2011 - Squier Affinity Jazz Bass V

Number two for the year is my spanking new (second hand) Squier Jazz Bass five string.
I picked this up for a little more than US retail, but significantly less that Australian retail.
For some reason everything costs twice as much in Australia than it does across the Pacific.

Growing up I had been led to believe that Squier products were inferior instruments and kind of an embarrassment to play one when you're past high school.

I was lied to.

Sure they're not full fledged Fender instruments, but when you find a good one, they come damn close!
In my case I think I got lucky. But I also believe that the manufacturing has become more consistent and of a higher quality over the last 10 years or so.

Mine is cream coloured with a white scratch plate.
The body is alder, maple neck and rosewood fretboard.

Even though I often complain that my fingers are on the stubby side, the wider neck doesn't really pose a problem (as long as I play sitting down anyway). The strings on the 5 string are a little closer together than on my Ibanez, and I find it so much easier to play because of it.

The neck is a satin finish, smooth and fast to play.

What I like most about this instrument is the tone. It sounds just like what I think a bass should sound like.
The pickups are stock, but they sound great. When both pickups are full, there is zero hum. This is a great advantage over the other bass I have as my home has severe problems with electromagnetic interference.
So while I love the sound of single coils, if I want a clean guitar sound, humbuckers are the only way to go.

I'd never really played a five string before and always thought they were a little showy. Once I spent some time noodling about, I discovered that the low B is a great substitute for playing lines otherwise reserved for the upper A string. It adds much meat to the mix and leaves those upper frequencies clear for other instruments.

On open notes the B does flap about quite a bit, but I've been told that it is a pretty common thing for five strings to do.

Prior to purchase, I went around to the various guitar stores in town and played both Squier and Fender basses to compare to this one. Quite honestly I think this is pretty damn close to the middle range Fender instruments as far as being comfortable to play. The tone is great and I doubt that I'd be more pleased if I bought a bass for $1000 more. This one is a bargain and a keeper.

2011 - Manito Flying V

My first instrument purchase of the year was the Manito "Dakota" or Flying V copy (obviously).

This thing is about $240AU new, and I got it for $85 from the local pawn broker.

It needed a replacement nut, but that was no biggie as I had a spare in the house, it just needed some filing to sort it out.

The guitar is incredibly cheap, but well made for the money.

According to this website the guitar has the following features:

Body: Solid Mahogany
Neck: Maple - bolt on
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Controls: 1 Volume, 1 Tone, 3 Way Switch
Pickups: 2 Humbucker
Bridge: Vintage Tremelo

I removed some paint from the pickup cavity, and sure enough, the body is solid (not laminate).

The pickups sound ok, nothing amazing, but noise free and pretty rock.

Switches pots and jacks are off the shelf and all feel solid.

The bridge is a tune-o-matic style (not tremolo as listed in the specs), the holes for the posts to go through into the bridge are a little larger than the posts they're sitting on. Not a huge deal, maybe half a millimeter, not precise but not a deal breaker either.

The neck has a truss rod adjustment, and seems to be setup for 10-46.

It's a wide flat profile and for the time being it is nice and straight.

I bought this guitar for two reasons:

A: It's a Flying V 

B: To experiment on!

I'm planning on adding a couple of features to it that are far from standard.

One is a sustainer driver and the other is inspired from Tym Guitars "Jazzmaster Bass thingy".

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a cheap mustang pickup like Tim used, so I'm going with removing the pole pieces on a humbucker.

This has the effect of reducing the overall signal to the coil/magnet, but isn't 100% effective at removing the signal from the unwanted strings, especially since the pickup I used has an 11.5k dc resistance (IE: very loud/sensitive pickup).

There are ways to deal with this problem that should prove advantageous to making the sustainer coil. I'll detail my solution at a later date.

Note: Images are stock photos, though look exactly the same as my guitar.

1994 - Ibanez SR800LE

Way back when I was 16, I figured I needed a bass.
There wasn't much available under $1000 in my local store, so I ended up buying the cheapest bass I could get my hands on.

It was ugly, still is. But it was all I could afford, so I bought the Ibanez Soundgear SR800LE.
Also known as The Metal Head's Bass.

