Marcus Miller Bass - J-Retro and Pick Ups

[Dr.Suess]

Hi,

 

Need help please. Has anyone else here updated their Marcus Miller Jazz bass?

 

I recently purchased Marcus Miller Jazz Bass. I like the look and feel of the bass but it is just too noisy and I also want to get rid of that annoying $20 preamp that came with the bass. I still don't understand why Fender put in a crappy preamp in a bass like this. Anyway...

 

I have heard great things about J-Retro products and they have a model that would fit the MM bass.

 

They are quite expensive in Canada with shipping and exchange is over $400.

 

Is this preamp worth the money? Has anyone here coverted their Jazz to a J-retro set up? Any other suggestions?

 

I am also looking at changing the pickups. I was looking at the noiseless models by seymour but I also like barts. Any suggestions?

 

If anyone else has made changes to a MM Jazz bass I would be very interested in knowing what you did.

 

Any help would be welcome.

 

Thanks.

[bc_dup1]

There's a whole forum on this over at

 

http://pub206.ezboard.com/fthedudepitfrm2

 

I'd take some of this with a pinch of salt - a fan club starts to build up and some of the moderators have commercial interests in selling the product (*) - but you should get some information.

 

(*) I'm not suggesting anything improper here, but in these circumstances there will be some inbuilt bias.

[_Sweet Willie_]

You might want to get in touch w/ forum member SteveC, who modded one Fender jazz w/ a J-Retro and modded another jazz bass w/ a Sadowsky on-board preamp. He might even be able to offer some comparative info about the two.

 

Peace.

--sweets

[Dr.Suess]

Sweets and bc - Thank you very much for the information. Very much appreciated.

[_Sweet Willie_]

I forgot to comment about pickups.

 

Try a search here for "replacement pickups" or "jazz pickups" or "bartolini" or "duncan" or "dimarzio" or "bill lawrence"...

 

You might also want to consider the Nordstrand split coil humcancelling jazz pickups as well.

 

I put Bartolini Classic Bass series in-line dual coils J pickups into my Carvin, and I've been quite pleased. However, I also put a Bart preamp in at the same time, so I can't really give you specifics about what the pickups did to my tone. But I do like the Bart p'ups and preamp combo better than the stock Carvin p'ups and preamp combo.

 

Peace.