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My first Bass Kit!!!!!!!!!!
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Can't believe its taken me this long to get one....and they are one sale! bonus.:cool:
Had a little misshap with Aussie post but Adam got 'em sorted out. Thanks Adam!.
Lookin' good
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Plans? dunno yet. I'm just gonna try and learn bass so i wasn't upgrading anything as yet, I assume they are easy to modify for upgrades later?
congratulations on your first bass kit Andy !! I got mine because I saw the sale sign ! pretty good value $175 for a posted ash jazz bass kit !
Should be easy to modify down the track, you can get better quality elephant ear tuners to fit the 18mm diameter tuner holes.
Upgrading the bridge the mounting screw holes may not align exactly but you can plug and re-drill them. They may well align
Tonerider pups only needed a small modification to the cavity pup mounts had to be slightly enlarged.
Definitely worth grain filling after sanding it !
best of luck look forward to the build diary !
Great decision :D
that's it Cade, so now there are 4 JB builds happening they are popular - myself, Cade, Ponch and now Andy !
Perhaps I also need an Ashbody build to compliment my basswood buidl......
Nice one Andy welcome to the JBA club!
I know you'll do justice to this cool looking bass
As already mentioned, any replacement pickups will need the pickup cavities modifying and a new scratchplate. You'd probably want to do that work before the guitar's all finished. The neck pickup rout will be covered up so is easy to do, but the bridge one is exposed and you will need to fill the cut-outs for the mounting lugs and re-cut them in the correct position, which will mean that you'll need to match any finish on the repaired area. So if you do plan to upgrade the pickups, it is probably best to do that from the start.
What happened to the idea of sourcing an undrilled Neck Pickup Cover, I believe they should fit, and drilling it, or leave it solid if you prefer, to get that "Bartolini Look"...
Maybe I'm just too lazy..... (Or safe)
If you want to use a higher mass bridge, and you're concerned about the holes lining up, there are some on eBay with 4 holes, one in each corner, leaving you the ability to drill the rest of the back row using the old bridge as a template...
Good choice Andy and on mine the upgrades done later were a new bridge from Real Parts to give a bit more fore & aft adjustment plus the Entwistle PUP's which required a small amount of chisel work to help make the Bridge PUP fit plus also filing and sanding out the scratch plate so that the neck one would fit. Pretty standard stuff but as I said easy enough to do later. Just installed the bone nut 10 days ago too and also another easy job. Agree with Woks about the tuners and when I find a spare $50 might order some from Real Parts.
Obviously all electronic upgrades such as pots & orange drop caps were done up front. Quite a versatile kit that allows for all sorts of upgrades and modifications.
Can't wait to see what you do with it.
Cheers Waz
Wow guys. thanks heaps for the input. Seems I have a fair bit to learn about bass kits. Good to see there is a wealth of knowledge out there.:cool:
Waz, how much of a difference did the bone nut make?
I reckon a Bone but is a Must. My prebuilt has a placky one and it is the weak point of the Bass, with open notes sounding dull in comparison with fretted notes.
Hi Andy, don't know as I slopped a bit more finish on the fret board to seal in the block markers at the same time and it should be ready to polish up this weekend. Will let you know Sunday night. Need to do a bit more practicing too before doing another sound demo video and promise to work on a better camera angle this time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy40
Tend to agree but always fascinated that some big name brands come standard with plastic nuts yet still sound quite decent with Fender & Rickenbacker being most obvious ones I can recall. Maybe Chinese plastic nuts are just more at the rubbish end of things? In a few days I will have tried out the DB PBG bone nut replacement and anticipate it will have better sustain and brighter sounding open notes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hobastard
I differ a little from the many. I like TUSQ by graphtech. It is a synthetic material including teflon....very sloppy for bends and the strings do not grab in the nut slots at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy40
Congrats on the JBA kit Andy. I loved building mine and I know you will too. Lots of us trying our hand at learning the low end!
cheers,
Gav.
