Jazz bass Mod becomes Build?

[fender3x]

FINALLY!



I decided not to do anything job related today, and failed, but did manage to get the bass put together, shielded and wired. It is now a fully assembled and fully functional bass. It needs setup, but I plugged it in and noodled a bit, and it seems to sound just like it should. The EMGs are pretty idiot proof to set up...but I didn't let that stop me from creating a little bit of a birds nest with the grounding wires...which I then sorted out. Hoping the setup goes well. It's not bad now, but the action is a bit high. Pickup heights need adjusting as well.

Biggest surprise so far is that it's a bit over a pound heavier than my paulownia precision. I am guessing that's due to the added wiring and pickup at one end of the bass and the Gotoh Res-O-Lite tuners at the other end. The neck also feels good, but a tad chunkier, so that might be part of it too. Still the Res-O-Lites are probably worth it. They are by far the smoothest and most precise bass tuners I have ever had. The Jazz pickup is probably worth it as well. I really like the P-bass pickup solo'd with the EMGs, although not quite as much as the quarter pounder style pickup on my P-bass. But EMG did a nice job of matching the output and creating a pretty silent J pup to go with the P in the Geezer Butler set. The J pickup adds some snap.

It has some flaws, but so far nothing I don't think I can live with...and perhaps now I can get to the next things in the cue ;-)

[Trevor Davies]

It looks great. I love the colour combo of the body and pickguard.

[fender3x]

I am glad you like it! The color choice was dictated by the pickguard--and I agonized over it. The donor bass was black, and I bought the pickguard from Warmoth, which ended up being expensive, and still needing a fair amount of modification...so other than the pickups and tuners it was the one thing I was for sure going to keep. So I modeled the "contenders"... I knew it worked with black but didn't really like black. I had seen it with sea foam green, and liked that, but I already have a guitar that color. Explored white, yellow, variations on cream and purple. I tried to capture the purple in a stain, but that was a failure...as was my every other attempt to get a stain that looked good with the red perloid. So by process of elimination I ended up at MTM94 Ipanema Yellow ;-)