Hot-rodding My Jazz

[Bottomgottem]

My one and only bass is a black Fender Jazz American standard with a rosewood fingerboard. Everything but the pick guard is stock. I love my bass; LOVE IT! It was given to me as a Christmas gift by my wife in '94. This bass has served me very well for the last 12 years. But I get the feeling that it is not being all that it could be.

 

This has been prompted by several things. The neck pickup's posts are not centered under the strings. The bottom post of each pair is more or less directly beneath its string. I do not believe that this is a large issue sonically. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) It just freaking bugs me every time I look at it. Shifting the pickup will require that I route out the pick guard. Don't wanna do that.

 

Another issue is the sound. It has all the typical Jazz tones, but it just seems weak. The lows are not very well defined and I just cannot seem to get the growl that I want. I have been giving serious thought to a set of Bartolini 9J#1's. They sound great to me and a blade type pickup will solve my out of center problem.

 

Also, my pots seem to be wearing out. I'm kind of unintentionally hard on them. The bridge pot will make a 1/4 turn before actually engaging. The knob is not loose.

 

I'm really feeling the need to make these changes and a few others. But I have to confess much ignorance about the finer details of my instrument. Should I include copper shielding in the cavities? What are the advantages/disadvantages of different types of pots and capacitors? What is the major difference between a Standard and a Deluxe Jazz?

 

Cosmetically, she's pretty sweet (at least to me). I just replaced the stock white pick guard with a tortoise/mint/black/mint. I am very much in favor of that!

 

There are a lot of questions in this one topic. Any suggestions or advice I receive will be greatly appreciated.

[Davo-London]

I am considering the Audere pre-amp for my Jazz, even though I am very happy with the tone. I agree that there is more in the bass than the passive set-up actually reaches. I notice this most when recording direct. The Audere would be a good bet for you as it involves replacing the control plate and the innards, thus, you will have new pots too. Installation is supposed to be easy but I've heard that before.

 

www.audereaudio.com

 

My '76 Precision, came with a misaligned bridge, which caused the problem that you describe with string location. In my case, I replaced the bridge wth a Badass and got the alignment correct. Is there an equal spacing between your G and E string with the edge of the neck?

 

Have a look inside your control plate, my 2004 Jazz is beautifully shielded.

 

Davo

[Bottomgottem]

I don't really want to install a pre-amp. That would involve routing out the bass for a battery cavity, and I just do not want to go there. I have the tools and the ability, but not the desire.

 

edit: My mistake, Davo. I just checked out the Audere Audio site and saw that the install involves basically switching out the control plates and the battery fits inside the existing cavity. That bears consideration. :edit

 

I never really considered that the bridge may be misaligned because the bridge pickup is pretty well centered. I'll check that possibility out a little more closely when I get home. A Badass is also on my wish-list for this bass.

 

And there is no shielding whatsoever on my bass.

[The Geoff]

Another possibility for the mis-alignment might be the neck.

 

I have just worked on a guitar on which the neck wasn't seated square in the neck socket, but was a degree or two off to the right as you looked at it face-on.

 

This brought the treble strings very close to the edge of the fretboard and out of sync with the pole-pieces.

 

Check your neck. If the strings are closer to the edge of the fretboard on one side compared to the other, it's a neck issue - if not it's probably a bridge alignment issue.

 

Luckily, both are relatively easy to fix.

 

I would recommend shielding - again, I did it to one recently with self-adhesive copper foil.

 

If using several bits, some thought has to go into making metal-to-metal contact with each, and getting a suitable overlap to contact the foil on the underside of the pickguard and also a connection to complete the grounding.

 

The shielding made quite a difference - it was a Telecaster.

 

Geoff

[Gruuve]

Jay...I've seen your bass with the stock pickguard and it is indeed cosmetically sweet...I'd imagine it's even sweeter now.

 

I'd vote for the onboard preamp as that'll give you a lot of control...you could always switch out pickups later and they should work fine with the active preamp.

 

Dave

[groover]

Before you spend lots of money upgrading your bass, have you perhaps tried new and/or different strings? A good set of medium gage steels might be all it needs.

[Davo-London]

I changed the bridge because the saddles kept dropping down, but now I know that a little wafer-thin screw-thread polyethylene tape (or is is polypropylene) was all that it needed, I probably wouldn't have changed it.

 

Davo

[zeronyne]

The misalignment of the pickup shouldn't be that big of an issue (you should see my KSD fretless), but you may want to try adjusting the pickup's height...it makes a significant, audible difference, but getting it too close to the strings can adversely affect the sustain.