Totally agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Plastics ain't Plastics....
I replaced the Nut on my 70's Jazz Bass with a Brass one, (had to make 'em yourself in those days) pretty quickly, but the Ibanez still has it's original one.
Cool. okay, happy with the bone nut decision. all of my 6 stings have been vastly improved by a bone nut.
Now the bridge you say? Would you replace the pups or the bridge if you could only choose one?
Personally I'd go for pup and electronics upgrade over bridge
Sent from my Moto G4 Plus using Tapatalk
You can potentially upgrade the bridge without any visible mods to the body, plugging holes etc, so it can be done after finishing. However, modding the bridge pup rout for upgraded pickups would be best done before finishing, and as a "only choose one" is likely to give you the biggest improvement.
Definitely Nut First, to get an even tone across Fretted and Open Notes.
Having said that. I just bought a Cast Bridge and a Brass Nut (5 string), from Ebay for less than $30 landed.....
It may not be a Babics or even a Schaller, but I still expect an improvement in sound and looks.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/400397034...BIDX%3AIT#rwid
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/311752408...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
If I could choose only one of pickups or bridge it would be pickups every time. In an electric bass/guitar they have the biggest effect of anything - they also probably show the biggest difference between lower and higher quality construction/materials.
Hi Andy, list of upgrade priorities can be quite long and also become expensive and have listed below what I reckon would be best bang for your buck.
Replace nut - DB's bone ones are not cheap at around $28 but you know it will be top quality compared to $7 eBay specials
Replace pots & tone cap - if keeping the 2 x vol & 1 tone do not do the treble bleed mod as it does not work too well in this setup
Buy some decent strings - a set of D'Addario round wounds are my preference and by selecting slightly heavier gauge 50-105 discovered standard bridge did not have enough fore & aft travel to get correct intonation but worked ok with 45-100 cost $36
Replace PUP's - went cheap with the Entwistles but chose their dearer high spec ones. Tend to think Tonerider is better
Replace bridge - standard one is just ok and bought economy Gotoh style for $28 from Real Parts
Replace Tuners - under tension you may feel the gears slipping a smidge when tuning up - try Real Parts/All Parts USA set $48
Ultimate upgrade list amounts to around $280 plus freight from the various suppliers. On PUP's the high spec Entwistle set is only $30 cheaper than a Tonerider set however they do have cheaper ones which for a pair are about the same price as one Tonerider and would definitely be a whole lot better than the stock units.
As others have already said bridge doesn't affect the sound as much as PUP's and can be done later. Just be mindful what I mentioned about heavier gauge strings. They sound better but you may find standard bridge lacks enough room for adjustment to properly intonate.
Cheers, Waz
Thanks Ponch, Weirdy, Hoby, Bilb and Waz. This has been extremely helpful.
I think this will be the only bass i ever own (and it was on SALE!) I can drop a bit of coin on upgrades, but not too much. I don't mind upgrading stuff later.
Great, I just bought two Treble Bleeds for mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Oh well, hopefully there's a Strat on the Horizon that can use one of them.....
I don;t understand this statement?Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy40
One bass will give you BAS Andy [emoji1]Quote:
Originally Posted by billb
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Ha ha, clearly I am a padawan
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A Padawan, Clearly I am.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy40
G'day Hobie, what I discovered was that when one volume was turned all the way off no sound came out of the one left on 10 and vice versa.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hobastard
Was playing the JB earlier today after cleaning it up from doing the DB Bone nut installation and yes Andy, it does make a big difference with no more dull or dead notes and plenty of ring or sustain on open notes. The action is a bit high at 1st fret and will work on that during the week.
Was also playing around with the volume knobs and by leaving both on 10 and backing one off slightly that is all you need to do to select which one is more in the mix rather than back it off a long way, hence why treble bleeds are not as important however I do recall some weird funky stuff that caused me to question that upgrade and decide to remove them both and probably in that build thread somewhere.
