u/aczkasow

I have made myself an A5 fauxdori for my Midori dot grid notebook.

Materials:

- Tuscany Collection 1.4-1.6mm thick vachetta leather.

- Elastic bands from a TN repair kit,

- the brass tag is from The Superior Labor.

I really love how the self tightening elastic band loops at the back turned out.

Disclaimer: I know the Superior Labor brass tag might feel controversial as if I am claiming it is their product (making it a counterfeit). But since 1) I am not intended to sell it, and 2) this is how Superior Labor advertises the use anyways (https://nap-dog.com/en/products/brass-tag), I consider the personal use of the their brass tag a fair play.

I have just read the Dan Lakin's memoirs about Lakland history (on the web archive copy of the D.Lakin Basses website), and have read the following:

I remember stuffing envelopes with product literature about the new series we called the “Skyline Series” on the morning of 9/11/2001

Now I am curious is it really a Chicago skyline on the logo, or is it an homage to NYC...

I want to share my happiness. I have upgraded my Lakland Skyline 55-02 to sound as close as physically possible to an EBMM Stingray (the 3EQ version).

tl;dr: Nordstrands + a 2.2nF capacitor makes it really close: Definitely not a rick-roll YouTube link

How to achieve it

- Get yourself a bass with an MM pickup in the sweet spot. I got myself a Lakland 55-02. It will never sound exactly like a Stingray due to a slightly different pickup location. The Lakland's bridge pickup is positioned half a pickup-length closer to the bridge than the Stingray's i.e., the neck-side coil is where the bridge-side coil is supposed to be. I call it close enough. So let's work with what we have at hand.

- Drop in a correct MM replica pickup (parallel DC resistance ~2kOhms, parallel inductance ~0.7H). Nordstrand MM5.4 in my case (the neck pickup is Nordstrand NJ5s, but that is irrelevant here). Wire the coils in parallel.

- Add a 2.2nF capacitor in parallel to the bridge pickup. To make it engage only when both bridge coils are selected, I also had to replace the bridge coil selector with a 4PDT one.

- Make sure your balance pot and the tone pots are at least 250kOhm. For some reason Lakland, in their infinite wisdom, decided to have an A50k balance pot (that explains why Lakland has such a low output when in passive mode). Obviously it had to be replaced, because otherwise the resonance peak will simply disappear, and the 2.2nF capacitor will just act as a high-frequency roll-off. I replaced the balance pot with an MN-taper 500kOhm one.

And there you go!

P.S. This experiment was heavily inspired by Low End Lobster's Stingray experiment series, and by the YouTuber Mikedeeez's amazing analysis of the Stingray preamps interaction with the pickup. It wouldn't be possible without them!

I had a deep dive into bass onboard preamp schematics and what i have learned surprised me. 90% of the preamps are exactly the same Baxandall EQ topology. Every preamp that claims they have transparent sound when set flat because it has "quality components", and it's EQ bands are not affecting each other, and so on.

All of them with a small exception are the same, with some minor tweaks in the EQ frequency targets, and some small features here and there.

- Nordstrand 3b. Baxandall

- Aguilar OBP. Baxandall

- "Bartolini" branded MK1. Baxandall with built-in active blend circuit which had this weird high pitch resonance as a side effect.

- Bartolini NTMB. Baxandall with inductor coils in the mid frequency filter, to make the mids more narrow.

- Darkglass Tone Capsule. Baxandall with three stages. First stage has Lows and Highs, Second has High mids and the last one has Low Mids. This is allegedly the 4 band EQ control from the Darkglass B7K, but without the High potentiometer. One can add the highs control easily if they know how to use a solder gun.

- EBMM 3eq. Baxandall with all three bands cramped into a single opamp. The preamp has input capacitor which is tailored to work in conjunction with the MM pickup, their combo creates the 4kHz resonance peak - the famous stingray sizzle. Also the pickup cuts everything below 90Hz and above 5kHz.

The unique ones:

- MM 2 band. Completely unique design. Boost/cut with bands affecting each other.

- Bartolini TCT and XTCT. Buffered version of the tone stack used in Vox/Fender/Marshall amps. Bands heavily affect each other.

- All the "filter preamps".

- EMG VMC, EMG BQC, and Ibanez VMS. They use the parametric middle based on the Boss GE7 pedal gyrator circuits.

-G&L preamp is just a buffer which does not affect the tone at all, the bass and treble controls are cut only and work in passive mode. The preamp has a switch to boost the highs around 8kHz.

Update: Also what's up with all the "boost" only 2band preamps which still preserves the band separation, I suspect they are literally just baxandall filters with half the range limited artificially. Imagine how easily can we sell an "active cut only EQ which preserves the band separation and is transparent when set flat"? This could unironically be praised as revolutionary on TalkBass lol