Should I shoot my new bass? (Modding the Harley Benton MV-4MSB)

Always buy vintage capacitors, to get that broken in tone you’re looking for.

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3 euros is ridiculously expensive for a single capacitor. I just saw a 300-piece variety set of capacitors for about 5 euros on Amazon, for example.

Not disputing that the orange drop costs that much, just saying - for small voltages like this capacitors really are pretty cheap.

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I’ve read about the Batavia thing before. The link I included is a much more positive view of humanity, maybe since they weren’t Dutch East Indiamen?

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From other electronics I can confirm that a batch of bad capacitors can be ruinous, or at least really annoying, but which ones are bad? Two of the same model monitor, one has lived forever, the other, every cap burns out and I got tired of the “learning experience” of finding and fixing them.

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These days for solid state electronics, I am willing to bet that unless it’s direct wear and tear (bad solder joint on a jack or something), if something ever goes wrong with a circuit that was previously working, it’s going to be the capacitors that fail. But this is more often the electrolytics you see in things like power supplies, which can actually dry out over time.

For small low voltage ceramic or poly caps I would expect them to be basically bulletproof too (or never work to begin with.)

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Yeah, the VOC ( Dutch East India Company) was a terrible organisation.
It’s funny how I learned Dutch history in school, about us being good people, heros in wars, resistance fighters and so on.
But the more I delve into my history, the more disappointed I get. It starts with our first King, Willem van Oranje - who was an opportunist - and ends with Srebrenica, where we showed cowardice. Not to mention our last elections - but politics are not allowed here at BassBuzz, so I wont go into that…

For those shipwreck situations, I guess it takes just one bad apple and a few opportunists for things to get nasty. Just like in governments :slight_smile:

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No worries! That was just a little teasing remark about the “new cheap Harley Benton” vs “used [INSERT BRAND NAME HERE]” discussion ^^

Agree - relicing new ones isn’t the same.

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the 70’s “tropical fish” capacitors look and sound cool on amplifiers, but are very prone to fail

But yeah, often the problem comes from bad solders or electrolytics caps. They age bad and don’t like heat at all.

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Hopefully this isn’t too political. What I say now is that we can’t make a better past, only a better future.

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Well, as bassist we should be able to say one thing that is political (even here), cause it’s the very nature of what we are (doing): as long as we are free to do sex, drugs and rock’n roll - any way we like, all is good :slight_smile:

I live according to the gospel of Iggy Pop!

Great looking basses! I’ve installed the gzr pj set on a build I did not too long ago. It was easy to hook up, unfortunately the bridge pick up was bigger than the old one so had to dremel a small amount. If you go with the emg, I don’t think you will need copper shielding. It has a ground system.
I’ve got another emg gzr pj set waiting at home to put into my mustang. It also has the selector switch. My plan is to put the tone knob where the selector switch is located and the two volume pots and jack on the control plate. The only problem with doing it that way is that it’s a longer way from the tone pot to the jack. The tone pot is what connects to the jack. I’m not sure the included wires will reach that far. EMG has longer connector wires available and I went ahead and ordered those just in case.

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My Pink’s Hot will get the DiMarzio DP126, so that’s decided!
And for Ronin I am seriously considering the EMG GZR.

Mainly cause I want to stay passive on those basses - except when somebody convinces me to do it differently!

I was thinking about replacing the pickup selector switch with the tone pot too, but now I have decided to cover that hole with the foil/sheet I will be using to change the pickguard colour. Then I can use the three holes in the control plate for the pots.
I will drill a new hole for the output jack, much like this:

The cavities will be covered with the copper tape - if it doesn’t help, it doesn’t hurt.

I’m in a modding frenzy, so I will drill, dremel, solder and tape anything that moves :slight_smile:

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That’s super cool, love the pull out pot…if you end up drilling for your jack, the jack that comes with the gzr set may not work depending on how you drill/rout it. You may end up having to solder it. I ended up doing too on that last build since it had the longer style jack already. I just cut the connector end off the wire from the tone pot to the jack.

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No worries - I just found my stash of soldering irons … and rediscovered my old weller soldering station, so I’m already soldering cables that are lying around, just for fun.
(Need to wait with the actual soldering of pots until they arrive…)

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ahh nice, Wellers are good.

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Love the shell pink and ivory hardwares

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Makes me rethink my life choices on my shell pink mustang

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The shell pink aged really well. I’ve seen a custom shop up close and it’s fantastic.

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Shell pink is really a nice color.

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