Extreme mods to my lefty Charvel

[amimbari]

I saw a couple 1985 Jackson customShop units on ebay early this year and got super jealous, then mad cause they wanted WAY WAY too much for a used unit, so I outdid the customshop verision...let me explain in pictures:
in 85/86 it was a popular option to get a model 1 or 2 with a p/hb:

so yes I can play righty basses flipped, but the used cost is way too high obviously or I would own one by now....so since I have the same thing as the pic above, just in lefty and a b.o. neck:

I tuned it into this and added my spare Kahler until I find a black one:

talk about a tonal difference from OEM p/j, and I sport it on stage as much as I can!!!
.
I wasn't expecting someone to take a pic..sorry for the "wow does this guy look wasted" picture...( because I was )
my next mod is to pull one of the preamps out of my other C/J basses, and make the lefty active, and perhaps add one more switch to coilsplit the HB. Because I play inverted, the E string is on the pickup closer to the neck like a Fender is, and it does make a difference for sure

[amimbari]

and now that many months have passed, my Charvel has changed again.
It went from a passive p/j to a passive p/hb with a gold Kahler, now it has a Jackson pre in it and a black Kahler which looks and sounds so much better!!!


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[fivebass52]

Nicely done! Would like to hear sound-bites if you have the ability to record and post....

[amimbari]

sure 5bass52.


I can do that this weekend since our band is not gigging this weekend, just play a pattern and go thru all the various settings and upload it to reverb-nation or youtube as audio only. what I can also do is give you an a/b compare because I still have another lefty model2 OEM passive p/j still just in a different color ( my spare if this one hits the floor )

I also wanted to let the gang know about a 10 dollar Chinese preamp that I already sold some finicky friends on who laughed at a 10 dollar preamp thinking it would be a distorted buzzy POS.. ( I gave them away for them to test for tone, buzz factor, and ease of install )

nothing but "holy-hell something this cheap actually works?" 3 people already ordered more. The bitch is you have to wait at least 4 weeks for them to get to your door.

I will start a thread about them soon.

[amimbari]

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_6145039

song is called "test". firefox wont open the player link in the browser until I d/l and wait for the popup that says play in winamp, but IE7/8 works.
very simple piece is 3 parts - each segment is the way the blend knob was turned so 1 is neck 2 is both 3 is bridge in both clips...
the first clip is the white charvel with old strings and the 2nd is with my gsr200 with new strings and the same j-2000 preamp and a Barden dualcoil J.



( I WILL give away this phat2 EQ board and pots to anyone interested )


both units have the same GR strings on them, pretty much the same action and string to pickupheight and both tone knobs flat. only thing else is the washburn pre I use in the rig was a little on the high side and made it pretty ringy.

[fivebass52]

Couldn't get it to play, but I was able to download it and play it through iTunes. Nice sound... what kind of effect are you using?

[amimbari]

nothing ---- bass >wireless > boss compressor > Washburn rack-pre to the rack mixer's line out xlr'ed to the main mixer to the computer.

the interesting thing is that the Charvel and the Ibanez sound very close because they both have the same preamp coming out of the things and I believe the response of that thing is where a lot of the tone is coming from.

here's an old pic before I took out the SHS amp and now use a smaller rack for transportation purposes and a little lighter on the back...
the SHS is a monitor amp if needed and is no longer in the rack. The Gainiac is connected, but not used unless I want distortion mixed in for that "heavy metal" tone with a lot of grit.