First part

This Thursday I received small package from Chicago, IL. There was inside 4 knobs, 4 pots (preamp is on one of them), wiring diagram and battery clip (cheap one).

Well. First of all. Brice HXB-406 has AllParts knobs. Because of this I have 4 spare push-on black metallic knobs right now. If you plan to put SE3P-A in your Brice, just get 2 stacked knobs (mine was MK-3320-003) at left your stock ones.

Stock electronics was packed neat, but everything points to cheap bass (soldering was done not-so-professional and neat) After short understanding what goes where and drawing some diagrams (just in case) I remove pots from bass, unsolder necessary wires and put old electronics away. After that I made some quick fitting check of new pots. Stacked was a little bit wider that holes. This easily was fixed by dremel on small speed.

SE3P-A is true joy to assemble. All pots are prewired and has connectors. All what you need it just solder pickups to balance pots, solder battery, jack and ground to preamp (with mid pots) and connect (no soldering!) all three pots to preamp. Make quick check that everything is working, check my soldering. Everything looks and sounds great. Put piece of electric tape on the wall of bass’ cavity near preamp to prevent shorts. Strap on all loose wires together. Then I put everything in, adjust pots, check that everything ok one more time. Put knobs on, one more check. Close the lid. One more check. Some shake сheck. Passed again. Done.

I spent 3 hours on this including brakes to soothe and feed and soothe again my baby girl while her mom did some shopping

The sound… it is clean, variety of sounds is wide. It is even more wider with Hartke Bass Attack pedal. I’m happy, but…

High-freq noise didn’t go away completely, I think pickups are the reason. Vol and Bal pots are ok, but stacked EQ knobs are a little scratchy. But I can handle this.

And again, do not buy Artec preamps on ebay for 70 bucks or so, contact mcracer. He has guitar shop in Chicago, IL and can give you very decent price and great advice. Next time I need some parts, I’ll ask him first.

Here is some photos of progress…
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Popularity: 6% [?]

In this thread, tplyons recommends Duracell Procell as long-lasting reliable source of 9V for active basses (I think pedals will accept them too ). Never saw them in stores, but I’ll give them a try next time (recently I got 4pk of Energizers). You can got them, for example, on eBay.

Popularity: 6% [?]

My 6-stringer is great, but preamp is not so powerful and noisy. Last gig I played through borrowed SWR and decide that I really need a little treble, but I cannot afford it because of noise.

I already tune myself to spend 110-150 bucks for Bartolini preamp, but I’ve found Artec preamps. I didn’t find much about them, but nothing bad at all. I tried to ask on talkbass.com. And mcracer gave me best price and free shipping for Artec SE3P-A and black metallic knobs (including concentric ones). The price for the preamp and knobs is about the same you can get on ebay for only preamp.

He promised to ship it today or Monday. I’ll post results here.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Here is recommendations how to screw up your bass and make it tapping instrument.

No irreversible modifications except nut filing. Easy and fast. If you don’t want to invest into “Mobius Megatar” but want to try – all recommendations looks reasonable.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The most common beginner question about bass setup after “how to restring” is “how to adjust trussrod and action”. Here is links that can help you with this:

Garry Willis guide about trussrod adjusting on bass.
Guide from Fender®.

Popularity: 3% [?]