Let's see your guitar and bass gear!

Happy Birthday to me! Well, it's tomorrow but the guitar came today so I had to check it out right?

This is a fairly rare Switch Vibracell. Never heard of them? Not surprised because they were around for about 2 years around 2007.

Now I know you are thinking " wow that's a weird guitar with weird carving, why did they do that". Well. They didn't. Because it's not wood, well.....it does have wood in it but it's made of an epoxy called Vibracell. It is one solid piece of Vibracell with a rosewood fret board so it sustains like hell.

I'm a huge fan of the weirdly innovative company too. I've got another guitar and a bass from them along with a ported 4x12 and a little practice amps too.

The on on the left is one of their "standard" wood models under the Drive name. They made 3 models, the x1 which was a horrible entry level bolt on neck guitar that people remember, the x2 which is a set neck and was decent and the x3 which is what I have. Flame tops and neck thru and they were about half the price of the cheapest Gibson when they were made. The bass is pretty cool too although I'm not huge on long scales and it's not a perfect example.

I'm very happy I finally found a Vibracell that wasn't hot pink, yellow or a weird yellow/orange/black that most of them were.

In reply to Antihero :

Happy birthday! That thing is giving me some Parker vibes with that upper wing. Bonus points for metallic paint. Curious why the bridge saddles are so long. 
 

Im down one guitar this week, but I still have plenty to fill the wall. 

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

Thank you, It's definitely a different sort of bridge, I'll look at it more closely and see if I can figure out some details on it.

What did you sell?

In reply to Antihero :

Epiphone spotlight. I liked it for the weirdness and age but I didn't like the floating trem and every time I picked it up, I'd put it down in favor of something else. It was a fun summer fling, but I've moved on with fond memories. 

In reply to Antihero :

I've seen a couple of the "Drive" guitars around on marketplace or in the back row of oddballs at the of the local gear shop, but never heard of the Vibracell. That's super cool, and yeah must be a sustain monster with that body and string through bridge!

BlueInGreen - Jon said:

In reply to Antihero :

I've seen a couple of the "Drive" guitars around on marketplace or in the back row of oddballs at the of the local gear shop, but never heard of the Vibracell. That's super cool, and yeah must be a sustain monster with that body and string through bridge!

If the Drive is an x2 or x3, give them a shot. I've only seen one other x3 besides mine in a decade plus of looking though so they are pretty rare

Hopefully, this is the last post on my FrankenStinger bass for a while. 

Last I left it, I discovered that the pickups (especially the Jazz pickup) were potentially faulty, and I had ordered another round of electronics to fix it. Those showed up. 



This time around, I ended up with some cheap Guitar Madness Alnico V pickups and a set of full size 250K pots. These were a step up from the ultra cheap 500K ones I bought before. 



Right away, a problem I suspected reared its head: the full size pots didn't fit in the cavity. After some clearancing with a rotary tool...


Everything fit nicely. I again used the Fender Jazz Bass Special wiring diagram to wire it all up. 





With the new pickups installed, I tested everything out, and everything works as it should... mostly. The only thing that's off is that when the middle position is selected on the switch and you try and solo the Jazz pickup, it is a bit quiet. That said, there's a switch there for a reason, and when it's switched on just the Jazz pickup, you get full volume, so I'm willing to overlook this. Both pickups sound excellent solo'ed, and blended, it's super punchy and clean. It sounds just like a classic P/J bass should, with a nice thumpy and clean signal with virtually no noise. No crackly, flatulent sounds. FINALLY. 

I put it through my usual routine of playing my favorites, and it sounds and plays excellent. All that's left to do now is come up with a headstock decal and MAYBE change to some speed knobs instead of these cheapo chrome ones that don't really fit that well. But this might be my favorite bass in my lineup now! It does everything really well. 

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Very nice.

I'm curious about what the controls configuration on that is. What does the switch do? I would presume the dials are either Neck Volume / Bridge Volume or Volume / Pickup Sweep (and a third for tone).

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

It's basically your standard 2-pickup passive controls with a switch installed. You have 2 volume, 1 tone, and the switch solos either pickup by cutting volume completely on one of them or allows them both to be on and blended in the middle position.

It's sort of redundant, but I kinda like having it. I'm finding that I'm splitting time with either full blend or just the P pickup. It makes soloing one of the pickups during a section instant. If I want a P-bass tone, it's literally just the flick of a switch away. 

Would I wire up a bass like this on purpose? Probably not, but I wanted it to work as designed since it had the switch. And it mostly does! 

In reply to Tony Sestito :

How is that switch different from just... cutting volume on the pickup you're not using?

I got a Boss ME-90b multieffects unit.

Really liking it so far. I like having the ability to see all the effects and select them with a flip of a dial, and to be able to adjust all my parameters realtime with knobs. No having to menu dive to access everything. Effects can be turned on and off with dedicated pedal switches.

It has a software studio that goes with it. So I can connect to my laptop via USB cable. There I can create and adjust custom patches. I can set up the effects chain how I want it for saved patches. When a saved patch is queued up, I can use the physical dials to make adjustments.

