix. Otherwise I'm golden.
 
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#13,886
Mike Whitfield said:
I may have to look for one of those. That's a sweet looking bass and I like light. Are they rare and/or expensive? Can't say I've ever seen an Axcelerator or Axcelerator Plus bass in the flesh. I've been wanting a Patriot in Worn Brown (or natural, or walnut, or whatever Peavey called it) but your looks awfully sweet and should be even better built.

I go through phases. I’ll resolve to leave the higher grade basses to gigging musicians, all I want is a Patriot and maybe a Matsumoku of some sort. Then I see something like this and I go all gimme gimme gimme.
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Heads up - there is a black one on the Guitar Center site for $299 right now. It's missing the truss rod cover but otherwise it looks to in great condition. Hard to beat at that price. These are KILLER basses for sure.
 
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#13,887
tindrum said:
Congratulations! Great looking bass! I just got the same bass in a different color delivered last week. Found a great deal on the Guitar Center used site ($239!!). I agree with your comments on the tone. Super easy playing neck. Jazz like for sure. Mine is super lightweight as well. Thrilled to pieces with mine! I do need to bring it to my tech as the 12th fret is dead on the G string (you can see the fret is lifted just a hair). Should be a super easy fix. Otherwise I'm golden.
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Well done! I’m trying to sort out the best strings for mine. D’Addario XLs on/off, now Chromes on but the strongly mid-rich character of the bass is still challenging and I think some slightly scooped-by-nature strings are going to be the trick. Any wisdom from your end?
 
#13,889
Chuck M said:
Something to consider. With a 2 band EQ boosting the treble and bass is a cut to the mids
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Yup, sure is; however the particular frequencies at play in this 2-band don’t achieve the desired tone for me. Got lots of EQ at the amp and even a Boss EQ pedal but I always like to find strings which innately suit the instrument. Open for suggestions here, folks. My go-to Pure Blues are next up, I suppose, but I’ll actually have to buy those. Let’s see what else is in the string box...:whistle:
 
#13,890
tindrum said:
Heads up - there is a black one on the Guitar Center site for $299 right now. It's missing the truss rod cover but otherwise it looks to in great condition. Hard to beat at that price. These are KILLER basses for sure.
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Thanks! If it sticks around a month or so I may jump, although my preference would be burst or natural or white. But I need to be good for a bit because I just today picked up a Peavey T-25 and took delivery of a new Firefly semi hollow body guitar. Three in a row might be pushing my wife’s indulgence.
 
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#13,891
Mike Whitfield said:
Thanks! If it sticks around a month or so I may jump, although my preference would be burst or natural or white. But I need to be good for a bit because I just today picked up a Peavey T-25 and took delivery of a new Firefly semi hollow body guitar. Three in a row might be pushing my wife’s indulgence.
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You might want to check back. The one I bought had been on there for months and was marked down twice. There was another one that sold a few weeks ago on there that had been available for nearly 6 months. It's crazy but it's a soft market for Peavey stuff. I'm totally cool with that!!
 
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#13,892
jmlee said:
Well done! I’m trying to sort out the best strings for mine. D’Addario XLs on/off, now Chromes on but the strongly mid-rich character of the bass is still challenging and I think some slightly scooped-by-nature strings are going to be the trick. Any wisdom from your end?
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I have Dunlop Super Brights on mine. They sound great but like you I've found the midrange punch is really strong on this bass. A blessing and a mild curse. I'm also kinda leaning towards a more scooped string for this bass. Would like to find a lower tension string as I'm so used to the Super Brights as they've been on most of my basses for a few years.
 
#13,893
jmlee said:
Yup, sure is; however the particular frequencies at play in this 2-band don’t achieve the desired tone for me. Got lots of EQ at the amp and even a Boss EQ pedal but I always like to find strings which innately suit the instrument. Open for suggestions here, folks. My go-to Pure Blues are next up, I suppose, but I’ll actually have to buy those. Let’s see what else is in the string box...:whistle:
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Please report back. I have Dunlops on all my stuff other than my 79 Aria SB-600 which has Pure Blues. They kill on that bass and I've tossed around the idea of putting them on my Axcelerator.
 
