Starfire tinkering continued

[edwin]

My old '67 rescue/restoration Starfire has returned to me. Back in 2014 I found this one on guitar center's online used listings for very cheap. It had a horrendous Leo Quan "BadAss" bridge mounted crookedly, Bartolini pickups (which now live in my Hagstrom Swede bass), a hodgepodge of non-functioning electronics, and was in desperate need of a set-up. My buddy Andrew and I split the cost and brought it back to life with parts from both of our stashes. We put a narrow-spaced Hipshot bridge on it, a vintage Bisonic, a Hammon Dark Star, and basic passive electronics (volume, tone, pickup selector). When both Andrew and I moved to different regions of the country, the bass went with him. He has since acquired another vintage Starfire (a '68 I believe, in natural mahogany) which his focus has shifted to. The '68 got the pickups we had originally put in this '67 restoration. So having sat in it's case for a long time, this one has now come back into my stable and received a full utilitarian make-over...
The result, though still in rough cosmetic shape, is a super comfortable and great-sounding player-grade Frankenstein bass.
It now sports a set of Novak BSX custom humbuckers (each consists of two Bisonic coils in a standard humbucker-size housing) and an Alembic filter preamp. Each pickup has it's own 4-position rotary switch, allowing me to select North coil, South coil, both in series, or both in parallel. So lots of tone options on tap! Still awaiting delivery of a new set of knobs, so currently they're a mismatched set from the parts drawer. Sound clips coming eventually, but for now... behold!!

For a split second, when I saw the picture I thought it might be my long lost Gibson EB-2d, which I put a Badass I and Barts into ca. 1979. I still miss that bass. I wish I had never sold it.


I also had the coil selection extravaganza in my Starfire when it had Bartolini triple coil pickups (like a complete Alembic 2 regular coils plus a hum canceller all in one pickup). It had 5 positions. The pickups were designed to drop into the Westerly Starfires with humbuckers. I sold them after getting the Alembic stuff, but now I regret that, too.

 

[mellowgerman]

Here's the ol' 1970 sporting it's new and improved control plate. Cut from a 1/8" thick piece of Wenge wood. Does a better job hugging the curves of the F-hole and body. Also cut and filed cleaner without any cracks. Pretty happy with how it came out!

 

[edwin]

Awesome! I've heard of Bartolini Quads but never saw or heard one in person. I've become quite a Bartolini fan in the last few years. Really love the GB humbucker they made as a replacement for Guild humbuckers. I have one in my Hagstrom Swede and the solo'd tone of it (in both humbucker and single coil mode) is to die for!

Here's my Starfire when it had Bart Quads in it. Really great pickups. I kind of wish I hadn't sold them.

 

[mellowgerman]

Was always curious about trying Nordstrand Big Singles in a Starfire bass, but the standard sizes are more like soap bars and would require large cavities to be made that wouldn't be easily covered if they proved to be less exciting than expected. However, I had no idea Nordstrand had a custom shop, let alone one that is clearly not shy to go a little crazy. So when these two narrow-spaced, guitar-humbucker-size custom ordered big singles popped up for sale about a week ago, I just couldn't help myself. Here's the finished product of two days of more Starfire bass tinkering. Will hopefully get some clips recorded before the weekend draws to a close.

 

[Happy Face]

Hehehe

 

[edwin]

Was always curious about trying Nordstrand Big Singles in a Starfire bass, but the standard sizes are more like soap bars and would require large cavities to be made that wouldn't be easily covered if they proved to be less exciting than expected. However, I had no idea Nordstrand had a custom shop, let alone one that is clearly not shy to go a little crazy. So when these two narrow-spaced, guitar-humbucker-size custom ordered big singles popped up for sale about a week ago, I just couldn't help myself. Here's the finished product of two days of more Starfire bass tinkering. Will hopefully get some clips recorded before the weekend draws to a close.

Now, that's my kind of bass!

