Yamaha BBG5S, upgrades?
 

Hi!
A friend of mine let me play his Yamaha 5-string, and I loved it and plan to try to buy it from him, the only thing I didn't love was the... kind of, I don't know, ''cheap'' sound it had? I mean, it played wonderfully and all, but I'm not content at all with the pickups or electronics I guess. Any suggestions what could be made? Read something here about switching the pickups to EMG..

Problem with Yammies is that their pups are non-standard size. You'll get 3rd party pups the correct width, but not the correct length, they'll always be a bit short. If you don't mind a few mm empty space each end of the pup, then you'r ok.

I modded my BBG5 by substituting the single coil soapbars for the humbuckers off an RBX375 which are a perfect fit & give a thicker sound. I found someone who wanted to swap and we're both happy.

Of course, a change of pre could also reap dividends. A 4 pot John East in there would be excellent, but I tend to plug into an MXR-80+ which gives me a Mids control.

G.

Thank you very much!!
I'm planning to buy this one from my friend in a year or two maybe, then I can do that to! Have an old RBX375 that I do not longer use as my main bass... ;)
Thanks once again, a great idea! Even tho' the BBG5S is a bit wide between the strings for me, but you get used to it I guess.

Yes, when I first played the BBG5S I found the strings a bit wide, and I found the width of the fretboard a real challenge, as my other bass is a BB415 (with John East) which has a Jazz-style (very narrow) fretboard.

However I adjusted very quickly and with a set of Chromes, this quickly became my number one bass.

I now find the pre-amp quite adequate.

Good luck with your project.

G.