'88 Yamaha BB1600
Posted: March 30th, 2014, 11:17 am
Hi all,
so here's what I snagged when I returned the Peavey Foundation: a 1988 Yamaha BB1600. It was missing a knob, covered in grime, and smelt like it had been living in a bar for 15 years or so. The frets were green, and the strings felt like they were covered in syrup. After a lot of TLC and some tweaking, she looks a lot better. I've replaced the knobs with a new Gotoh set (old ones on in this pic), and fixed the foam under the p pup set, as it was squished to oblivion. A new set of roto 66's, and she sings. This is really the first bass that I've had that "A-ha" moment with- I just seem to connect with it. Neck feels great- the only oddity is that the pots are regular audio-taper and are wired "righty", so that turning them counter-clockwise turns everything down, not up. I do prefer this to the usual "on-off" issues you get when regular pots are wired lefty, but I do have to think before touching anything. The cavity is tight, so I don't know if CTS reverse audio tapers will fit. Anyway, it sounds great so that's cool.
so here's what I snagged when I returned the Peavey Foundation: a 1988 Yamaha BB1600. It was missing a knob, covered in grime, and smelt like it had been living in a bar for 15 years or so. The frets were green, and the strings felt like they were covered in syrup. After a lot of TLC and some tweaking, she looks a lot better. I've replaced the knobs with a new Gotoh set (old ones on in this pic), and fixed the foam under the p pup set, as it was squished to oblivion. A new set of roto 66's, and she sings. This is really the first bass that I've had that "A-ha" moment with- I just seem to connect with it. Neck feels great- the only oddity is that the pots are regular audio-taper and are wired "righty", so that turning them counter-clockwise turns everything down, not up. I do prefer this to the usual "on-off" issues you get when regular pots are wired lefty, but I do have to think before touching anything. The cavity is tight, so I don't know if CTS reverse audio tapers will fit. Anyway, it sounds great so that's cool.
Those 80's MIJ Yamahas are killer instruments, and becoming very hard to find. Even the latest lefty BB414/BB614 models that they issued a few years ago have disappeared off the face of the earth. They were pretty easy to find for a while and then Poof! They've vanished. 