 

[mellowgerman]

After a few hours of experimenting with flats, nylon tapes, and rounds on this bass, I found I actually liked the DR Sunbeams best in this context (round-core, small outer-wrap, nickel roundwounds). I guess maybe it's time for me to have a bass with rounds in the stable?

Anyway, here are some of the different sounds... just the tip of the iceberg of course, I would have to do at least a feature-length documentary to cover all of the sounds that are possible with this one.

For what it's worth, I wired up this circuit based mostly on blending and switching options. There is no active EQ or anything like that, just one one standard master tone control, which was not implemented here at all. Normally, when using rounds, I'd probably roll off of it a touch to sweeten the sound up a bit, but you can imagine how that would affect the sound. It would be harder to imagine the sound of all the controls wide open, if the recording had been done with the tone rolled off any. So this is with everything wide open and we get the full spectrum.

1. neck
2. middle
3. neck/middle (parallel)
4. neck/middle (series)
5. neck/middle (parallel) + bridge (single coil)
6. neck + bridge (single coil)

 

[lungimsam]

That bass has a lot of depth to the sound!!! Very nice!!!
Wow, so many totally different sounds out of one bass!! Nice achievement.
And I must say that that all metal bridge sounds great on the bass.

1. My favorite
2. My other favorite!!
3. two thumbs up for the minimal comb filtering for a mixed pups setting. Sounds good!
4. Now I know I don't like series wiring (always wondered). But I can see it's usefulness.
5. bridge pup gives a pleasant edge to the sound. My third favorite
6. I am surprised how different this sounds from #5. And how warmth of the neck pup comes through.

 

[edwin]

That bass has a lot of depth to the sound!!! Very nice!!!
Wow, so many totally different sounds out of one bass!! Nice achievement.
And I must say that that all metal bridge sounds great on the bass.

1. My favorite
2. My other favorite!!
3. two thumbs up for the minimal comb filtering for a mixed pups setting. Sounds good!
4. Now I know I don't like series wiring (always wondered). But I can see it's usefulness.
5. bridge pup gives a pleasant edge to the sound. My third favorite
6. I am surprised how different this sounds from #5. And how warmth of the neck pup comes through.

I would agree with this assessment.

 

[krysh]

I would agree with this assessment.

+1

 

[mellowgerman]

Thanks fellas!

If I had to pick, so far, the neck pickup solo'd is my favorite. In the context of a band mix though, I could see that changing from song to song, depending on what the other players are doing.

A few thoughts regarding these Nordys in series; much like original spec Hagstrom Bisonics, these are very fat sounding in and of themselves (different mid profile but the lows are similarly chunky). With that being the case and considering their positioning on the bass, I knew going into this that the series setting on it's own would be something along the lines of a big woolly mammoth -- which is a pretty appropriate description of what we hear in the demo clip. Expecting this, I put in a 4-position rotary switch that has 3 different levels of bass-cut. Now that I think of it, I guess that IS kind of an EQ feature... though initially I thought to add this just to allow for better blending, since I knew this setting would be louder than the Hi-A bridge pickup, but it also cleans up all that wool if you're solo'ing the series Nordy mode (keeps the overall mid boost, but dampens the low end and makes the volume of the series-Nordy signal more balanced with the other settings). In the recording, I just wanted to demonstrate some of the pickup tones raw and on their own, untweaked, but I will make at least one more recording to show some of the possible tweaks. Maybe then I'll also to get into the bridge pickup a bit.

Speaking of which, the bridge pickup is a dual-coil humbucker, but wired in parallel with the option to select one coil or the other solo'd. These old Hi-A pickups (early Bartolini; Hi-A stands for "high aperture") the coils do sound notably different, even though they are right next to each other, they pick up just about every nuance of the portion of the string they are sensing, so the one-or-the-other option is surprisingly useful. When both coils are selected, the parallel configuration give them a little bass boost, a bit of a mid cut, and nice sparkly top end. The curious thing I came across with this one is that even though the output volume isn't huge, it does have a tendency to overpower other pickups when being blended... must be due to that high-aperture sensing field! To remedy this a bit, this one has a mini-toggle that does on/off, but also has a 3rd setting with a resistor and cap to cut the lows (similar to the rotary switch intended for the series-Nordys).

