American Standard w/ Custom Shop 60's

[narud]

Narud, the man did a significant price jump to a product that he was sure to be better than his SVM. Perhaps you have the money for the Fodera, now multiply that purchase price by 3 with the hopes of a much better product in hand. If it turned out to sound worse do you still just modify the instrument? Would you really buy a $12,000 instrument and just change the pickups?

pickups can very much be the voice of an instrument. if i put some low wind pickups from a squier affinity, youre not going to hear what you might want from that bass.

youre not just paying for tonal differences. youre paying for construction/quality of materials/country of origin etc. the mia jazz might be better in everyway than the squier but still not have the tone you want. its relatively cheap to get there. the old duncan designed they were using were bigger and growlier sounding than the cs60's. the fender designed theyre using now are wound to 8k. thats going to sound a lot different than the cs60's as well.

 

[Lowbrow]

What I like about Fender basses - P basses in my case - is that as long as it plays well I have myriad options for switching out pickups until I find something I like. Thus, I don't really consider the sound of a given in-place pickup to be the be-all in a bass; IME the physical aspects are much more a determiner. Naturally there may be basses that will never sound right no matter what you install--but I've yet to encounter that. I've also noted that the cost and/or desirability of a given pickup will not affect how much I like said pickup. I often take advice here at TB. Using these insights, I've tried and passed on '62 Fender Originals, Fralins and Novaks, arriving at a preference for Aguilar and DiMarzio (different pickups for different applications). If this means 'use your ears,' I'm sorry to have arrived at this somewhat worn advice. I think the takeaway is really 'you have options, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

Narud, the man did a significant price jump to a product that he was sure to be better than his SVM. Perhaps you have the money for the Fodera, now multiply that purchase price by 3 with the hopes of a much better product in hand. If it turned out to sound worse do you still just modify the instrument? Would you really buy a $12,000 instrument and just change the pickups?

I would. You can easily change how an instrument sounds, you cannot easily change how an instrument plays. Now would I route, that is a different question, probably not.

OP it is very possible you prefer the sound of the Squier, just don't get output confused with tone. I have met people who insist that a pickup has more output it has better tone, and that is just not the case. If you don't like how the American Standard plays, then definitely sell it, that is not worth changing.

 

[Lowbrow]

OP it is very possible you prefer the sound of the Squier, just don't get output confused with tone. I have met people who insist that a pickup has more output it has better tone, and that is just not the case. If you don't like how the American Standard plays, then definitely sell it, that is not worth changing.

+1 more audible (hate to say 'louder') will often seem better during a quick A/B listen - but you know that.

 

[tim68]

Back when the AM Stds. first came out with the CS60 pickups in 2012, I bought a new Am Std. Jazz Bass. It was the then-new Jade pearl (?) metallic green finish, and was absolutely gorgeous. That bass was the worst sounding J bass I've ever heard. Tinny, with NO low end to speak of, no matter how you tried to tweak it. I couldn't get that thing returned fast enough! That was a worse case example, I've heard some CS60 Js since that weren't AS bad, but I really prefer the previous '08-'11 Am Std. pickups. In the Ps as well as the Js.