If I had a nickel for all the bad advice I've gotten...

[GuitarDoc]

Certainly in the end you do what works and sounds best to you. Most of the advice you get is meant with good intentions, but as you say, they don't have your equipment nor your ears.

You most valuable tool for sorting through advice is your brain/logic/reason/intelligence/experience. Soooo many people are too lazy to think for themselves and thus are too willing to just believe everything they hear/read.

 

[jeremy]

i agree theres a good number of people who are lazy, but also, if you have no base level understanding of things then it can be hard to know good advice from bad

 

[GuitarDoc]

That is absolutely correct.
It is really hard to know the good from the bad advice when you have no base knowledge of whatever you are trying to find answers about.
But if you have no base understanding then it's all the more reason to do some research (using reason and logic) and most importantly, don't just believe the first thing that you hear. Be a LITTLE suspicious. (I'm not saying to make suspicion a major personality trait, but when you are trying to get info on something that you know nothing about, suspicion helps you to do more research and is a part of logic and reason).

Again, I don't believe there are many people who are purposely trying to deceive others. They themselves may be lumped with those who didn't have much understanding and were misinformed in their search for answers. And, unfortunately, once you believe something it is hard to believe something different.
It was Mark Twain who said..."It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

 

[JB_From_Hell]

I’ll share my favorite pieces of terrible advice:

”Don’t touch your truss rod, it’s very easy to F up the guitar!”

Adjusting a truss rod is vital to it playing well. And no, it’s not “easy” to ruin a guitar doing so. Has anybody here broken a truss rod? I have, and it took so much force I pretty much knew it was going to happen before it did.

“You want super thick strings to tune down to B or lower? Just play bass.”

This is always said by people I’m trying to get to take my money. Thanks, I’m looking for thick strings because I’m unaware of the bass guitar.

“You can’t mix active and passive pickups”

Yes you can.

 

[GuitarDoc]

:lame: (the advice you got, not your post).

 

[JB_From_Hell]

or "Modding guitars is a whole lot more fun when you don't have keyboard warriors yelling in your ear that what you're doing is supposed to sound bad"

I added a passive mode to by Sub4. I did it against the advice of all the forum posts I could find on the matter. They said it would be "too weak" or that the preamp is where all the tone from a stingray comes from.

Then I realized I only have a 250k volume pot, so I looked it up, and all the internet nerds said it would make my bass sound too dark.

In the end after I set it up the active and passive mode were so similar in volume and tone to be indistinguishable in a mix, most of it probably being on account of me using a reasonably long cord. After switching to a 250k volume pot, the tonal difference in active mode had almost no change, which makes difference because a bass doesn't quite have the high frequencies a guitar does. I'm actually pretty impressed with the mod.


Long story short, stop listening too hard to what people on the internet are saying. A lot of them are clueless, few of them have the same rig you do, and none of them have the ears and needs that you do.

I forgot to mention, I have a bass setup like a MM, with a Delano humbucker and an East preamp. I didn’t like the hi-fi tone, so I took out the preamp. Bass is totally passive, sounds way better, no volume loss.

 

[Chistopher]

I forgot to mention, I have a bass setup like a MM, with a Delano humbucker and an East preamp. I didn’t like the hi-fi tone, so I took out the preamp. Bass is totally passive, sounds way better, no volume loss.

I put a passive switch on my bass for this very reason. It didn't make too big a difference at first, but when I tried it on a coiled cable.

Also, when I replaced my stock pickup with a GFS Alnico (which has been great by the way, who would have thought a $40 pickup would completely take it over the edge) I noticed that a Stingray without a pickguard would actually look pretty cool. It's a shame EBMM doesn't have a custom shop.



Gives major G&L vibes

 

[JB_From_Hell]

I put a passive switch on my bass for this very reason. It didn't make too big a difference at first, but when I tried it on a coiled cable.

Also, when I replaced my stock pickup with a GFS Alnico (which has been great by the way, who would have thought a $40 pickup would completely take it over the edge) I noticed that a Stingray without a pickguard would actually look pretty cool. It's a shame EBMM doesn't have a custom shop.

That looks awesome. Way too nice looking piece of wood to have some crappy plastic over it.

If you feel like putting another switch on it, mine has a 3-way mini that does series or either coil split. All three sounds are unique and usable. I guess those giant humbuckers lend themselves to that.

 

[Chistopher]

That looks awesome. Way too nice looking piece of wood to have some crappy plastic over it.

If you feel like putting another switch on it, mine has a 3-way mini that does series or either coil split. All three sounds are unique and usable. I guess those giant humbuckers lend themselves to that.

I've considered that, right now I have a little switch hanging outside the enclosure to see if I use the different positions enough to warrant drilling into the control plate. Definitely some good sounds from the coil splits, from what I've found the neck coil is great for moments when it's mostly drum and bass, bridge coil is good for slap, and series is good for everything else.

I haven't tried parallel though on account of only having 3 conductors.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

I've considered that, right now I have a little switch hanging outside the enclosure to see if I use the different positions enough to warrant drilling into the control plate. Definitely some good sounds from the coil splits, from what I've found the neck coil is great for moments when it's mostly drum and bass, bridge coil is good for slap, and series is good for everything else.

I haven't tried parallel though on account of only having 3 conductors.

The neck coil kind of reminds me of a P-bass, which I suppose makes sense. I also have not tried parallel, but I know I prefer J-bass pickups in series.

I like the coil split settings on my PRS, but these are better.