#13,894
tindrum said:
You might want to check back. The one I bought had been on there for months and was marked down twice. There was another one that sold a few weeks ago on there that had been available for nearly 6 months. It's crazy but it's a soft market for Peavey stuff. I'm totally cool with that!!
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Definitely. There’s a guy here in town trying to sell a ton of super cool Peavey basses and guitars for premium prices (mostly $450 & up) and he doesn’t seem to be having much luck. On the other hand, a local store has a pretty nice red T-20 asking $299. Given the choice though, an Axcelerator seems a much better buy than the T-20. And while Guitar Center tends to count “Good” condition as “Not currently on fire” and “fair” as “Will surely be extinguished by the time it arrives”, they have a very generous return policy. Additionally, my local store is excellent, very good people.

One thing though - seems like Mahogany finish Patriot basses are getting some love.

Adit: Dang, I have to eat my words. That black Axcelerator with the red tortoiseshell pickguard and gold hardware is freakin’ gorgeous, AND it’s a Plus.
 
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#13,896
I completely forgot to share the mahogany Patriot I picked up a couple of months ago (with case). It popped up on Reverb, and then I noticed it was in Athens - and I had band practice there that week. Just $175 - score!

When I got it, it had no strings and the frets were green.

Peavey Patriot bass by thaddeusthompson, on Flickr

Also a bit of corrosion in the hardware.

Peavey Patriot bass by thaddeusthompson, on Flickr

It looked like someone might have tried to re-stain the back, but it's not noticeable from a distance.

Peavey Patriot bass by thaddeusthompson, on Flickr

Fixing it up was unexpectedly a breeze. I gave the hardware an apple cider vinegar bath.

Invalid Link Removed by thaddeusthompson, on Flickr

Then I polished the frets with steel wool and scrubbed the board with Simple Green. (The finish already had the orange peel.)

Peavey Patriot bass by thaddeusthompson, on Flickr

Then reassembly and adjustment with a set of GHS Pressurewounds. I ended up putting more relief into a Peavey neck for a change.

Peavey Patriot bass by thaddeusthompson, on Flickr

So far I've had one gig with it and I like it! The thin-yet-wide neck felt a little weird at first, but it's very comfortable now. The tone is a bit Musicman-like. This thing is *bright*; 0-2 on the tone is like a P, then turns into a J from 2-6 and then gets way too crunchy beyond that. Still a keeper - at least until I get to work on my Fury project (someday).
 
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#13,898
ATLbassist said:


So far I've had one gig with it and I like it! The thin-yet-wide neck felt a little weird at first, but it's very comfortable now. The tone is a bit Musicman-like. This thing is *bright*; 0-2 on the tone is like a P, then turns into a J from 2-6 and then gets way too crunchy beyond that. Still a keeper - at least until I get to work on my Fury project (someday).
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Nice! Sounds like you want a bigger capacitor on that tone control, though.
 
#13,900
ATLbassist said:
So far I've had one gig with it and I like it! The thin-yet-wide neck felt a little weird at first, but it's very comfortable now. The tone is a bit Musicman-like. This thing is *bright*; 0-2 on the tone is like a P, then turns into a J from 2-6 and then gets way too crunchy beyond that. Still a keeper - at least until I get to work on my Fury project (someday).
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The Patriot pickup is pretty much in the same spot a Ric 4001/4003 bridge pickup is located, which is about a half inch neckward from the Stingray's front coil. It gets a little bit more of that P fundamental, but has more of that Stingray punch without the slightly phasey sounding parallel coil tone.
I piggybacked a .022uF cap in parallel with the stock tone cap on my Patriot and it helped darken the tone a touch more to my liking. I think the stock cap is a .022uF, so now it's closer to .047uF.
 
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