Another newbie

Hi all. My name's Pat and I am a bass hobbyist from Chicago (wish I could say I was a professional - it would great to be able to write off all the gear expenses).

I decided to do some work to my first bass - a 1990 or so Epiphone P-Bass converted to left hand, so I had a luthier friend pull the frets from an old Fender left hand neck and attach it so I could try some fretless stuff. At the same time I figured I might as well throw a hipshot de-tuner on there and while on their website I noticed the bass trems. Ended up ordering a Kahler 7410 which arrived yesterday so I'm going to deliver all the hardware tonight and should have the bass back sometime next week.

I appreciate all the info and look forward to learning a few things from here.

Cool beans, man. Welcome!

Welcome Pat! You've come to the right place!

pwhalen wrote:

Chicago

pwhalen wrote:

Bass converted to left hand

pwhalen wrote:

a hipshot de-tuner [on a trem'd bass]

pwhalen wrote:

pwHALEN

Sounds like a combination of all the regulars here

Thanks eveyone. Got some pictures of the neck yesterday. Should have the whole thing finished sometime this week. For those wondering, I did ask him to fill the fretlines with Maple so I'd have an easier time with it while I was getting used to playing fretless.

Nice job!

I once de-fretted a Kramer, and filled in the gaps with epoxy. It worked really well.

pwhalen wrote:

Thanks eveyone. Got some pictures of the neck yesterday. Should have the whole thing finished sometime this week. For those wondering, I did ask him to fill the fretlines with Maple so I'd have an easier time with it while I was getting used to playing fretless.

You should probably epoxy the fingerboard too, while you're at it.

Just a heads up--you might run into problems with the d-tuner and the Kahler on the same instrument. That looks like a great neck! It's exciting to get a project going like that.

Quote :

Just a heads up--you might run into problems with the d-tuner and the Kahler on the same instrument.

Will it definitely cause problems? If so I can stop him before he installs it and return it for one to one of my other basses.

Sudden drop in tuning on the E string will cause the other strings to spike (go up in tuining)

Not sure why but it happens.

It's because when you have a tremolo, you are balancing the string tension against the spring tension. Once you get it set up properly, everything balances out. But when you detune one of the strings, such as how you would with a Hipshot detuner key, you throw that balance off. When you flip the key, you drop the tension of what's going against the springs, making them now pull back harder, and your other three strings will go a little sharp.

A few of Us here have tried using both a Kahler tremolo and a Hipshot detuner on the same bass, and nearly everyone seems to have this problem. About the only thing you can do is to have the spring tension set really high, and at the worst, you will only go slightly out of tune to where it mimics a chorusing effect. Now, there are instances of when the change is so minor that you don't really notice it. But it's hard to say what will happen exactly.

The other thing is that you can go ahead and have both installed, and try it out. If it works, then life is good. If it doesn't, I think you can pull the Hipshot off, and replace it with the regular key. But don't quote me on this. I would ask first if you can put the regular key back on after a Hipshot has been installed.

Thanks for the heads-up. I think I'll have him forget about putting one on this bass, return it and see if I can find one to fit either my Ibanez or Jackson.

pwhalen wrote:

Thanks for the heads-up. I think I'll have him forget about putting one on this bass, return it and see if I can find one to fit either my Ibanez or Jackson.

Don't. Put it on the trem bass. I've got a bass with a trem and a d-tuner, and despite what everyone else here says, it doesn't take the other strings too out of tune unless you're some kind of tuning nazi. Just set the D-tuner to drop the E a little sharp of D. This will make the other strings go a little less flat. I wouldn't use it for recording, but in a live setting no one will notice.

yeah ... nazi.



look ... it comes down to if your ok with something being close or if you expect it to be perfect.

truth is, with all the engineering and ideas that i've done on my kahlered bass, its still not perfect. a bass is an extremely high string tension instrument. if you start messing with that high tension, imperfections are gonna show up. 2 per side machine heads, corian nut lined with graphite to lubricate and different gauge strings and this bass still goes outta tune a little bit after playing a song using the trem. when the songs over ... i retune; thats all. so, even tho i am a ... how was it put ... oh yeah; nazi ... the imperfection is overcome by how awesome having a kahler on my bass is.

a hipshot detuner will definately increase the imperfection. if your ok with that ... then go for it.

personally ... that would drive me nutz. i dont like detuners and play standard in drop d. i can transpose anything written in e tuning easily and, unless your flipping the switch during a song, i see no need for one of these hipshot doodads. cool device ... but, ehh. not as cool as a kahler.

... and oh yeah.

welcome to BTF.

My advice is to install the new tuner, see how you like it and be aware of how well it stays in tune and why it does what it does. If you are satisfied with the system, don't mess with it, but if you run into tuning problems, then try putting the old tuner back on or not changing the tuning for a while and see if it settles in.

You might have to fiddle with it for a while to get the right setup going. It's taken me a while to get as comfortable as I am with my current Kahlered bass.

Oh and you also should keep an eye on the D and G strings and the string tree on the headstock. Because the strings will sometimes bind on a conventional round string tree, you might need a rolling string tree or none at all, if you can get away with it.. That might be hard on the Fender headstock, but Eric made it work on his SX.

Chowderboots wrote:

Just a heads up--you might run into problems with the d-tuner and the Kahler on the same instrument. That looks like a great neck! It's exciting to get a project going like that.

That's your 2000th post!

Welcome fellow Chicagolander!

yo ... BTF is pretty big in chicago!

Finally got it back today - time to start seeing what I can do with it

Wicked cool!

so weird looking a righty body with the strings flipped so the E is on top
oh wait......I got something like that also

there's my white lefty with inverted strings ( which is the way I play ), so your righty bass would have stayed OEM string orientation for me

Got one just like that. It was the first actual lefty I bought. Now it's the practice/back up bass - I hate always dragging one back an forth to practice although I'll probably do that with the fretless for awhile.

That's a tight looking P, dude! And lovely 2B. One of these days, I'll have to get a righty one.

what a small world

yep, they didn't make too many lefty charvels and I look all the time everywhere I can think of -- I have someone from the LeftyGuitarTrader board routing out the white one for a 7410 and a humbucker at the bridge. I had a rghty 2b for years but traded my friend for his crackle 3b

here's a quick pic with the gold one I threw on just to take a pic..there's plenty of pics of everything else I have in the new toys area.



it's sometimes a chuckle to see 11 cJ's and 3 kramers, all righty basses and only 2 leftys in the house...so "uneven"

IF YOU EVER SEE A LEFTY C5 and don't want to buy it yourself let me know please ( I doubt they even made one past the prototype if they even made one of those )

Martin, uh, you know I JUST sold one of my white ones on ebay this week...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200464531289&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT

and PW...you wanna sell it?

Damn it...


Oh well, one day. I'm not in the market for anything right now. Maybe in a year or so...

I'm sure that my righty collection will still be substantial in a year, or 2, or 3, or 10....lol

Quote :

and PW...you wanna sell it?

Not looking to sell at this point, but if I do I'll let you know first

t.y. PW.

Hi
My name is lyly
I am 18 yrs old
Student
Love to watch movies
Have some big dreams in mind.

what kind of dreams? where are you at? what brought you to the forum?

Hmmmm....I smell Spam cooking!

(gets ready to clear the plate)

I'll let it go for now, but you Guys let me know if you catch anything that even remotely smells of Spam.

no delete it of course it's spam..

Good call, Mike.

Done.