Hi folks,
It's been a while since I last posted here, but rest assured that I have been busy modding basses and playing them at gigs. These days, I favor the look and feel of the traditional Precision bass, but I also have the need for the Jazz growl.
I came across a nice used MIM Fender Precision Bass Special (Deluxe Edition) for $300, and I jumped at it. The finish is 3-tone sunburst, which made this instrument look very classy, except for the fact that it came with a cheesy gold-anodized aluminum pickguard. The action was very high and the intonation was off a bit. But it had the P and J pickup confiuration that I ideally wanted, so I bought it.
I went online to
www.angela.com and bought a Vintage Fender '62 tortoiseshell pickguard, a Fender Vintage '62 P pickup, and a chrome pickup cover. I also went to another site and bought a Seymour Duncan Basslines Hot Stack J Pickup and a Stellartone variable tone switch (for bass).
I removed the ugly pickguard and proceeded to shield the interior cavities with copper tape (OSH carries this stuff called slug/snail repellant tape) and ground the cavity to the output jack. I removed both pickups and replaced them with the new pickups and used a stacked knob for the volumes of each pickup. The Stellartone went into the adjacent vacant hole, and the tone pot also got replaced by a push-pull switch pot which works as a series/parallel switch for the J pickup (it's a humbucker)--making the pickup wired with itself in series (normal) or parallel (tighter tone). The Stellartone has 16 different passive EQ settings--each tone curve is musically pleasant, and they sound great in conjunction with the P and J in various blends or alone.
I also removed the plastic nut and installed a brass nut; I removed the tuning keys and replaced them with "F logo" sealed tuning keys (the bass seller gave them to me for free); I took some steel wool and elbow grease to remove the tarnish off of the frets, and used furniture polish to remove any additional gunk on the body and neck of the instrument. The bass was squeaky clean and looked MINT at this point. I strung it up with new bass strings, adjusted the truss rod (the neck is STRAIGHT) and adjusted the saddles. I then plugged it into my amp. Oh, the tones...the TONES...! I played that bass for several hours--walking around with it in the house and wallowing in its newly realized mojo.
This bass is beautiful now--with the vibe of a '62 Precision (ala James Jamerson, complete with the chrome pickup cover) but with the added bonus of the killer Jazz pickup which can be blended in and modified using the Stellartone. Plus, the "secret ninja" switch under the original tone knob can allow access to the parallel humbucking tone of the Jazz pickup. My bandmates and audience members "ooh and ahh" this bass for its elegant looks and its versatile, yet tasty tones.
Do I have any remorse over modding this bass? I think not. It was only worth $300 to me to start, and with about $200 of extras, I have made it my own custom creation. If Fender made a versatile "looker" bass like this in their Custom Shops, it would probably sell for well over $1000. One always has reservations over taking an expensive instrument and gutting it, but short of asking a Custom Shop to build something like this and shelling out buku bucks for it, how else can one get their perfect instrument? Yeah, its resell value probably is gone from all the modding I did to it, but I have a bass that I can feel proud of owning, playing and showing off. It is MY bass--no one else has a bass like this one--and it truly rocks.
I have modded basses before, but this one was my masterpiece. The very first bass I owned was a MIJ Squier Jazz which I modded haphazardly. It has a big hole in the back covered with a black plastic cover, but it has EMGs and it sounds great. You gotta start somewhere!
My advice is to dream big and follow your intuition when it comes to modding an instrument, but plan ahead, have good tools and learn how to use them before gouging out a hole or ripping out the frets of your instrument! Good luck!
