| Christmas in September
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I just installed a set of Fender Custom Shop '60s in my 2008 American Standard Jazz 4 string. My wife bought these for me for Christmas and I've just now gotten around to installing them. I had them on a list with a number of other sets of pickups. These were the ones she chose.
I started becoming disillusioned with my jazz. To my ears it just didn't sound like a jazz should. There wasn't enough woody warmth. It was very boomy/thumpy even when playing quietly. Digging in would muddy up the lows and you'd find yourself reaching for the amp eq. Highs were too prevalent. The overall spectrum lacked definition and seemed sterile. The highs always reminded me that I had a maple fretboard and was unforgiving. It kinda sounded like a jazz or at least reminded me of one but just wasn't doing the trick. To me the pickups just seemed to try and fit a more modern mold. The tone didn't resonate with what I heard in my head - a playground of bits and pieces of things I'd heard and liked of other jazz basses.
Several months back I was tooling around on TB looking to see what people were really saying about the Fender CS 60's vs AS 2008 pickups. I came across a few posts identifying the 2008 stock pickups as pretty good and really very similar to the CS 60's. That is when I sort of put off the install and just lived with what I had. Until the other day... I decided I'd install the pickups and if I still hated the sound I'd put it the jazz up for sale/trade.
I was a little intimidated with my first ever pickup install but after consulting TB, Google and YouTube I was up for the challenge. And once I got them installed I was pretty surprised at the outcome.
The string to string balance was immediately better. The boominess was no more - they can thump but it was musical and playing with a soft touch revealed a lot of character. So much character in fact that I played quiet for while till my wife wondered what I was doing. I couldn't do that before and still hear the definition. There was warmth with a woodiness that wasn't there before and a bit more growl. There's no mud when you dig in. The note definition is far better. A noticeable airiness or space (does this make sense?) exists throughout the entire instrument.
With both pickups at full volume there were similarities between the pickup sets in certain tonal qualities but that is where the similarities ended. Solo the neck and its more vintage P like in comparison to the stock. The stock was more in your face. Solo the new bridge pickup and there was instantly more growl. I think these pickups are doing a better job of translating what this bass has to say. I played late until my wife yelled at me, "quit holding that curvy body and get to bed and hold mine!". I blamed her for the Christmas gift.
Sadly I didn't record and in retrospect I should have for my fellow TBers (although my playing sucks). Instead all you got was wordy emotional subjective tone vomit. Fortunately the difference was noticeable enough for my own assessment. I'd have paid $120 of my own money to achieve this level of improvement. IMHO this particular pickup swap is worth your exploration if you are similarly malcontent with your sound should you have these more recent 2008+ Fender AS Jazz. I'm assuming they're all like the set I had. Blah.
Now for the annoyances... Fender QC on these pickups could have been better. There was too much wax when they potted the pickups and it spilled out on the top. I had to take an xacto knife to the wax to get rid of it so the covers would fit flat. Also, I didn't realize the pickup poles weren't flush. Not a big deal I guess, it doesn't interfere with my playing style. The other thing, both covers are slightly warped. Lastly one of the grounding tabs in my bass had the wires wrapped around it so many times it might never come off. One hell of a "mechanical connection". It couldn't ever draw enough of the solder out of the wire wrap so I had to snip away at it with wire cutter tips until it all crumbled. That was the most length part of the entire install.
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Praise & Worship #813
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When I got married my wife said I couldn't leave my bass laying on the bed anymore. 
