New (to me) DR5

[WayneP]

First, thanks for the wonderful site!

I bought a 1991 DR5 bass #J10949 in July via Facebook Marketplace, in excellent condition. I got it from Mark Scott who lives in Cypress, TX. He said he was the original owner and bought it while in college in Louisiana, USA. Color is green burst. Headstock shows "Heartfield DR5."

As far as I can tell, it is all original, but I did change the knobs for a chrome set from Guyker. (I like my hardware and knobs to match.) No loss really, one of the originals was broken anyway. Seems to be a known issue; I donated the two good knobs to a couple of Talkbass members who each had one bad knob and wanted original ones.

One nice thing about the Guyker knobs is they have a line indicator. I've seen people comment that it's a challenge using the filter in live situations because it's hard to return the stock knob to a previous setting. With the line indicator, this is easier to accomplish.

First two pictures are from the original owner, others are mine.

[Richard]

A very nice bass! Welcome to this community.
The colour "Green burst" does not exist. It's probably discoloured "Blue Burst".

[WayneP]

Interesting. Well, for whatever reason - it's green now!

Now that you mention it, the seller did advertise it as blue. I though that was strange, since it looked green in the pictures. I just wrote it off to room lighting, camera deficiencies, or whatever.

Whatever the case, I love the color! Not sure I'd have bought it if it was blue, and I would have missed out on an awesome bass.

Regards,
Wayne

[Richard]

Hope you will play it to your heart's content!

[Modulus93]

Thank you for this wonderful Forum. I’m so happy that I found it, thank you.

I just purchased a nice used 1989 model Heartfield DR5 in the blueburst color. I’ve always wanted one of these bass guitars back in the 90’s, so I’m happy that I finally found a nice used one via the Facebook Marketplace.

The guy I bought it from said the original preamp went bad, so he removed it and installed a EMG BTC preamp system. The wires were also cut from the XLR balanced connector on the bass. The controls now are Volume, Stacked Bass/Treble and Blend. The blend pot is really scratchy after cleaning it, so I’m thinking about removing this system and either install a new EMG or Bartolini preamp system, because the wires inside the cavity are a mess and I want the bass back as close to the original controls layout as possible with a nice clean install.

What I’m trying to find out is what the original pickups are in the bass. When I remove the battery from the EMG system, there’s no sound, so I’m assuming the pickups are active. I’ve read online that the pickups were made by EMG and then I also read that the pickups were made by Bartolini, so I’m not sure.

I love everything about this DR5 bass guitar, so that’s why I want to get it back in perfect working condition.

Thank you all for any information you can provide about this wonderful bass guitar.