It might! But it is a difficult change to reverse.
I personally like dark rosewood in light bindings but it will not look blacked out for you and may conflict with that theme
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Yep!
Kind of conflicted myself here. If I use Poliboy there is no way back. If I leave it like that, I feel that I am not true to the original “make everything black-ish” idea…
One good thing is that Poliboy just seems to darken only, so it’s kind of a bridge between black and the white binding. Maybe? Possibly? Perhaps?
Ok, another finding: you were right about the paint, in the sense that: copper tape is a pain in the @ss!
On Pink’s Hot it was no problem with the DiMarzios, but on Ronin - with the EMG GZR - I ran into challenges as the J-pickup is slightly larger, so the copper gets in the way.
I just remove it where necessary, but paint would have been easier, I admit!
For the shielding, removing some copper makes no difference, as this is essentially a faraday cage. So I’ll do just that and will listen to you next time … maybe 
If it worked for Tesla (Nikola, not the car), so it should work for me too!
Good news: installing the EMG GZR is much easier than installing the Dimarzio pickups. It’s just plugging in the connectors, no soldering required.
Bad news: it sounds very good, except all the noises. I hear a slight crackling noise when I don’t touch anything and a loud distorted humming noise when touching the string.
Everything is connected correctly. Additionally I have connected the copper foil in the cavity to the ground buss. When I remove those cables there is no change, so this is not the issue.
Any suggestions?
@Barney ? @terb ? @howard ? @Al1885? @Wombat-metal ?
Save this virgin (by heart), my knights in silver armour
Wiring/manual
emg gzr manual_Optimized.pdf (319.2 KB)
I already had to tint a fretboard, on a 70’s acoustic guitar. The fretboard was made out of a white wood, tinted in dark brown, and the wear made the tint look quite bad. I used water based wood stain, after degreasing the wood to make the stain soak into the wood. I had to apply a few layers of stain. It worked perfectly.
Before :
During the process :
After :
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Is your bridge correctly grounded ?
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Where did you put the ground wire. Did you fully inserted the cables to the “button” before you click it in. We are all have done a little boo boo with that little sucker where it was not properly installed. Reversing that button click is a bit of a pain.
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Yes - when I touch it, the noise changes.
I do have to say that this is a black bridge: Gotoh 404BO B Bass Bridge – Thomann UK
I also tested with a multimeter and it is “connected”…
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I did not use that but connected all ground cables to the ground bus. Electrically that should not make a difference…
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Maybe you should remove the paint underneath the bridge, where the ground wire touches it. I believe that’s what @Barney did on his Precision Bass.
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A little picture:
Please note that I have the tone pot left, then neck volume and then bridge volume.
The blue cables are from me, to signal ground:
One from the cavity copper, one from the cavity copper of the Jazz pickup and one from the bridge itself.
They are all connected to the ground bus.
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Will do.
First I will isolate all “open” metal connections with tape, to make sure it does not touch anything…
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Yeah, this is usually the common issue.
I’d put the foil up to the top to make contact with the underside of the pickguard.
I see that you use the battery black box as your connector box. Please make sure that the wire connector face the same way. I assumed that you spliced the cable into the connector. The connector has a little arrow mark the direction.
Also on the tone knob your connector is reversed as well as the “ground” on the middle Volume is also in reverse.
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That looks great @terb. If you didn’t tell me that the fingerboard was maple I’d thought that it came this way.
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I guess this was it. The other pots were connected correctly, but this one I missed somehow.
I think I got confused as I had a second issue before: connections of the knobs touching the copper. With all the plugging back and forth to check the cause, the tone knob was an oversight from stupid me!
Thank you, my hero
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EMG GZR sounds very good, in terms of tonality. Still has a little noise, but very very faint (= acceptable).
The DiMarzio is completely noiseless.
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Is that when you have the tone knob open all the way? Noise floor on passive EMG is generally low to not noticeable.
Here’s mine with ivory covers.
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Need to check tomorrow morning.
I played Ronin - with EMG GZR - all evening and currently I prefer this bass to the DiMarzio version (everything else is the same).
A lot! And I didn’t even do a proper setup…
Very happy with both basses though!
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EMG’s are very good pickups. I prefer the DiMarzio (most of their line, really) over the EMG but still the EMG’s are a solid choice.
Happened to me too, I just put some in a bass a couple of days ago and love the sound
FYI It looks like the bridge ground wire is plugged upside down into the vol too, not sure if you got that already
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