Tighten that nut

[adriaan]

Just thought I'd share this -  
 
I was removing the strings of my Epic to give the fingerboard its first lemon oil treatment (after 10 years - better late than never) and noticed that the adjustable nut was not sitting still. I had the bass defretted about 2 years ago, and the base plate for the nut was taken out, otherwise the nut could not be lowered enough. I did raise the nut a bit afterwards, but never tightened the middle screw to lock the nut into place.
 
There was no rattling before, but the tone has much improved now. It can't hurt to tighten the nut!

[mica]

The wood will compress under the pivot points of the adjusters if you've got them bearing directly on it, so I'll guess you'll need to tighen your anchor more frequently than most.  
 
If you plan to keep your bass fretless, you can sand down the backside of the nut and reinstall the baseplate.  
 
How'd that oiling go?

[adriaan]

Is the brass so soft that you can sand it down by hand? Didn't try that yet, it needs to come down about a millimeter. Perhaps I could use a jigsaw.
 
How do you handle this in the final set-up - you have different sizes for the nut, or different thicknesses for the anchors, or perhaps the fingerboard is thicker on a fretless?
 
The headstock veneer doesn't show any cracking, so I'm pretty sure nothing drastic has happened - yet.
 
The oiling went fine, only my wife complained about the smell in the room, because I hadn't thought about the washing that was hanging out to dry. She really hates the smell - perhaps because of her skin allergy to citronella (mosquito repellants).
 
I'll look at the ebony tonight to see if it's nice and dark, and perhaps rub in another drop or two - I didn't actually soak the wood with the oil. Also, I didn't really avoid the ovals on my Spoiler and I had to close the case on both instruments, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed the acidity wasn't too bad.
 
Now that I have you on-line - remember I was asking about schematics for replacing the Spoiler's p/u selector with a pan control, and lowering the Q factor? There's no hurry, just that I know there are some other people interested in that modification as well.
 
Would you consider doing the modification on the circuit board (SB-II)? I presume it can be taken out of the bass without soldering, only I noticed the backplate has a routing to leave room for the circuit board. How much would that cost and roughly when could it be done?
 
Thanks in advance!

[mica]

You can make arrangements to send in the SB-II electronics (final release of the Spoiler) and have the pickup selector changed to a pan pot for $85 - that includes the pot, some resistors that need changing, new knob and labor. To change the amount of Q from the standard 8dB boost, I'll need to know what amount of boost you're looking for.  
 
You can unplug the pickups from the board easily, so you shouldn't need to do any soldering if the bass is original. If you decide you want to send it in, please email help@alembic.com first to make the arrangements so we are expecting it.  
 
BTW, once you have a pan pot, you really have Elan electronics.

[adriaan]

The charge for the pan pot installation sounds okay, just need to check the shipping costs.
 
About the Q level, I'm really looking for a less accentuated sound than what it now produces with the boost engaged. Never sure about the maths, but wouldn't 5dB produce half the effect you get at 8dB? And would a 3-position switch be an option? Perhaps off/3db/6db, something like that.
 
If you can tell me that the differences would be barely noticeable, I think I can live with a 2-position and a lower boost level.
 
About those mellow filters, is that the regular filter with a boost of less than 8dB, or is it a totally different circuit?

[keavin]

from what mica told me its a 'mellower' filter(not quite as deep tone wise),but theyre more common on guitars,due to the higher register of guitar notes,(less peircing)

[adriaan]

Hi Keavin,
 
It's hard to describe in a neutral way what things sound like, and I seem to remember you saying something like toggling the Q switch makes the sound deeper. As far as I understand, the Q switch does not work on low frequencies, so the sound doesn't get deeper in that sense.
 
The effect you can hear is at the start of a note you play, where it kind of shapes the overtones (brightness).
 
Even in neutral you already get a bit of a wah if you let a string ring out and turn the filter knob either way. Engage the Q switch and the effect gets deeper, the wah gets bigger.
 
Leave the filter knob as it is, flick the Q switch, and you'll notice that any note you play has kind of an accent if the boost is engaged. You notice less of the accent without the boost of the Q switch.
 
Make sense?
 
Adriaan

[keavin]

yep thats it, the Q will give you 'some' low frequeny boost a (crisper) bottom

[adriaan]

I thought only the low-pass filters on an SF-2 SuperFilter can be tuned so low that the Q will actually boost frequencies at the bottom end of your sound. The Q switch adds a boost to the frequencies just below and just above the cut-off frequency, and the regular filter just doesn't go low enough for the Q to have an effect on the bottom end of the spectrum.
 
By the way, I couldn't help noticing that your #12 has a tremendous number of controls. Perhaps it has the same controls like they built into Guild Starfires at the start of the whole Alembic thing - IIRC they were more like the Superfilter controls.
 
(Message edited by Adriaan on April 06, 2004)

[bob]

Adriaan,
 
Your understanding of the filters seems quite good, and you're right that the ones on the instruments only go down to 350 Hz, while the SF-2 goes down to 45. Though I also wonder if maybe the ones in the Guilds went down low as well.
 
My guess is that if you feel like an 8 dB Q is a little more than you'd ever want, then you might be very happy with a 0/3/6 option. By the time you went to 0/2/4, then maybe it's not really worth three positions any more.
 
As to your original topic, a millimeter sounds like a lot, but brass is really quite soft and as long as you're careful to keep it flat, you could thin it down by hand with a file. As you've noticed, having it firmly secured is good for the sound, so it's probably worth the effort.
-Bob

[adriaan]

Bob, thanks for the suggestions. 0/3/6 is certainly appealing, so let's wait what Mica has to say.