bad sustain on my fender jb mim?

maturanesa · #1 09-16-2010, 02:46 AM

im very disapointed with the sustain of my fender jazz bass mim. I seted up a medium string height, with a 40/100 gauge, and the feeling is tight, the notes have no air, some notes die fast, and my perception in general is that the peaks of the notes get down too fast. maybe is not exactly a lack of sustain, but a resonance/vibration problem, actually some notes are decent long, but the volume is too far from the peak... I recently installed a pair of neodymium pups, that have a huge pull, since that i think its worse, im starting to hate these, but i tryed differents heights, adjusting mostly down, and not changes... i dont hear any intonation problem or chorus effect, so maybe there´re not affecting anything, dont know.. Theres no fret noise at all... any suggestion or advice? (that not include "buy another bass")

DanRJBrasil · #2 09-16-2010, 05:27 AM

how it worked with stock regular pups?
maybe is a problem with the new pups or the installation

darkstorm · #3 09-16-2010, 05:30 PM

Sounds like the pups to me. Some pups just have terrible sustain char with overly fast or even downright abrupt and uneven note fade out.

pandaman37 · #4 09-16-2010, 05:43 PM

same thing with my squier, i dunno if its the pickups tho, theyre stock and theyre pretty awful..

**pacojas** · #5 09-16-2010, 05:53 PM

hmmmm,.... (dead spots maybe), (loose neck screws), etc.

BigOldHarry · #6 09-16-2010, 06:05 PM

MIM Fenders are pretty inconsistent... If you had a similar issues with the old P'ups, it could be the wood of the bass body...

maturanesa · #7 09-16-2010, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOldHarry

MIM Fenders are pretty inconsistent... If you had a similar issues with the old P'ups, it could be the wood of the bass body...

thats the bad thing about pups, you cant re install them to compare or try before buy... The overall feel is a more tight touch.., the strange thing is some notes in the upper register have more sustain than others down.., so i believe is a fret problem, dead spot, another fact is some notes sound more like an harmonic, with a poor string vibration, instead of a round sound.

JLS · #8 09-17-2010, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maturanesa

im very disapointed with the sustain of my fender jazz bass mim. I seted up a medium string height, with a 40/100 gauge, and the feeling is tight, the notes have no air, some notes die fast, and my perception in general is that the peaks of the notes get down too fast. maybe is not exactly a lack of sustain, but a resonance/vibration problem, actually some notes are decent long, but the volume is too far from the peak... I recently installed a pair of neodymium pups, that have a huge pull, since that i think its worse, im starting to hate these, but i tryed differents heights, adjusting mostly down, and not changes... i dont hear any intonation problem or chorus effect, so maybe there´re not affecting anything, dont know.. Theres no fret noise at all... any suggestion or advice? (that not include "buy another bass")

You have a dead instrument; that happens. You might do well, by having the neck joint converted to threaded inserts and machine screws, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it; when the wood is dead, nothing is going to fix it, not pickups, bridges,
pleking, anything.

A solid bodied instrument will never sound any better, than when you're playing it unplugged, against your body; they're still acoustic instruments, just very quiet ones. Yes, you can get them louder, but if there's no life to the instrument...forget it.