Price was great too. Normally $400 new. I got an open box special for $310 after tax and shipping.

Not perfect. There are two features that would be nice. I'd like a larger display that will actually show the NAMES of saved patches instead of just a number. It would also be cool if it allowed for split chains of effects which a lot of other similar multi-effects do. Also need to dig in more, but pretty sure there's a smaller limit on effects that can be chained than other units, and there are limitation on effects that can not be combined. E.g. I don't think I can combine a Defret and an Auto-Wah because they're both "filters". It does have multiple options for putting Compressors into the chain, so that's not a problem.

I think this is best thing on the market now for my current wants at anywhere near this price. I'm wrapping my head around what kinds of effects are out there that I might like. This is laid out in a way that is easier for me to pull something up and fiddle around to test it quickly to see if I like it.

Also has a DI out, which I suspect is likely to come in handy, because the old Ampeg amp I've got is notorious for having a noisy DI.

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

In reply to Tony Sestito :

How is that switch different from just... cutting volume on the pickup you're not using?

It's really not different at all. And it's super dumb. But it was there, so I made it work the way it was intended to. Really, the only difference is having an instant pickup cut with the literal flick of a switch to solo that pickup. 

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

Old Ampeg? Did you get another amp and I missed a post?

How's the band going too?

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Flatwounds?( My phone is not fully rendering the pic for whatever reason)

Flats are awesome!

Anybody have any experience with Pango guitar kits? Im looking hard at this headless zebra wood thing. How bad can it be?

Antihero said:

Old Ampeg? Did you get another amp and I missed a post?

How's the band going too?

Must have. I got a circa '90 Ampeg SVT-200T and a Genz Benz 1x15. Will likely add a 2x10 at some point, but no hurry on that.

Band is going solidly. I put out a call to find a second guitarist. Got lots of interest in that, and we're going to have someone joining us at practice next week that I'm hoping meshes well. This will open up a lot of options for songs.

The drummer and I seem to be putting more time and energy into learning new stuff and practicing than our singer/keyboard or the guitarist. But I think that heading into the holiday season is a bad time to judge by. We'll see what happens.

In reply to Antihero :

No, these are Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky roundwounds. I've been using them on a lot of stuff and I dig 'em. I have actually never used flats on anything, but I will be putting flats on one of the basses in my arsenal at some point. 

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

Good choice, Ampeg SS around that era has decent power as I remember and sounds good. Genz Benz made my favorite cab ever ( gflex 2x12) and makes solid stuff.

There are always band mates that practice less sadly, hopefully it doesn't make too much issue

Tony Sestito said:

In reply to Antihero :

No, these are Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky roundwounds. I've been using them on a lot of stuff and I dig 'em. I have actually never used flats on anything, but I will be putting flats on one of the basses in my arsenal at some point. 

I'm a huge fan of flats, the fundamental tone is great

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

Forget the guitarist and singer. You and the drummer are the important parts and the hardest to replace. A good guitarist/vocalist is always looking for work, good rhythm sections always have work. 

Antihero said:

Good choice, Ampeg SS around that era has decent power as I remember and sounds good. Genz Benz made my favorite cab ever ( gflex 2x12) and makes solid stuff.

Yeah. I'm very happy with it. Sound is great. It has enough texture to provide some warmth, but neutral enough to lend itself to all sorts of musical styles I'm interested in. Easily enough power that I can be the loudest member of the band if I want.

Forget the guitarist and singer. You and the drummer are the important parts and the hardest to replace. A good guitarist/vocalist is always looking for work, good rhythm sections always have work. 

The drummer is great. Easily the strongest player in the group right now. My skills are increasing rapidly.

The singer is a friend of mine. Don't want anything that's going to sour that, but I think that's unlikely.

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

Cool getting ME-90B.  I didn't know Boss made a bass version.  I have the guitar version, bought on a nostalgic whim when it first came out.  My first guitar "pedal" was the original ME-5 that was the first Boss multi-effects unit. 

Practicing with others is arguably the best/fastest way to improve your playing.  

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Practicing with others is arguably the best/fastest way to improve your playing.  

That's why I started. It's helping. It's also great for motivation and sparking creativity.

For a couple months I took lessons at a local School of Rock. I did a couple practices with one of their adult bands and realized I learned more from that than from taking lessons.

Playing a support instrument by yourself is just bassterbation.

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Practicing with others is arguably the best/fastest way to improve your playing.  

That's why I started. It's helping. It's also great for motivation and sparking creativity.

For a couple months I took lessons at a local School of Rock. I did a couple practices with one of their adult bands and realized I learned more from that than from taking lessons.

Playing a support instrument by yourself is just bassterbation.

I find that you do get better when playing with others, especially in a band that works. If you get along and fit well with the band, there's nothing better. When people that like playing together get in a groove, they start pushing each other to get better. I haven't played with other humans in a very long time, and I miss it. 

Not gear. Not having played in 5 or more years, I forgot most of what I knew so I had to dig for all my notes.

Here is a classic.