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Jack Casady Bass

Lonesomedave

Lonesomedave

May 13, 2011
783
30
Nashville, Cats
#1
hi guys,

look at the picture below. it is a portion of a picture showing Jack Casady, when he was with Jefferson Airplane, playing live. I especially want you to look at the bass.

It is a fender Jazz bass, modified with a precision pick up installed immediately below the neck. That's right! this bass had 3 pick ups!-- two jazz pick ups in the normal place, and a precision pick up. (I apologize for the darkness of the photo, but it was the only one I could get that showed all three pick ups)

jackcasadybass.png


I am going to have one of my son's jazz basses modified to be like this. I have obtained a precision pick up (1962 model, with alinco magnets).

my question is this. I know Jack Casady had a fabulous sound, and this was, in fact, the bass he used to get much of that sound, but can you foresee any potential problems with the mod?

I have a couple of guitar mod gurus in Nashville who will do the mod for @ 400.00, so getting it done is no problem.

I just want your thoughts.

thanks.

/s/ Dave
 
#2
Certainly it can be done - but recognize that whether it sounds great is up to the player, not the pickups. To sound as good as Jack, you have to BE as good as Jack.

And nowadays, he plays the model he consulted with Epi to build - it only has ONE pickup...but when you're good, one pickup is enough. It's a great bass.

PB070047.jpg
 
#3
Other than lowering the value if you ever decide to sell, it should have no problems. Whoever does the work will have to cut the guard precisely, but a skilled tech should be able to do that. Jack used different basses through out the early years, but that was one of them. Good luck.
 
#4
Pilgrim & Nagurjuna:

thanks for the thoughts.

1. My son does have an epiphone Jack Casady Bass just like the one in the picture, except it is black and he plays it all the time. He practices Jefferson Airplane at least twice a week.

2. The Jazz bass we will use is a Frankenbass which has the Geddy Lee neck I took off his Geddy Lee when we modified it, so no problem with lowering the value of the bass.

3. I could not agree more, it is in the player, but my son practices all the time and I think he is pretty damn good. Exhibit One: the video below :smug:

Davy Playing :: SDC10436.mp4 video by straightflushwheel - Photobucket.

/s/ Dave
 
#6
I'm no expert on Jack's history, but from what I remember back in the day he had a Guild hollow body. That was in all the promotional pictures and footage I saw. This was in Airplane's glory years and is the sound that I associated with him.
 
#7
The classic Casady sound - heard most prominently on the live album "Bless Its Pointed Little Head" is actually a two-pickup Guild Starfire with a wheelbarrow full of Alembic electronics shoehorned into it.

Jack also used a Versatone amp on a separate volume pedal to dial in varying degrees of distorted bite in combination with his regular amps.

Truly, Jack is one of the Kings of the Bass Guitar.
 
#8
Interesting--J^3 like a Big Al. I was discussing this with someone yesterday but he wanted to do J-P-J anyway thanks for the pic I've always wondered the same & at least we now have an example of successful application by Casady
please let us know how it turns out
 
#9
I saw Cassidy playing a Danelectro Longhorn in a Kansas City concert -- late-'60's or early '70's. And, since I'm on the subject, after a Memorial Hall concert, a high school mate (a bass player at the time) actually stole his bass (the Alembic, I believe) from a Kansas City, KS hotel after talking briefly to the band. The guy got paranoid after much criticism and a televised plea for its return and delivered the bass to the KC airport a couple of weeks later.
 
#10
thanks for all the input guys. but back to my original question, or at least what I meant my original question to be: any thoughts on the technical aspects of this mod... or any possible problems i should watch out for?

Hifiguy... you truly said a mouthful. Jack Casady is indeed one of the true all time greats, AND his sound was the greatest... just the best bass sound that's ever been
Hifiguy said:
...Truly, Jack is one of the Kings of the Bass Guitar....
Click to expand...

/s/ Dave

ps: here is a photo that I cropped using photoshop; it shows the bass & the precision pick ups a little better.

jackcasadybasscropped.png
 
#12
Lonesome Dave, that mod isn't untried, it's been done fairly often and the results have been good (my old P copy had the same mod back in '76, and other chums who wanted the Jack thing did it back then). As i recall it made my P a lot "heavier" in combo with the neck pup.

A crisp P pup with articulated highs, in that spot, will yield some good additional colors for the palette. Good luck!
 

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