Help me put my bass guitar back together

[linda barth]

You do realize that the Schecter pick ups came out of bag one. they were my original pick ups. I wrote to the company to see if they can offer anything about wiring all of the colors.

I took the pots out of bag 2 because I didn't have nay in my bag 1. Is there a difference tone and volue pots or only in the way you wire them.

I stopped working to eat something and now I feel like I'm crashing. I do feel like we got a lot accomplished today. I may not stay up much longer. If I stop answering you'll know I couldn't stay up.

Wow...you were young int he 70's??? I had already graduated high school.

[linda barth]

Look what I just ran on to. Look at the attached photo. Not sure if it applies to my pick ups.

http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3365.0

I've also attached a picture of my only testing equipment. I think the yellow one is for circuit testing. the meter one
is a multi-meter. I have no idea what the other one is...no name...do you know?

I still can't find the spell check. Does it correct or just tell you that you're wrong.

[David King]

Linda,
I think Tom Anderson may be the only person to find out more about these pickup although he may not remember much after 40 years. tom dot aguitars at g mail dot com
Schector has been bought and sold several times and no one from the original company has anything to do with it now.
I would like to see a photo of the back of that switch where the wires come out just to see if it has any clues.
It seems likely that you can ignore most of the wires coming out of the pickups and just focus on the white and black pair. You may need to connect some of the other wires together to get things working but we can cross the bridge later. The pots should be marked 250K A or A250K and I'm pretty sure that you have two pairs of them there.

[David King]

Vguitar is something different, a hexophonic MIDI pickup for guitars.
The multi meter is the one you want. Check to see if it has a good battery in it. Set it on Ohms 50K or three clicks to the left, touch the probes together and see if the needle goes to 0. Adjust the fine tuning until it does. Touch the probes to the two solder eyelets at each end of each pickup and report back what you get. We want readings possibly of around 4K or 8k Ohms. Start with the eyelets that are connected to the black and white wires since those are the most likely ones.

[Gregory nangle]

the last piece of test equipment you showed a picture of is called a 'test lamp' its great for just checking if a circuit is unbroken. better for cars mostly but helpful for any circuit 12v or lower...good luck with the bass i think its great that youre fixing it!

[linda barth]

I usually take better pictures than this. I'm blaming the camera. Am I going to use this switch with the colored wires?, cause I don't have one in bag one. As far as the pots, there is only one in bag one (photo attached) It is marked 250. But the pots in bag 2 photo attached) are nicely matched and already attached to the jack. I thought I'd just use them. They are only marked with a series of numbers ...never mind...it's M250and some others. They are probably 250.


As far as that testing mumbo jumbo you spouted above....sounded like nonsense. Maybe it will look more like words tomorrow.

Now see what you did. I stopped to answer you and the cat ate my ice cream.

[linda barth]

You're either one of those men who knows everything or one of those men who just makes up an answer really quickly to appear to know everything.

Why do you know all of this guitar stuff?

I have a 1966 Fender Vibro Champ Amp. I'm not sure that Tom knew he had a treasure. He never said anything except that he wished he could get some new equipment.

[linda barth]

With a lot of perseverence I'm making my way through the equipment maze. It took a couple of weeks for me to get an answer about where is the battery compartment for the JS100 Ibanez. Some girl finally looked it up and it doesn't take a battery. Even on the internet if I searched for JS100 battery compartment, none of the sites every said it just doesn't have one.

I have one piece of equipment here that needs some work. I started on it and then noticed a lot of cables of wiring that wasn't attached to anything. I don't know if it has become unattached or if those are perhaps places for something to be added later., It's a Peavey Max Multi Access Amplification system. It weighs about 500 pounds and I've had to move it a few times. It took me a long time just to figure out how to open the carrying case.

I know it was working because Tom was using it. Maybe I'll get back to it after this bass project. Know anything about those?

[David King]

The peavey MAX bass head manual is here:
http://peavey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4760 scroll down a bit, it's a PDF attachment you can download and print out. Sounds like a boat anchor to me but the two folks who've heard them seem to think highly of them.

God only knows what the black cube thing with the switch is. No markings on it?? Generally I make up a lot of what I say on the spot, others here can vouch for that. Let's say there are others around here who know a whole lot more and say a bit less.

[linda barth]

Thanks...oh I just had a sale. I sell on EBAY. It was a Bass Player magazine from 1998. $20. Not bad, huh? I hasve about 350 vintage albums listed and a few hundred more to get to. I'm waiting now for the free listings. It's been a few weeks. Makes me crazy. But I've done really well with the albums

[Mark Swanson]

I think that black cube on that switch holds an active preamp. The switch probably turns it in and out of the circuit.

[David King]

Someone with a collection of late 70s and early 1980s guitar Player magazines might be able to identify that preamp.
Modern color code conventions such as they are (not terribly uniform) would suggest that the red wire is +9V, knowing that much might be enough to determine the rest. Yellow could be ground as it has the black wire (a color we'd normally associate with ground) attached to it.
Someone who's been around for a while like Rick Turner might recognize it.

[linda barth]

I have a collection of Guitar Player magazine...not as many as I used to have. How would I identify it by using the magazines? I'm all for asking Rick Turner. Am I supposed to do that or does he just see this post?

I found a couple of things last night. This web site is for wiring Schecter pick ups. It looks like you kind of have to know what kind of set up you want and I don't know.

https://sites.google.com/a/musicianscen ... g-diagrams

See my 2 attachments

Another question. Do I have to connect to the bridge? Can someone tell me a little about how that works?

thanks all

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Sorry I'm so late to this soiree. I have a Schechter bass with a tapped P bass pick up so I can work out the color codes (even though I'm reasonably color blind). It is a remarkably complicated wiring as it is essentially two pick ups, each hooked in series.

