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Wishbass Club pt. 2
- Thread starter john turner
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Kids: Well, I dialed the Scarab in last night. By that I mean I releveled and oiled the FB, lowered the bridge (strings were 1/4" off the FB near the bridge) and swapped the old strings out for some new D'Addario half wounds (they came with HYper #808). This bass has lots of sustain with a gnarly mwwah factor and the neck is a bit more narrow than my others, which makes it very comfortable to play. My only complaint is the overly heavy headstock which is causing some neck dive (the body is really light too), but I am looking into taking some of the thickness out of the headstock for weight and asethetics both - just not sure exactly what I will do there yet.
how did you lower the action by lowering the bridge? groove the bridge? cut some the bottom off? what did you use?
"how did you lower the action by lowering the bridge? groove the bridge? cut some the bottom off? what did you use?
StandUpright; No, it is not recommended to groove the bridge piece at each string (on top). 3-String Pete clued me into that. You actually want a sharp contact point for the string there, rather than creating more surface area touching the string (when you slot the top of the bridge). This is for intonation and better overall tone. I sand the bottom down using a stationary bench top belt sander my company owns. I use medium grit belts and take off a little at a time; but after marking a reference line along the bottom of the bridge. It is not a precise operation, but if you check your bridge piece often against the bass as you sand, hopefully you won't go past the point of no return. I did that once and had to have Wish send me another bridge. No biggie, just an annoying delay. He sent me two actually when I requested only one, which was way kool. I usually reduce the width of the bridge too, just to tidy up the look of the thing and then hand-sand the rest of it to make it shine more.
Hope this helps!
On another note - the guy that bought my Hyper lives in Japan! A friend of his in CA is talking possession of it for him. Hmmmm .......
StandUpright; No, it is not recommended to groove the bridge piece at each string (on top). 3-String Pete clued me into that. You actually want a sharp contact point for the string there, rather than creating more surface area touching the string (when you slot the top of the bridge). This is for intonation and better overall tone. I sand the bottom down using a stationary bench top belt sander my company owns. I use medium grit belts and take off a little at a time; but after marking a reference line along the bottom of the bridge. It is not a precise operation, but if you check your bridge piece often against the bass as you sand, hopefully you won't go past the point of no return. I did that once and had to have Wish send me another bridge. No biggie, just an annoying delay. He sent me two actually when I requested only one, which was way kool. I usually reduce the width of the bridge too, just to tidy up the look of the thing and then hand-sand the rest of it to make it shine more.
Hope this helps!
On another note - the guy that bought my Hyper lives in Japan! A friend of his in CA is talking possession of it for him. Hmmmm .......
At the risk of boring you people ? ... Another interesting thing about this Scarab is the PU. One problem the other fellow was having is that the PU was sitting in it's routed hole crooked and too high (front to back) and the strings were prone to buzzing there - one of the main reasons for the impossibly high action (unplayable IMO) I am sure. After doing some careful whittling on the bottom of the PU cavity and using a dremel sander for the screw offsets, the PU now sits in it's hole as it should, and clears the strings! Seems as though Wish was using a generic PU back then, not EMGs, as I cannot find a brand name on it and it is very weak and 'hummy'. I plan to swap it out at some point for something much hotter. Shielding the cavity is high on the list too. Still, I am loving the tone and sound of this one, it really has come alive and I am very pleased!
Also, after measuring the neck, while it is the standard 1-5/8" at the nut, it only widens to 2- 1/8" at the bridge - fully 5/8" less than my other 4 strings. I knew it felt very different.
- Wish on ...
Also, after measuring the neck, while it is the standard 1-5/8" at the nut, it only widens to 2- 1/8" at the bridge - fully 5/8" less than my other 4 strings. I knew it felt very different.
- Wish on ...
Bore us? Don't kid yourself..... IMHO don't waste your time shielding the cavity, try a hum canceling pu first. I have a Bartolini single coil Jazz pup, that is actually a split pu inside. Very low noise, very little hum, and that satisfying classic jazz tone, and not very costly either.
http://www.bestbassgear.com/
+1. I did this in my hyper with a delano split coil, and it's made all the difference in the world. Much more than shielding has on non-hum cancelling PUs. Also, getting a ground wire out to the strings helps tremendously.
