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Update to the G2220 saga
- Thread starter Asher Platts
- Start date
That doesn't mean that every production line employee, at every musical instrument manufacturer in China reads English, or even knows anything about musical instruments, or pickup design.
This is most definitely not a high end instrument, let alone an amazing one.
This has been going on for ten years. Do you really thing they're hiring employees to assemble instruments destined for English speaking markets who can't read the English on the components?
A big pat on the back, and congratulations to @LowEndLobster for exposing this, and moving the needle.
Perhaps you can turn your pincers of peril on another company, who are trying to pull the wool over this bassist's eyes ; namely EMG.
Every time I play my bass, no matter how wet my hands are, I cannot get these pickups to lather up.
Perhaps you can turn your pincers of peril on another company, who are trying to pull the wool over this bassist's eyes ; namely EMG.
Every time I play my bass, no matter how wet my hands are, I cannot get these pickups to lather up.
This has been going on for ten years. Do you really thing they're hiring employees to assemble instruments destined for English speaking markets who can't read the English on the components?
Yes.
This; plus, they would've consistently made the same mistake.This has been going on for ten years. Do you really thing they're hiring employees to assemble instruments destined for English speaking markets who can't read the English on the components?
[...Well, either that, or maybe the mistake is upstream, with one fella who does speak English preparing both "neck" and "bridge" stickers, and another who doesn't, and only fishes from the "bridge" basket. If so, there must be neck pickups mislabelled as bridge ones, randomly put in either position (in the interest of science - we were hunting for concentric humbuckers until a couple of days ago, might as well do this - every owner should check the DC resistance of both their buckhummers). Either way, these hypotethical, secret neckers don't appear to be RWRP with respect to the true bridgers. Maybe, back at the pickup factory, the instructions on how to reverse-wind and polarity-flip were in English...
]
I'm guessing that if you had to fish parts out of bins that were labeled in Chinese, you'd make occasional mistakes, and they wouldn't necessarily be consistent. And even if you did get it right all the time, you'd probably not be able to tell if some parts accidentally ended up in the wrong bin.This; plus, they would've consistently made the same mistake.
[...Well, either that, or maybe the mistake is upstream, with one fella who does speak English preparing both "neck" and "bridge" stickers, and another who doesn't, and only fishes from the "bridge" basket. If so, there must be neck pickups mislabelled as bridge ones, randomly put in either position (in the interest of science - we were hunting for concentric humbuckers until a couple of days ago, might as well do this - every owner should check the DC resistance of both their buckhummers). Either way, these hypotethical, secret neckers don't appear to be RWRP with respect to the true bridgers. Maybe, back at the pickup factory, the instructions on how to reverse-wind and polarity-flip were in English...
Or more likely, they picked two bridge pickups from the catalogue of available parts and told the factory to use them. Nobody on the factory floor has any authority to question a parts list from the boss.
I'm not entirely sure I got it across, but that is exactly my point: language SNAFUs may look like a plausible scenario from a distance, but I don't believe they have anything to do with the situation we're discussing.
Leaving aside the little "label mixup at the pickup factory" scene I depicted for shingles and grins:
even a completely illiterate assembler is either straight-up told to get both pickups from the same box (in which case someone above them knows the truth and doesn't care), or instructed to get each from its box and install them correctly (in which other case they would expect to find two different labels, having learnt to recognise them when double-checking, and notice right away if they were all labelled alike - all the above regardless of their command of the language in the label itself).
This has been going on for ten years. Do you really thing they're hiring employees to assemble instruments destined for English speaking markets who can't read the English on the components?
It also took ten years for English speaking players to notice. Give me a real conspiracy like their made in USA basses are actually made on Mars or something like that.
Almost certainly. We're talking a production line here. There's a bill of materials (the "BOM") and a set of process steps to build a bass. Part of that process would be to take pickups from the bin of pickups, mount 'em, and wire 'em up, according to the diagrams provided. Nobody cares what's on the stickers on the pickups. They arrive from the factory in Korea (apparently the Chinese-built Boo Heungs get labeled 'BHC') in large lots. This is a low-cost (though not necessarily low-value) bass, not luthiery. If someone in production engineering figured out that it works just fine to use "bridge" pickups in both positions, then it simplifies things all around to just order one type from BHK and use 'em in both slots. No concerns about having the same number of "neck" and "bridge", no need to keep two bins of nearly identical items straight at the assembly stations. Simpler configuration management, easier supply chain. Unfortunately, these pickups are so low-cost and industrial that they don't seem to have any kind of SKU identifier on them, so we can't contact BH to find out whether they're catalogued as "humbuckers" or as "Mini-format pickup #4029b".This has been going on for ten years. Do you really thing they're hiring employees to assemble instruments destined for English speaking markets who can't read the English on the components?
I almost always read positive reviews on these basses before the scandal was exposed.
I guess they sound different now that people know.
I guess they sound different now that people know.
I doubt that, but how they sound isn't the issue being discussed. The only issue is that for a considerable amount of time, people have been buying a bass with it's pickups promoted as humbuckers and they were not. Add to that, the fact that the two single coils used instead weren't even opposite wound, so weren't even humbucking in the middle position.
Sure it's not a life changing issue, but it is a legitimate complaint that something wasn't as advertised and the company concerned seemed reluctant to rectify the situation, until the issue started to gain some traction and publicity.
I always wanted a short scale Jazz bass, surprise!
Now that they’re really single coils I’m thinking of putting real single coils in there. I have a set of Bartolini b-axis and a set of Ultra Jazz hanging around and I’m really tempted to squeeze one of them in there.
I roughly sized them up and with a little Drexel work they’ll make it. Might look a little ugly but they should sound sweet.
Now that they’re really single coils I’m thinking of putting real single coils in there. I have a set of Bartolini b-axis and a set of Ultra Jazz hanging around and I’m really tempted to squeeze one of them in there.
I roughly sized them up and with a little Drexel work they’ll make it. Might look a little ugly but they should sound sweet.
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Of course, when companies decide to cheat consumers, this is exactly the attitude they hope for.
I just think people want to be offended. It’s a bass built to a budget price that had a wrong pickup description. It was wrong for ten years not because I lick the boots of Fender. It was wrong for ten years because nobody cares.
i think many people care(buyers), and many people realized the bass was noisy (myself included)
however, most people didn't automatically assume it was due to advertised humbuckers that look like humbuckers not actually being humbuckers... not a logical first assumption!
since it's a cheap bass like you said, most people probably attributed the noise due to being from poor shielding, low quality parts, poor qc, etc.
I think it’s interesting that most people have the point of view that the “wrong” pickups have been installed in these basses. I believe it’s more probable that the cheap single-coils were always the intended pickups for this inexpensive instrument, and the error was made in the printed specs.
well it was already shown in the previous thread that an early run/version of this bass did in fact have humbuckers which potentially suggests these were supposed to have them as well (in addition to the advertising) . also both of the pickups being labeled "bridge" is suspicious and suggests a mistake may have been made even if they were never intended to be humbuckers. if either of those 2 things are true, then a wrong pickup is being used in some regard.
Correction here, the thread only showed the single pickup G2202 having a humbucker. We have get to see a G2220 with hums from the factory (unless I missed something)
