Spear Bass Gets a Little Love

I've got to admit that until the day it came into the shop, I'd never seen nor heard of a "Spear" bass. But here it was, all rusty and grimy; and begging for some TLC. A little research on the web revealed that "Spear" refers to "SPEAR Gitarren Händler Deutschland." Yes, that means it's a German company. This bass was not manufactured in Germany, though; as it says "Made in Indonesia" on the back of the headstock. 

Let's take a quick look at this four-string bass' features, then. The body seems to be solid wood, and sports a Fender-style bridge and P/J pickup configuration. Electronics are pretty straightforward, two volumes and a master tone; and a barrel output jack. All three pots are full-sized (24mm), kudos to Spear. There appears to conductive shielding paint in the pickup and control cavities. 

The maple neck is bolted to the body via four recessed screws, so there's no need for a neck plate. Truss rod access is at the headstock end. The fretboard is rosewood with a 34" scale, 14" radius, 24 frets; and whitish dot markers. Meanwhile, the headstock is angled and fitted with four proprietary "Spear" sealed tuners in a 2+2 configuration.

As received, the bass was dusty, grimy, and totally unplayable (corroded strings being the main culprit). The electronics didn't work either, and the cause was traced to shorted wiring. The fretboard and frets? Well, let's just say that not wiping down your strings and fretboard after playing has its disadvantages.

Everything was taken apart and serviced. The electronics worked fine after lots of contact cleaner and a full rewire. The fretboard was scrubbed clean and conditioned with lemon oil, and the dull frets introduced to good old Autosol. After reassembling the bass and setting it up with Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys, I put it through its paces using my little Joyo MA-10B practice amp. The fonky tones that emanated from the Joyo's 5" speaker had me grinning from ear to ear. Don't believe me? Well, do hop over to SoundCloud and judge for yourself.

Noor Dazzle Electric Violin - Emergency Surgery

I had a very pleasant surprise the other day when Kombo SUK Pahang head honcho/arranger/keyboardist/violinist and all-round nice guy Tok Waled Da'eng dropped by with bass player Jack Firdaus in tow. As it turned out, Tok Waled's Indonesian-made "Noor Dazzle" electric violin needed to be fixed pronto as he was in the middle of rehearsals for an upcoming performance.

The violin was producing no sound, he lamented. It was a rather interesting instrument, I must say: fire-engine red finish, mahogany neck and body, ironwood fretboard; "Pick and Play" passive piezo pickup system embedded into the bridge. The cable from the pickup system was connected to a 500K mini volume pot and barrel output jack socket.

Closer examination of the electronics revealed that the resistive track of the volume pot was damaged beyond repair. To compound matters, there was no time to look for a replacement mini pot. Such being the case, we bypassed the pot; but there was still no sound. Then we located the root problem --- the negative (ground) lead of the pickup cable had somehow snapped off. The hot (positive) lead was still intact, however.

Yes, boys and girls, it was time for some emergency pickup surgery! The two halves of bridge had to be carefully pried apart with a razor blade in order to get at the piezo pickup. The piezo element was encased in heat-shrink tubing, and this had to be cut away so that I could clean the solder tabs and solder on a new cable.

Once this had been done, the bridge/pickup combo was reglued, reinstalled; and the leads soldered directly to the output jack. The faulty pot was retained, though; as removing it would have left an unsightly hole on the violin's top. And guess what? The Pick and Play pickup did come back to life after surgery; thank goodness! 

Now, as it would be plugged into an amp, I do believe controlling the output of the violin would not pose much of a problem. However, I expect that one day Tok Waled will feel the need for an "onboard" volume control; and I'll be spending some more quality time with the Noor Dazzle.

Tok Waled Da'eng was kind enough to share three videos of himself playing this violin, two on his own; and one during a combined practice session with the guys and girls of Kombo MPK. I've posted the links below for your viewing/listening pleasure. Do check them out.

Noor Dazzle Electric Violin - Demo One

Noor Dazzle Electric Violin - Demo Two

Kombo SUK and MPK Joint Practice Session

 

2007 Ibanez RG350EX Restoration

Thanks to Guitar Insite, I found out that this Ibanez RG350EX was a 2007. Which kind of explained why it came to me all rusty, cruddy; and very near death. The main features were a two-octave bound rosewood fretboard with jumbo frets and sharktooth inlays, Edge III double-locking tremolo, and HSH-configured Infinity pickups (neck: INF3, middle:INFS3, bridge: INF4).

Work done on this guitar involved hardware servicing, fretboard reconditioning, fret level and dress, replacing all knobs, screws and springs; and a complete rewire. I also installed new Alpha 500K pots, a five-way switch, tone cap, NYS229 jack and metal jack plate.