One final snag I've come across with this new Starfire iteration is that there is a heck of a lot of magnetic pull on the strings. In some spots it actually seems to work together with the string vibration to provide extra sustain, but on the higher frets, the E string starts to have a touch of warbly chorus-like effect in the harmonic overtones. I'm going to play around with pickup heights and hopefully minimize this effect to where it's hardly noticeable and doesn't really bother me. That said, if I can't accomplish that, I may have to try a single-coil pickup in the bridge position, which would eliminate an extra coil's worth of magnetic pull, or worst case move the Nordys in the bridge/middle position. There, the extra lows and low-mids of the series-Nordy setting might actually be quite useful as is, without needing the variable cut of the rotary switch.

 

[mellowgerman]

Well, I ultimately decided that these particular Nordstrand Big Singles were not meant for the old sunburst war horse. To my ears, they sounded best in the neck position of a Starfire bass (fantastic actually) but the pole spacing on these two was simply too wide to work there. I've had many pickups where getting exact pole/string alignment was not a big issue, but the magnet slugs on these are quite strong and there's also the factor of the slanted/staggered pole design... the combination just creates too much warble on the higher frets with the inherently lower tension string of a short scale bass (even with gauge 105 DR Legend flatwound).
Once moved to the middle and bridge positions, where the poles and strings lined up well, they sounded nice, but not really the what I was after.
To my ears Guild really got the pickup positions right with the Starfire II bass, zeroing in on the portions of the string where these basses create the most magic. So I made a fresh wenge wood mounting plate with a bridge pickup position in-between the previous bridge and middle positions -- also, shaped to accommodate comfy resting of my thumb, while utilizing the existing mounting screw holes. The pickups are the noiseless single-coil + dummy-coil Bartolini in the neck position and the Hi-A humbucker in the bridge. All comes together for a very round, warm tone, while still maintaining nice clarity. Simplified controls are volume/volume/tone, along with a 3-way mini toggle that controls the Hi-A pickup (full signal, resistor-attenuated, off), which gives some quick and easy variation when both volumes are wide open. Found this particularly useful because, even though both pickups have similar output when solo'd, the Hi-A overpowers the Bartolini when both are wide open... I think that might have to do with the high-aperture factor. With this newly simplified layout and shielded 2-conductor wiring, this one is virtually noiseless, regardless of how the controls are set.
For a final aesthetic touch, I made a second plate out of that pretty wenge wood to cover up some of the un-used holes that previously housed extra controls.

EDIT: Here's this bass in it's current state, in action... not the greatest audio quality, so I'm not sure it qualifies as a tone demo: https://letstalkguild.com/ltg/index.php?threads/a-bit-of-tuna-airplane.214317/

 

[mellowgerman]

There's been no shortage of tinkering in 2022. Latest updates include dual JTEX Distiller resonant filter preamps in the red 1970 and a Stellartone Tonestyler and bridge extension to accommodate long scale strings on the sunburst 1967.

 

[lungimsam]

How does the bridge extension help? Higher tension? I use the EB Cobalt 2815 40-95 set on mine and works good!

 

[mellowgerman]

How does the bridge extension help? Higher tension? I use the EB Cobalt 2815 40-95 set on mine and works good!

