Arthur's Brubaker Brute 5 string

Next up is some work on a bass that belongs to a student of mine. He has a Brubaker Brute bass which is Brubaker's "budget" line of basses.  Arthur had Villex pickups in the bass and wanted to match them with a Villex preamp.  He was able to find one and asked me to install it.  It definitely turned into more than just a simple preamp swap.
First off, I took off the pickguard to take a look at what was in this thing electronics wise.

To my surprise I realized that it was wired passive and the battery leads were just hanging free.  Also, I was surprised to see the shielding job in there.  Not the cleanest and solder everywhere.
I proceeded to take off the strings and find that the E String bridge saddle didn't have a intonation screw or spring.

Also in the process of taking the strings off I found that the B String tuning key and become smashed and was clamping the end of the B String.

I was able to work the string out then attempted to just bend the tuner back in place.  No dice, it broke.
I set about ordering the new parts needed and disconnected all the controls in the cavity and taped off the pickup and battery leads.

Then I tried to make sense of the Villex "preamp" Arthur gave me.  First off, there were 4 knobs that just looked like simple pots and one with a strange module on it.

I was able to eventually figure out that the system was setup for two volume controls and a 3 band EQ. I taped off the volume knobs for future reference.

After a lot of searching I was able to find out the preamp was a Villex passive NVT tone module.  I was also able to find 2 Villex wiring diagrams online.  One was for 2 volumes using all 4 of the pickup lead wires and a 2 band preamp, and the other was for pickups with 2 wires and a 3 band preamp.  I eventually called and talked to WIlliam Villex and he informed me that the Villex classic pickups in the bass were not meant to work with the NVT preamp.  I was surprised but decided to give it a go and wire it up anyways.

It appeared everything was working when I wired it up.  Although, when I was doing the tap test I noticed one of the EQ knobs seemed to be working much more than the others.
This bass previously only had 4 holes in the pickguard for preamp and 1 for the output jack.  Obviously the NVT is a 5 knob system so I had to install a side mounted input jack.  I started by matching the curvature of the jack to the butt end of the bass and seeing if it would work with the pre existing control cavity.  I found my spot and drilled a pilot hole to where I wanted it to be installed.

Then I dug out the area with the smallest Forstner bit that would work for the size of the jack.

I also drilled the screw mounting holes for the jack.  The jack route didn't lead directly to the control cavity so I had to drill a hole for the lead and ground wires to the jack.

Then I wired everything up and was getting a really bad buzz.  Double checked all my grounds and even swapped out the pot on the module.  Realized that I had my output jack wired backwards.  Fixed that and set the controls and jack into their respective cavities.

Then I attached everything to the pickguard and closed it up to make sure it would fit.  Here is a shot of the jack fully installed.

I added some extra foam under the pickups to boost em up a little higher.  The original foam was pretty compressed.

I also replaced one of the pickup screws which had stripped.  Then I also found out the pickguard screw hole at the control are tip above had stripped out.  Because of it's important placement I decided to plug the hole and re drill for the screw to hold tight.
Then I installed the new tuner, and the new bridge saddle.  Ended up swapping out the volume pots with some nice CTS pots I had in the shop. Strung it up with some D'Addario Nickels, gave it a setup, tightened all the hardware, rubbed down the back of the neck with some #0000 steel wool and hit it with some wax to smooth it out.  Plugged it and was very surprised to find out that the bass actually sounded real good.  The Villex pickups have a very high output and I am sure that is what William was talking about with problems paired with the NVT.  The NVT works like multiple passive tone controls.  When the tone knobs are all the way open the signal is passing thru unaltered.  Rolling down the knobs starts to bleed the frequencies from the output. The high end is a dead ringer for a jazz bass style passive tone control.  The bass knob removed a little bit of low end which was useful since these pickups are so hot. The mid knob was the most dramatic and added in a significant scooped mids sound that I suspect in small doses would be nice for slapping.
Here she is all ready for her owner

10.  Arthur's Brubaker Brute
- Installed Villex NVT tone control system
- Installed side mounted input jack
- Installed new B String tuner and E string intonation screw and spring
- Setup, re string, clean, tightened hardware