The bass was black, four string, with active pickups.
I totally messed this bass up.
It had active pickups, but I went through a "phase" of ripping out the wires on all my guitars and just wiring the pickup to the output. You know, for a more "pure" tone. I also painted the entire body with glow in the dark rubbish which was a nightmare to get off. The things you do as a teenager!

Yeah, it was a silly thing to do, I've since lost the original wiring harness and pickups.
Hey it's been 15 years or so. I ended up ripping out the neck pickups and just went with the bridge, which I think was a Dimarzio Jazz bass pickup, but I can't see any label now.

A couple of years ago I began the "restoration" project.
I added a cheap Seymour Duncan P Bass pickup to the neck.
Unfortunately this instrument doesn't seem to be blessed with a great sound.
The pickups are fine and the output is normal, but the volume this bass generates is low.
I installed a home made bass booster, but it really didn't have enough gain.
The volume and tone controls were pointless in this state so I removed them, and have gone back to that punk rock simplicity that got me into this pickle in the first place.

I'm currently about 1/4 the way through the mod/restoration project.
Over the years the bass has accumulated various dings and chips, as well as that horrible glow in the dark paint still hanging about the place. What I've done is get some Plasti-Bond and filled in the control holes and spent what seems an age, sanding with 400 grit wet & dry to get the body even. After spending a day on the body and neck, I applied the first coat of paint. Consider this coat as an error finder.
I used a simple white undercoat to highlight any uneven patches with thefiller, and it looks like I have my work cut out!

I have used the original paint as an undercoat, simply because I live in a flat and can't use a power sander and don't have the spare time to do the sanding by hand. That's one road I've been down and frankly not interested in doing again.

My goal in this semi restoration is to have a super simple bass with a basic finish.
Also I have a few other guitars needing attention and I figure this project is a good bit of practice.
So far it's going well, but the weather has slowed progress a lot as we've got lots of rain coming this month and it all has to be done under the stairs outside the building.


The paint is cheapo $4 a can, but I've been doing my research and I should be able to get a decent finish by sanding between coats and adding a few coats of clear laquer at the end, then buffing with my Dremel.

2010 - Tokai Hummingbird

Recently I picked up one of the coolest shaped guitars on the planet.
It's like an evil Mosrite. German carved and all pointy horned. I first became aware of this guitar via Guitar Nerd

The guitar came in the original brown leather/vinyl gig bag from the late 1960's.
As far as I can tell, the guitar dates back to 1968. Unfortunately there's no serial number on it as back then, they were just stickers on the back of the headstock.

The guitar is in ok condition for its years, but far from perfect.
Fortunately the neck is nice and straight, only one minor ding on it near the headstock, which is barely noticeable. At some stage the original vibrato has been removed and three of the holes have been filled with dowel, but not painted over. The original tuning machines are long gone and the nut seems to have been replaced as the current nut needs some filing down to get the strings sitting on the zero fret.

The neck is made from five or six pieces of timber laminated together. It looks like the neck has been refinished as the joins in the timber seem to be rather dirty, it looks well used.

The pickups appear to be of the same vintage and measure approx 6k. They have a nice meaty p90esque sound. But I don't think they're original. Looking at the pick guard, it looks like someone has done a real hatchet job getting the pickups in there. Under the pickup rings, the plastic is very rough and the pickups themselves are misaligned when compared to the routing. Screws to hold the rings down are too long and appear to have come from a hardware store bulk pack. The body has had some wood removed where the screws protude under the scratch guard.

I suspect that the pickups which were originally installed were more like the typical Teisco variety.
There's also extra routing under the scratchplate where a switch is likley to have been placed, I might add one back in there as a matter of course, either a kill switch or a low cut.

The vibrato assembly is kind of weird. It's like a half Bigsby with provision to accept a stat style bar.
Where the bar is attached, the metal is cracked, but I suspect that it will be strong enough to handle any of my whammy antics. The unit does look the part of a vintage guitar so I'll probably leave it as is. A full bigsby just wouldn't do the guitar justtice, however a Gibson Maestro might!

So the guitar needs quite a bit of T.L.C.

My plan is to replace the scratch guard with something of my own design. it's something I'd prefer to have done with a CNC Mill, but I'm sure with a few practice runs on thin MDF it's not too far outside of my skill level. Maybe some tortoiseshell or a dark pearl. The plan is to try to cover up the holes from the previous vibrato.