 

Pots are the easiest thing to fix. I was a total soldering novice, and the only thing I didn't have to do over when building my P-clone was soldering the pots. By the way, keep in mind that you need to get the body of the pot quite hot to get the solder to stick...it takes longer than you'd think.

[Bottomgottem]

Geoff Byrne:

Another possibility for the mis-alignment might be the neck.

Good call. The G string is fairly parallel to the edge across the length of the fret board (only about .020" difference from the nut to the 20th fret). The E string, however, shows .150" difference across the same span. Since my bass strings through the body with no other option, am I correct in assuming that a new bridge (preferably a Badass) is in order?

 

Dave Sisk:

Jay...I've seen your bass with the stock pick guard and it is indeed cosmetically sweet...I'd imagine it's even sweeter now.

You are too kind. The pick guard change was long overdue and made the bass look sooo much better. She's like a hooker with new pumps.

 

groover:

....have you perhaps tried new and/or different strings?

Yup, I've run the gamut of strings over the years.

 

zeronyne:

but you may want to try adjusting the pickup's height...it makes a significant, audible difference, but getting it too close to the strings can adversely affect the sustain.

I've actually done quite a bit of adjusting on the pickup height. I think that I've got just about everything out of these pickups that I'm gonna get.

 

Frankly, your P-clone has provided quite a bit of inspiration towards this little endeavor. Particularly the groovy shielding job you did. I had never seen that before.

[Bottomgottem]

Stoopid double post. Wasn't my fault. I swear.

[dcr]

I wanted my Jazz Bass to be more than it was, so I installed a set of DiMarzio UltraJazz pickups in it. I got new pots (push/pull) & wired it so that each pickup (they're humbuckers--in-line, not stacked) could be run either in series or in parallel. In series, the sound is big, with lots of bottom & growl. I also recommend shielding--paint or tape.

[Bottomgottem]

dcr:

I wanted my Jazz Bass to be more than it was, so I installed a set of DiMarzio UltraJazz pickups in it. I got new pots (push/pull) & wired it so that each pickup (they're humbuckers--in-line, not stacked) could be run either in series or in parallel. In series, the sound is big, with lots of bottom & growl.

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

[Rocky McDougall]

In most cases where the strings are not alighned over the pickups or the neck. The problem is usually a neck that is not aligned. The neck pocket is sometimes a little oversize and the neck slips. Sometimes the loosening of the neck screws with the string tension off, and moving the neck in the correct direction and retightening the screws cures the problem. Sometimes a thin shim can be inserted on the side of the neck to help hold it in place.

Rocky

[Bottomgottem]

I'm gonna put this link here as a reference. Plus, it will be a great read for some of our newer guys.

 

Zeronyne\'s Bass Assembly Diary

[sflajimmy]

Originally posted by Rocky3840:

In most cases where the strings are not alighned over the pickups or the neck. The problem is usually a neck that is not aligned. The neck pocket is sometimes a little oversize and the neck slips. Sometimes the loosening of the neck screws with the string tension off, and moving the neck in the correct direction and retightening the screws cures the problem. Sometimes a thin shim can be inserted on the side of the neck to help hold it in place.

Rocky

I had this problem with my old 78P and it was easily fixed as described here

[The Geoff]

Originally posted by Rocky3840:

In most cases where the strings are not alighned over the pickups or the neck. The problem is usually a neck that is not aligned. The neck pocket is sometimes a little oversize and the neck slips. Sometimes the loosening of the neck screws with the string tension off, and moving the neck in the correct direction and retightening the screws cures the problem. Sometimes a thin shim can be inserted on the side of the neck to help hold it in place.

Rocky

That's exactly what I was going to say - and I think you'd be well advised to investigate this on your bass before investing anything further.

 

Thanks, Rocky.

 

Geoff

[Whacked]

the neck pup on my MIM fretless is misaligned. I put some Lindys on it. I had to scrape the paint for the bridge pup, it was a VERY tight fit. I also had to shave a little on the pickguard for the pup. I wasnt too worried about that as a new pickguard is a easy and cheap replacement, plus it is a boring white, nothing fancy at all.

 

I havent noticed anything bad about the misaligned pup. the neck is a tight fit and everything else seems to be aligned correctly. Plus the Lindys are pretty hot pups, I had to lower them more than the stock ones, so the misalignment is more a cosmetic problem than anything. Sounds sweet tho.