When stringing it up again today the damn D string tuner kept slipping and the cheap Chinese mystery metal feels like it is under fatigue and about to fail so later tonight or tomorrow I will order the $48 set from Real Parts. All up the only original hardware bits left will be the neck plate, scratch plate & control plate. Out of curiosity I will dig up all the receipts and add up how much it owes me. I am guessing about $500 including rectangular hard case but worth every cent.
Waz, that one volume off problem is probably down to the wiring method, and not the treble bleed circuit. It's exactly the same as the modern 2-pup/4-pot Gibson both pups-on situation, where turning the volume on one pickup all the way down mutes the sound completely.
If you wire the pickup hot wire to the wiper of the pot, wire one end of the pot to ground and the other as the pot's output, then you can turn one pot completely off without affecting the other pickup's output.
You've got the pickup output wired to one end of the pot, the other end to ground, and the output coming from the central wiper connection. When you turn one pot right down, the output is connected directly to ground. But as that output is also connected to the output of the other volume pot, then both pickup's outputs are connected to ground - so no sound!
By simply swapping over the pickup hot and output wires on the two volume pots, so that the pickup output goes to the wiper, you can get a full single pickup only sound. This should be how the pre-wired PBG control plate is wired - it's shown that way on the current PBG wiring diagram for it. It sounds like on your bass, it's wired the other way round.
The treble bleed cap+ resistor should work whatever way the pots are wired, as long as its simply connected between the input and output connections. It will affect the volume control knob response a bit, as you now have the high frequencies passing through the cap, and a low level of full-range sound passing through the bleed resistor - which is in parallel with the part of the potentiometer resistance between the input and output connections, so that bit of resistance is less than it would be otherwise, resulting in a slower volume turn-down than without the bleed circuit.
Cheers guys, looks like I'll be using them after all, one on each Pot. Got some Black Hardware on the way and I will wire it all up on some shiny new CTS Pots and Orange Caps when it all gets here.....
Sounds like i should order some decent tuners then eh.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
@ Simon - had the stock controls already pre-wired and used them as the visual aid for wiring up the bourns and also referenced back to the wiring diagram that came with kit plus one on PBG site and others found on the web. J Bass wiring was pretty standard across everything I looked at and was also the same setup in the EX-5 where both guitars had 2 x vol & 1 x tone. Treble bleed didn't work in either Bass and modified EX-5 to 3 way switch and 1 vol & 1 tone, and reintroduced the treble bleed with no issues now on that axe. In the J configuration everything is 'on' all the time therefore when backing off say neck PUP just a small amount it has mostly dropped out and been overpowered by the bridge PUP that is still on 10 with no loss of tone or treble, due mainly to still having one of the PUP's fully flowing. Dial up the neck and back off bridge and same result. Not sure treble bleeds will make much difference when used this way and happier without them as I cannot tell the difference whereas on the modified EX-5 setup it was noticeable.
@ Andy - you know me, I have used the cheap generic tuners on a few 6 stringers and find them ok but these Bass ones have not felt right from the first day it was strung up. From personal experience they would be a higher priority than doing a bridge upgrade. My Real Parts order should hopefully arrive tomorrow but next RDO is now Friday and will let you know how they go.
Weird, Waz. It was behaving just as the reversed input/output wiring would. Maybe that combination requires different component values?
Nothing a 3 way switch can't fix but for those who want to stick with traditional J Bass setup what I described is how these things work. Cannot be bothered re-wiring to end up with probably the same outcome as it works fine, sounds good and that is all that really matters.
Dont forget to let me know how those tuners are Waz and which ones you got.
Spend Alert!!!!!
I've just been trolling Stewmac and picked up a Mighty Mite Bridge for $20. They also have EMG passives for J Bass for $42. Half price. Clearence Sale.....
Isn't postage a killer?