The pickups are nice sounding, but don't really suit the look of the guitar, so I'm toying with the idea of installing jazzmaster pickups with cream covers to match the body.

The Hummingbird has promise to be a  unique beauty once it's restored, even if it's not restored to it's original glory. I'll be taking my sweet time with this one and update whenever I get a chance.

Photoshopped overlay of pickguard and routing.

2009 - Zoom H4n

The name of the device sounds somewhat like a disease doesn't it?
 
Well I did buy it around swine flu panic season.

This unit is pretty much the single most handy bit of kit I've ever owned.
The mics are pretty good, it's battery powered, takes line and guitar level plus has phantom power(don't expect your batteries to last if you're running a Rode Nt2a).

I use it all the time from recording my daughter's growls in the bath to (you guessed it) recording instruments.
Instead of going through the process of booting my PC and loading plugins, with the H4n I'm off and taking musical notes in seconds. Half the time I just sit it on my lap and record the unplugged guitar sound.
Nice and easy for the times when you've got your groove on, but probably not going to remember every little riff.

That's me pretty much every time I play... Well the times my mojo is in gear anyway.

The H4n doubles as an FX unit and Triples as a USB interface.
Zoom is known for it's long history of effects units, I think the first one I played with was a 9001 back when I was in highschool(wasn't mine). The effects models in this unit are ok. Nothing amazing, but they will get you some amp models and phase effects with a minimum of wires. Think of the fx as a bonus chocolate served with your latte.

The USB interface was touted as USB2, but it really is not any better than a usb1.1 device.
On all three of my computers(all quite powerful windows machines FYI), the latency is so bad that you can't monitor your playing in real time. It's ok if you plan to monitor off your input, but forget about enjoying any onboard effects or using guitar rig in real time. Latency aside, it is a great feature to have if you're wanting to play along to more than four tracks.

I got my unit from USA when our currency was strong and the locals were selling it for double the price, and that includes shipping from the USA. I'd like to see the USB section updated for a future release. It's not essential, but if I was to purchase the unit for playing real time, I would be disappointed. As it is I have an excellent MAudio delta1010lt PCI card that has near zero lag.

Another thing to be aware of is the power supply. It's switchmode and on Australian power points, it generates a bit of a high pitched whine. This could be taken care of with a little filtering and it's not that big of a deal since the unit runs for ages on batteries if you don't plan on using phantom power.

2010 - Boss BD-2

This was one of those pedals I picked up on a whim, it was at the right price and I'd been curious.

The BD-2 is a decent sort of overdrive fuzz. It's really dependent on the gain settings.
Mine is currently unmodded.

While I like a lot of Boss's pedals, what strikes me time and again is that they filter the low frequencies too severely. This one suffers the same problem as the SD-1. Nice dirt but no rumble.
I'm sure it's a simple mod, but since I have the SD-1 the way I like it, I can't really be bothered.

I'm told it's better on humbuckers, but I only have single coil pickups on my guitars.

With a few tweaks, I'm sure this pedal would come up smelling roses.

2010 - Boss DS-1

This is one of those pedals that has loads of mods for it.
I picked mine up 2nd hand and broken.

The pedal did light up but made no sound, when I opnened it up there was one thing glaringly obvious that the pedal had been electrically abused. The polarity protection diode was cracked in two and a little burn on the board. What wasn't visible was that the SIP opamp was dead.
Since SIP chips aren't readily available at the local electronics store, I decided to make a little mod board to wire in a high quality op amp(opa2134).

Once the pedal was working, I finally got to hear the infamous DS-1.
Not my cup of tea honestly. Very fizzy sound.

Next I did the All seeing eye mod. Not bad, the distortion improved a bit.
The pedal had too much gain for me so I went and added the Fat Mod.
Additionally to the fat mod I went and installed a couple of switches to get the pedal back to the stock gain and EQ setting. Overall the pedal is fairly flexible, but a little too gainy for me. Actually even the humble SD-1 has too much gain, I like a little break up when i hit hard, but clean when I play more sedately.

Thwe DS-1 is a modders delight, I'm sure there are a bunch of other things you could try, but I kinda ran out of room in the little box.