mellowgerman
Senior Member
Interesting thing I noticed on reverb.com yesterday... there are two NS M85 basses with DIY dual bisonics, from different sellers, and one has Novak bisonics.
https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=guild+m85
After checking it all out, two things come to mind:
#1 I'm surprised that there are two NS M85's like this when I have yet to see an NS SFB with the two pickup mod (though this may be because a SFB2 is offered for just $200 more).
#2 both appear to my eye to have a slightly crooked factory bridge pickup. At first I automatically assumed that the crooked/non-parallel appearance was because of the DIY added pickup... until I noticed both basses had this. Furthermore, the neck pickups look like they're in line with the straight neck heel. I understand that things like arched top and angle of the photo come into play with apparently crooked pickups... but I think the fact that there are two of these, done by different people, with lots of pictures of both, makes it seem that the factory pickup may be mounted at a bit of an angle. Of course this doesn't have to be shoddy craftsmanship, since there are a lot of basses and guitars like strats and mosrites that come with angled pickups. But I'm curious if the starfire ones might be at a bit of an angle too? Furthermore, was my 1966 SFB's pickup at an angle?! I don't think it was... with the straight bridge I think I would have noticed
In any case, I bring this up more as a general discussion about the NS basses, which is why I posted it here instead of in the ebay/craigslist section.
https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=guild+m85
After checking it all out, two things come to mind:
#1 I'm surprised that there are two NS M85's like this when I have yet to see an NS SFB with the two pickup mod (though this may be because a SFB2 is offered for just $200 more).
#2 both appear to my eye to have a slightly crooked factory bridge pickup. At first I automatically assumed that the crooked/non-parallel appearance was because of the DIY added pickup... until I noticed both basses had this. Furthermore, the neck pickups look like they're in line with the straight neck heel. I understand that things like arched top and angle of the photo come into play with apparently crooked pickups... but I think the fact that there are two of these, done by different people, with lots of pictures of both, makes it seem that the factory pickup may be mounted at a bit of an angle. Of course this doesn't have to be shoddy craftsmanship, since there are a lot of basses and guitars like strats and mosrites that come with angled pickups. But I'm curious if the starfire ones might be at a bit of an angle too? Furthermore, was my 1966 SFB's pickup at an angle?! I don't think it was... with the straight bridge I think I would have noticed
In any case, I bring this up more as a general discussion about the NS basses, which is why I posted it here instead of in the ebay/craigslist section.