"They’re American, these crayfish.
Big, hungry bastards.
And like most things American,
they’ve eaten the natives…
…but they’ve still got room for more.
…
The American crayfish
was introduced in the '20s.
A guest, if you like.
And like most guests having a good time,
they didn’t wanna leave.
Next 50 years…
…they consumed all the local crayfish,
wiped them out.
And then, they started eating each other.
That’s the thing about greed, Arch.
It’s blind.
And it doesn’t know when to stop.
That’s why I’m here.
To keep order."
Quick question: You have two types of pup available to you- neck and bridge. You want to put a third pup on the instrument as you have with all your other builds, but which one do you choose? The neck one is 10.2Kohm and the bridge one 13.2Kohm.
Each one will have it’s own volume control and they’ll share a tone control.
I assume you are referring to the jazz style pickup in general I’ll be choosing the neck pickup but if the string spacing for the middle position is out of alignment with the strings it might have to be bridge pickup.
This of course speaking from the convenient and not the performance aspect of the pickups.
More stuff arrived from AliExpress today for my future luthiering attempts.
The nut in particular baffles me. A 45mm 5 string, brass, gold plated nut bought and delivered by courier from the other side of the planet for £3.23. How do they do it?
Howard, this is a lot of it, I think. However, most will think that’s it’s a superior product if they buy exactly the same item for 10x the price from a reseller in their own country. China manufactures 97% of the world’s goods, so why not buy it direct?
Well, the US seller would have rejected and warranty the poorly manufactured parts/batch. Buying direct is much cheaper but you are on your own when it comes to quality control.
I do both from time to time but I found myself leaning more toward the convenience of buying things from here in the US because I get the buyer’s protection.
Tomorrow I’ll be seeing a friend who is an expert on global economics - literally, the government uses her as an expert witness in litigations - and if I can, I’ll ask
I live in a pretty rural spot, I have to take a ferry to get to the mainland. But I am also outside of Seattle, and virtually everything gets here the next day from Amazon.
Speaking to a friend of mine (who used to work in Hong Kong for Hobbyking, and who- co-incidentally- is also a bassist), he told me that a: there is no QC, as that costs time and therefore money, and that b: the factories are constantly working on the verge of bankruptcy due to the huge amount of competition. Also, when the factories are given a contract to make something, they often keep making it long after the contract has been fulfilled.
The iPhone was one example a few years back. The factory just kept making them after the contract had been fulfilled, flooding the market with “fakes” that were actually genuine. There is junk out there, of course, but a lot of stuff is perfectly good.
I’ve been buying direct from China for over a decade and yes, you get an occasional duff part, but in my experience it’s very rare and the price you pay for getting stuff for usually 25% of what you’d pay for the same item elsewhere.
Needing a little help here… my Squier Classic Vibe 70’s P-Bass has developed a buzz (I think it’s 60 Hz) when I don’t touch anything metal (e.g., bridge, strings, control knobs, tuners). I took the pick guard off and looked at the electronics and didn’t see anything loose or broken. Any ideas?