I don't have the time right know to re read this thread but I may be able to help some. The current Schechter company will know next to nothing about this pick up. I have had some correspondence with David Schechter and he might have some input. I know he doesn't have any parts.

I'll get back to you ASAP.

Joshua

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

http://ozoneguitars.com/

This is Dave Schechter's current web site. You might ask him if he has a schematic for this pick up. The worst that can happen is he says no. It looks to me like this was a complete Schecter assembly, which included the pickguard, pots all wired etc. This came with Bourns Mod pots, one of which had a a push pull pot. From the pictures, it looks like that one is broken.

I'll be back

[linda barth]

This sounds like a wonderful lead.

I'm exhausted and I'm going to lie down. I may get up later. It weas a rough day for me. Not sur ewhy this one in particular...sometimes they're just bad.

Before I go I wanted to share a couple of things I found this morning. Website for the world's largest collection of wiring diagrams.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/wiring-diagrams

And I was thinking, I have other bags of stuff. I just didn't think they were pertinent to our project. I went ahead and photoed them. Same numbering scheme.

The Schaller website was in German. My Tom was German. He must have had this stuff a long time.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Bag 6 = Cheap bass parts (bridge might be decent) Not germane to the project
Bag 8 = Not Germane
Bag 7 = String tree might be needed other wise, not germane
"extra bridge = Most of a strat bridge not germane.

I would bet that all the pick ups actually fit and that you are not certain about what this should look like assembled. But the Fender pick up (the simpler one) may or may not be original. It looks like it was attached to the left handed grounding plate (Peter, very observant), so it might just be another r bit of stuff. If the pick up works, it can be used to get the bass up and running quickly. You'll need to connect the two halves (and correctly) and add a longer ground wire. The grounding plate isn't really necessary.

The Schecter pick up goes with the two blue pots, one of which is broken. You can see the shaft still stuck in one of those nice Schecter knobs. These pots got a lot of hype at the time, but they made noise when they were turned unless you had your hands on the strings (yes, you do need to run a wire from the bridge to ground). The switching on the Bourns pot had 8 terminals rather than 6, so it was kind of like two switches. It might be a better idea to use a (new) mini toggle switch to switch between the tapped and full outputs of the pick up.

I would not pursue the pre amp, period. It is not needed and will probably add noise, assuming you can get it to work. Put the bass together and then try to get the pre amp to function (or not).

If you brought this bass to me, complete with bags o parts, I would put it together using the Fender pick-ups. The only part I don't see is a capacitor and switchcraft output jack, which you want. You can always upgrade to the Schecter stuff later. That's what happened in the past.

Now here's an offer: Put all the stuff in a box and I'll wire up the body, gratis, except for parts and return shipping. I know you won't have the fun of doing this yourself, but you'll get to reassemble the bass. No one of this forum (except Fren Asken) knows me from Adam, so no one can vouch for me. That being said, send it to me , I'll turn it around and send it back forthwith.

Or not.

I'll still get you a picture of the Schecter wiring harness. That'll guarantee you using a mini toggle instead of the Bourns pots (which are probably $30 each, at least)

[linda barth]

I am sure the bag 1 pickups and pots are the original. So now I know it was Schecter all the way. I would love to use those Schecter pots (the blue ones) if possible. I told you it had an amazing sound. Couldn't the pots contribute to that? I would love to recapture that, not just have another bass.

You referred to the Fender pickup several times , but I don't know which one that is.

I got to thinking that we never talked about the rest of body if it matters to this process. It's fretless with a bolt on neck, and a four string. I assembled it without the electronics and am sending a photo. You'll see there are 2 extra holes. (red arrow in photo) One for the switch and what would the other one be? Another switch? I can't remember.

In bag 5 (new photo attached) the jack has a small white sticker on the side that say "wht" in my writing. It must be the one that was on the bass and I was making some attempt to keep track of the wiring. It probably doesn't make much difference with jack I use, but it is curious that it was in another bag. The switch in bag 5 was probably the original switch . What is the the spring thing for?

Thanks for the offer to put it together but this is a labor of love for me and very important that I do it myself. Besides I have to keep active at all times or I fall apart. Does anyone think I should do anything to the wood while it is still apart? Don't want me taking it apart again later....hahahaha.

I don't know that much about it but in looking on the web I keep coming back to these Seymour Duncan diagrams. He has a site where you can plug in your parts or wants and he offers a diagram. I think I already sent you the link to the Schecter diagram download page, but I don't know which one would be mine. Yes, please get me the Schecter diagram that goes with these original parts.

[David King]

The spring thing looks like part off a drum set pedal or high hat, not part of this bass.
the fuse holder with the glass fuse sticking out is for an amplifier.
I think you are correct about that black plastic jack having been the one for this bass.
I'm pretty sure the second switch from bag 5 was the coil cut/selector switch.
The other switch hole was undoubtedly for the active system/blackbox switch.
The blue "Mod" pots with the switch are no longer available, they won't have any effect on the sound of the bass.
Bourns has reissued the model 82 blue pots along with the model 95 black pots. I haven't been impressed with the quality of either but they would be the closest to what you had on there. eBay and Amazon carry them.
I think the jack you want is a Switchcraft 113 but a 3 conductor jack will work as well.

[linda barth]

So are you saying that I can't reuse the blue pots or the jack that I have from the original bass?

Am I putting in a switch? Can it be one that I have already?