| for anyone that may or may not care, it seems i overlooked a few things. after thinking, i grabbed my P bass to compare setups. my P plays exactly where i like it to be. action is probably high for most to help me get a meatier tone, but does have some fret buzz. no dampening notes or anything coming through an amp. it mainly happens from aggressiveness.
note, i did not take any measurements for when it plays nice it plays nice. obviously had i taken measurements long ago, this would not be an issue. duh.
anyway, i checked relief in both instruments.
P: fretting 1st and 20th frets, the gap between the string and the 8th fret was about the same height as a fret itself.
J: doing the same, the string was sitting on the frets. i immediately loosened the truss rod approx. 1/4 to 3/8 turn to achieve the same relief.
i then noticed the action was still lower on the problematic J than the glorious P and had some undesirable buzz. i then raised the saddles a tiddly bit.
the J now plays much more similar to the P. not identical, but a lot better. thicker resonance, longer sustain, not so dead sounding, more equal response throughout strings/frets. ive been setting up my basses for awhile now, especially after stumbling across talkbass, and youd think with a new bass id pay more attention to the set up. i guess i had the ol set it and forget it attitude when i first received the bass. good lesson to learn.
the real test will come at next practice in a band setting. | 