Thanks, you guys - I knew you might have some good advice about worthy alternatives. I am dying to try somethng else besides the EMGs - I'm not that impressed with them, I guess I'm trying to say.
Can you give more details about "getting a ground wire out to the strings?" I have heard this said before but am not exactly sure how to perform this mod. Thanx.
Later ...
Can you give more details about "getting a ground wire out to the strings?" I have heard this said before but am not exactly sure how to perform this mod. Thanx.
Later ...
There may be more elegant ways but here is what I did. When I still had the stock emg select in my scroll, I had upgraded it with string ferrules. I took a paperclip, straightened it out and made a solder connection between all the ferrules. Made a little hole from the control cavity to the g string ferrule and ran a wire from the ground to the ferrule. With all the strings grounded, as long as I was touching any string, the hum went away. I am much happier with humbuckers on that particular bass. And supremely happy with my Bartolini hum canceling pup on the Hyper.
Got some bad news ... After working on my house all day I thought I would relax tonight by finally putting my walnut JB back together. I probably have about 30 hours into this one, smoothing, sanding, finishing, etc. I've been in no hurry, just enjoying the process: in and around my other obligations as well as other guitars. Well, after soldering up the PUP, when I went to string it up I found out that the neck had bowed - and not just a little tiny bit, but a full 1/8" (or more) nut to bridge! I couldn't believe it at first until I got my level out and checked it. The level touches at 5th position and there is a lot of daylight at each end of the FB! I went ahead and ran a string thru just to check it out and it actually touches the FB in the middle of the neck. I'm really bummed! The neck on this bass was always especially thin, which I didn't think too much about when I got it because it was just so comfortable (and my Stude's neck was kind of thin as well - both made from the same run of walnut I believe). The other thing about this bass is the tone. It really is killer and just sings to high heaven - that mysterious coming together of woods that no one can predict at the outset of a build.
I did do some reshaping of the neck to even out it's contour and make it super smooth (had to take off a little bit in that process), so I assume I voided my warranty. I haven't had the heart to email Wish about this yet ... Dang! Does anyone know if these things can be retro-fitted with a truss rod? I hate to lose this one to permanent wall-hanger status - it had such a nice sound.
I did do some reshaping of the neck to even out it's contour and make it super smooth (had to take off a little bit in that process), so I assume I voided my warranty. I haven't had the heart to email Wish about this yet ... Dang! Does anyone know if these things can be retro-fitted with a truss rod? I hate to lose this one to permanent wall-hanger status - it had such a nice sound.
Well, after thinking about it most of the night, I decided to email Wish and let him know about my problem with the JB's neck dance. He was very gracious and simply asked me to send it back to him and he will work on it. Wow, how kool is that? Maybe he can salvage it - I surely hope so. Thanks, Steve!
I'm pretty underwhelmed with the EMG selects...when I'm thinking of bidding on a wish, if it has a select, I add ~$75 in my mind to the price of the bass because I figure I'll be swapping it out eventually.
Groundwire: I went even more low-rent than the paper clip method: On my hyper, the control cover is very close to the bridge. I took a length of solid-core hookup wire, threaded it around all the strings, leaving enough wire to reach the control cover. I sandwiched the bare wire between the wood and the control cover. Works fine.
check this out - 6 string Wish for sale here in the classifieds:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=488343
tempting...
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=488343
tempting...
Gubna; Tempting indeed! That's a good price for a 6-string and all the goodies. Someone should snap this up! (not me though ... 
I just heard from Wish about the neck bow problem on my JB. He just got it in the mail (probably yesterday) and he emailed me to say the warpage on this neck is the most extreme he has ever seen. He is going to have a go at fixing it, if not he may have to replace the neck - yikes! I knew it was really dry here, but this is ridiculous ... Anyway, that's the latest ...
Being a neck-through I guess that means cutting the body wings off and attaching them to another neck.
well, that would be a great time to decide if you want a change in scale length.
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