The only purpose and effect of the bridge extension is to allow for pretty much any long-scale string set to be used. Some resilient longscale strings can be used on a stock short-scale without issues, but I've had a few experiences over the last 15 years or so when strings broke once the main outer windings of a long-scale string started to go around the tuning peg on a short-scale. Also, tapewounds sometimes have the outer tape loosen and become rattly once that part of the string starts winding around the peg. I'm a fan of the Fender tapewound strings (at least the old kind -- I'm not sure if they've changed the formula in recent years) and the E strings seemed particularly prone to that issue.
It's an idea I've been thinking of for some time, but a few weeks ago I wanted to try Labella Copper White tapewounds on this bass, so I just went ahead and did it. The copper white tapes were a huge disappointment, but the current set of EB Cobalt flats is a lovely fit in terms of sound (and now also a perfect fit in terms of length)

In regard to tension, when any given string is tuned to pitch, the only factor that will effect string tension is the speaking length of the string. How far you run them past the nut or past the bridge saddles is irrelevant.

 

[lungimsam]

My Starfires both like the Cobalts best fir flats. None have broken yet. I hope they never will. They wrap fine around the d and a posts. Bare string wraps around E and G.

 

[mellowgerman]

My Starfires both like the Cobalts best fir flats. None have broken yet. I hope they never will. They wrap fine around the d and a posts. Bare string wraps around E and G.

I hadn't tried Cobalts on a stock shortie and it's good to hear it worked out for you! I remember when they first came out, there was a lot of buzz about how great they are on talkbass and I was tempted to try them, but there were also several people who said they had one of their strings break when initially bringing them up to pitch on a normal long-scale bass, so I didn't want to risk it on a short-scale. Oh well, that may have been an issue that EB has since worked out. Regardless, now with the bridge extension, I can try just about any string without having to worry. Still takes standard short scale sets too if I just anchor the ball ends in the preexisting Hipshot bridge in front of the individual-string "rail" bridges.

*Also just occurred to me, your Newark Street Starfire has those fat Fender-ish tuning pegs, as opposed to it's vintage counterparts that have the skinny pegs. That can also make a difference as to whether and when a string breaks, whose outer winding has started to go around the peg. Fatter pegs would be beneficial in that case, since the string would be bending to a greater extreme when wrapping around a vintage-spec skinny peg.

 

[lungimsam]

That's true about the Newarks having the fat pegs.
I have heard about the EB strings breaking when strung up, too but I haven't had any problems and hope I never will.
I tried every medium scale string I could that would fit and nothing appealed to me like long scale EB Cobalt flats and Roto SM66 for rounds. But I like really bright strings. And both of those are on the extreme bright side. Though the EB's eventually mellow and get warmer.

Too bad EB doesn't make the Cobalt flats in medium scale. Roto does for their Swing Bass strings but that set sounded NOTHING like their regular long scale swing bass sets for some reason. They have blue wraps on them, too not the usual red. Not that it matters. Maybe I got a bad set or maybe that's the way they are.

 

[mellowgerman]

Too bad EB doesn't make the Cobalt flats in medium scale. Roto does for their Swing Bass strings but that set sounded NOTHING like their regular long scale swing bass sets for some reason. They have blue wraps on them, too not the usual red. Not that it matters. Maybe I got a bad set or maybe that's the way they are.

I think a lot of times when you buy specialty/niche strings, like medium scale for example, there's a potential there that it could be an old-stock set, which then creates the variable of "how was it stored over the years?"

I once bought a set of short-scale GHS Brite flats from a small music store, selling on ebay. Sure, they were technically "new" strings, in the sense that the package was unopened, but each string had spots of oxidation in various places. This was the old-style plastic envelope with the paper insert and 4 paper envelopes containing the strings inside. Since that's not air-tight packaging, I assume they were probably stored in a humid environment like a basement or attic for some years with other old stock stuff. So perhaps that applies to that Medium Scale SM66 set you had

 

[lungimsam]

You have a good point there. Wouldnt doubt that is what happened. Maybe worth another try.

Now If I could just find a medium scale stainless roundwounds string.....that was 34-35" ball end to silks to fit the red Starfire...DR’s too short…GHS too long…

Ernie Ball makes a 45-105 rounds set that would work but it is nickel plated steel not stainless…hmmm…