For sale Vintage Icon VJ74 Road Worn Jazz Bass - Local Pickup

Must....resist......local......GAS!

I have one of these. It is a great jazz bass for the money.

The tone knob on mine doesn't seem to impact the tone in a big way. Did you experience that, and did your upgrade fix it?

socialleper said:

I have one of these. It is a great jazz bass for the money.

The tone knob on mine doesn't seem to impact the tone in a big way. Did you experience that, and did your upgrade fix it?

Click to expand...

To answer your questions: Yes, I did notice that with this bass and yes, my upgrade did fix it.

When I picked it up from the shop the tech said that they are using a value of capacitor for the tone that is mostly used in electric guitar which is not great for electric bass. The capacitor he replaced it with I didn't like the sound of so I guess it is up to the player to decide what is best for their sound/tone. I prefer the sound of the .047 cap.

As a note, the stock electronic components in these basses are the standard cheap pots w/ single small cap setup. When replacing everything with high quality components it really makes a big difference in the sound. The cap I used is also high quality, made for guitar/bass and about the size and shape of half a AA battery. The orange drop type caps are ok too, but when you are wanting a better passive tone control the type and quality of the cap matters as well as the pot quality and values.

If you choose to upgrade, I recommend using 250k CTS pots and experiment with different caps to get the sound you want (this includes the one that came stock for reference). If you want more output from the pickups I recommend using 500k CTS pots and stick with a 250k CTS tone pot.

Hope this helps.

That's a dang cool looking bass!