I am not a bassist. But sometimes I have to pretend.
The place where I pretend has extended their induction loop and it now interferes like crazy with anything single-coil loaded. Including my less than stellar second-hand Peavy cheapo bass. My bass also has some damage on the next joint which I think is just cosmetic but may be a more fundamental crack.
So I'm half-heartedly toying with keeping an eye out for something "OK" to replace it with, but needs to be cheap as chips (£150-ish) and ideally not be stitched up by the induction loop. This is for strictly clean sounds only, just bog-standard bass playing to accompany simple stuff.
Is that possible? Are humbuckers on a bass a dumb idea? I know nothing ...
Comments
My Trading Feedback | You Bring The Band
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youI mostly cope and work around it, because I pay attention. But I sometimes lend it to other people who don't seem capable of that
Normally, £150 ought to be enough to purchase a pre-owned pair of noise-cancelling replacement pickups. Given the suspect neck joint, you are probably wise to seek a replacement instrument.
Good thinking, Bridgeman.
If the Peavey bass guitar has a pickguard covering much of its front, it is possible that the cavity for the pickup nearer the neck is a one-size-fits-all rectangle, capable of accommodating different pickup shapes for different models within the range.
@Snags Take a look. Measure or photograph the pickup cavity. Report back.
It is possible that you can persuade a noise-cancelling replacement pickup into the cavity. If this is the case, the pickguard might need modification or replacement.
If the Peavey bass is one of their models with a *photoflame* top, it is possible that the sheet of plastic with the grain effect has come adrift from the wood beneath and/or the varnish above. Kinda like a worn original Paisley or Floral Telecaster, only considerably less valuable or cool.
My Trading Feedback | You Bring The Band
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youThe Peavy is indeed a 2 volume 1 tone jobby, but solid colour. If it is servicable it's long overdue new strings, so I'll strip it down on my return, which will also show whether the crack is just in the finish or the edge of the neck pocket.
Even a cheap Jazz Bass copy *should* be hum-cancelling when both pickups are up full - the pickups are a RWRP pair - but sometimes it doesn't work well enough because the pickups are quite widely separated, not balanced well enough, or in very cheap ones may not actually be RWRP at all. (And an induction loop is about as severe a situation as possible, so it will reveal any weakness.)
If it's a P/J-setup then the P pickup alone should be hum-cancelling if you turn off the J pickup, but both together won't be because the single J pickup isn't.
The only basses I can think of easily that don't have hum-cancellation are Rickenbackers or copies of them, the Fender '51-style P-Bass and the Fender/Squier Musicmaster/Bronco bass, but Jazz-style ones are still probably best avoided since it does increase the chances of problems.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I suppose I could just re-wire the pots. But it's not exactly a guitar I love, so it's almost as much an excuse to replace it as anything
Provided that the neck joint is not in a state of collapse, somebody on this forum could probably take your Peavey bass on as a project. Try listing it in the Bass £ ads section.
If the playability is good, it might be worth sourcing the body half of another Peavey bass from the same series. Just choose one with either a Precision type pickup or a 3.5 x 1.5 inches *soapbar* pickup.
There is one in the Bass £ ads right now for about £150. (Not one of mine!) In noisy venues, just play on the P pickup. Problem solved.
I don't like both pickups on full on a Jazz style anyway. I don't like that hollow kind of sound. I'd echo the advice to get a Precision with a split coil. It will sound better anyway.
If I were you I'd talk to the sound guys and the church leadership. It won't just be affecting you. If you have a guitarist with a Tele or Strat (or anything else with single coils) it will affect them. It will be worse for them if they use overdrive as the extra gain will make them squeal horribly.
We had similar problems at our church. We ended up deciding to turn the loop off during the music and turn it on during the talking, and put a notice up for anyone with a hearing aid to say that the loop wouldn't be on during the music. We don't have anyone in our church who currently uses a hearing aid, so it tends to stay turned off all the time. If someone requested it, we would turn it on for the talking.
We did experiment with the position of the wire for the loop, but our building isn't big enough to be able to find a location where it doesn't interfere.
For us, I think we can justify the position we have taken. The drums are acoustic anyway, and not in the PA, so we can legitimately argue that the music will sound better through the hearing aid's internal mic, and then we turn it on for the talking.
If it isn't politically acceptable to turn it off for parts of the service, you could look at what channels you route through the loop. Restricting it to only the talking channels would mean that it shouldn't be an issue during the music. If you do have electric guitar, you will definitely have to keep it out of the feed to the loop as any single coil (or coil tap) will feedback horribly as soon as you put any gain on it.
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I am not affiliated with any other the sellers.
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Yep, that would be my suggestion too
Ideally what Funkfingers suggested with a series/parallel switch so you could have both options, but if it's just to stop other people causing problems by turning down one pickup I'd be inclined to just wire it up to prevent that and not worry too much about it.
But that defeats the excuse for buying a new bass, so is probably not the right solution .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Meh. Precision simplicity rules again. 1 pickup, 1 volume, 1 tone..
- a P-bass makes sense, but I'm not sure I can get over the monster headstock (will check in the flesh). Plus they just look like everything, because everything looks like a P-bass
- the Jags appear to be short-scale?? Pride won't let me do that
- on a purely emotional level, I really, really want an Epiphone Thunderbird IV either Classic or Pro (despite the irony about heastock size). However, that's instantly doubled the budget
This bass business is as bad as 6-strings.