CIJ Fender 62RI Jazz uneven pickup volume

[MrUsefulAlien]

I bought a fretless-conversion Japanese jazz bass from 1999-2002.
I have Labella 760FL on it and the G and E are substantially louder than the A + D.
I tried lowering and raising the various combinations of pickups or saddles, and cannot get an even volume without sacrificing buzzing or high action.
I've read threads that indicate this is a common issue on jazz basses.

My Lakland skyline DJ4 has no such issues, neither did my maruszczyk Elwood 4a with Delano's, or chinese-made Levinson Blade Tertra B4.

Does anyone know what the stock pickups are on these basses?
Any recommendations for replacement sets the will not give me boomy G strings and anemic A + D?

The bass in question:

 

[ric4682]

I believe those would just be vintage style alnico fender pups. I’m having the same issue with a bass of mine. It’s due to the radius of the fingerboard. Since the fingerboard is curved the two outside strings are closer to the pickups than the middle ones.

I would look into pickups that have adjustable pole pieces, like dimarzio, or a blade style pickup, like Joe Barden or Nordstrand for a more even and balanced tone and volume across all of the strings.

 

[MrUsefulAlien]

I believe those would just be vintage style alnico fender pups. I’m having the same issue with a bass of mine. It’s due to the radius of the fingerboard. Since the fingerboard is curved the two outside strings are closer to the pickups than the middle ones.

I would look into pickups that have adjustable pole pieces, like dimarzio, or a blade style pickup, like Joe Barden or Nordstrand for a more even and balanced tone and volume across all of the strings.

That seems to be the common explanation, maybe my other jazz basses have a flatter radius, but they don't exhibit the same volume unevenness.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

Fifty-year old technology dies in 2020? I’m shocked.

 

[Yahboy]

Suggest OP read this first .....

The pickup trick many bass players don’t know — Haze Guitars

This is between the fight of Flush magnet pole piece vs 7.5 fretboard radius stuff.

raise magnet pole piece .talkbass - بحث Google

I been DIY my Squier Classic vibe 60J ,VM 77J, CV 50P and some of my bassist buddy jazz bass pickup magnet polepiece, and my current Sterling sub ray5 ceramic rod to make the output balance from string to string.

Suggest visit Squier classic vibe club forum and sterling sub ray4 and ray5 forum.

Risk free and great result.

 

[Yahboy]

 

[MrUsefulAlien]

Suggest OP read this first .....

The pickup trick many bass players don’t know — Haze Guitars

This is between the fight of Flush magnet pole piece vs 7.5 fretboard radius stuff.

raise magnet pole piece .talkbass - بحث Google

I been DIY my Squier Classic vibe 60J ,VM 77J, CV 50P and some of my bassist buddy jazz bass pickup magnet polepiece, and my current Sterling sub ray5 ceramic rod to make the output balance from string to string.

Suggest visit Squier classic vibe club forum and sterling sub ray4 and ray5 forum.

Risk free and great result.

The first link says 'if you have a jazz too bad', so not sure what the trick there is.
I've got 6 basses which I do setups and electronics work on, so I've got experience and know the principles of radiuses necks and J pickups.

As I've stated, my other jazz basses have radiuses necks too and the volume is even, this is the first JB I've owned with this issue, which leads me to believe it's the pickups.

I've seen something on here about using washers, but no pictures were included, and I didn't really understand where they place the washers.

The Google link is just a Google search so that's not all that useful since I've read about the issue and would need more specific input from other Japanese fender owners.
I'd need someone to confirm that these pickups won't break when I push the bobbins up.

 

[ric4682]

It very well could be the pickups. Maybe a more modern/higher output pickup is less sensitive to the distance from the string so a more “vintage” or lower output pickup would be more uneven when met with a vintage radius? I’m not sure if that is the case, I’m just spitballing.

I do know that the MIJ P bass I had was an excellent, resonant bass with a weak, thin sounding pickup. The MIJ and CIJ fenders are built very well and normally sound great acoustically, but the electronics can be a weak point with them IME.

 

[walterw]

I tried lowering and raising the various combinations of pickups or saddles, and cannot get an even volume without sacrificing buzzing or high action.
I've read threads that indicate this is a common issue on jazz basses.

yep;

the fix with stock pickups is (after putting the saddles where they belong for proper playability) to drop the pickups, like a lot lower than they are in that pic. it's the "inverse square law" thing with magnetism, dropping the pickups reduces the difference between one string and another at the expense of overall loudness.

bump the amp volume, add some compression to the signal chain and it'll be fine.

(that said i'm not a fan of "fine", i want good; i'm thus a fan of J pickups with radiused magnet staggers so that they follow the curve of the strings and let me bring them back up a little closer for more output while keeping a good balance. fralin and dimarzio are two companies that do this)

 

[MrUsefulAlien]

yep;

the fix with stock pickups is (after putting the saddles where they belong for proper playability) to drop the pickups, like a lot lower than they are in that pic. it's the "inverse square law" thing with magnetism, dropping the pickups reduces the difference between one string and another at the expense of overall loudness.
bump the amp volume, add some compression to the signal chain and it'll be fine.

(that said i'm not a fan of "fine", i want good; i'm thus a fan of J pickups with radiused magnet staggers so that they follow the curve of the strings and let me bring them back up a little closer for more output while keeping a good balance. fralin and dimarzio are two companies that do this)

View attachment 3919061

Thanks for the tip, that's not an acceptable solution for a bass at this level and price point, to be honest
I switch basses between songs at times, and even if I don't, I like to have the output at a similar level across all my basses.

I will replace the pickups, the difference in volume isn't even subtle. The G string moves more air than the 10th fret on the A. I've never experienced anything like this on a quality instrument.

That being said, a previous poster mentioned the questionable quality of some CIJ instruments, maybe I landed a lemon.
The bass is wonderful otherwise, so I'm not planning on selling it, just feeling annoyed that I need to invest money to make it giggable.

 

[walterw]

That being said, a previous poster mentioned the questionable quality of some CIJ instruments, maybe I landed a lemon.
The bass is wonderful otherwise

nah, it's not the bass itself, the japanese fenders are indeed nice. lowering flat-pole pickups is the correct answer to the issue though, at least until replacing them with something made to compensate.

 

[MrUsefulAlien]

nah, it's not the bass itself, the japanese fenders are indeed nice. lowering flat-pole pickups is the correct answer to the issue though, at least until replacing them with something made to compensate.

Agreed, it's A solution, in my case THE solution is changing the pickups. Thinking fender noiseless, there's a nice used Gen4 set for a reasonable price in the UK.

 

[walterw]

Thinking fender noiseless, there's a nice used Gen4 set for a reasonable price in the UK.

if you went with a noiseless type, i think the dimarzio area J set would both sound better and be louder than those, but i have no idea if you can even get those where you are

 

[MrUsefulAlien]

if you went with a noiseless type, i think the dimarzio area J set would both sound better and be louder than those, but i have no idea if you can even get those where you are

Loudness per-se is not a prerequisite, I'm more after an evenness of volume across the strings goal.
I'm only going after used sets, because funds are tight, so far I've seen some DiMarzio UltraJazz, Duncan SJB2 or 3, a few noiseless sets, some EMG passives (haven't read good things about them), and one guy selling Morch pickups (Danish), all in the $90-$110 range per set.

I'm open to other suggestions too, the bass is a fretless with flats, so I'm going for that sound, but not too much mwah, I plan to use it as a 'flatwound-donning J' sound for songs.

 

[walterw]

so far I've seen some DiMarzio UltraJazz, Duncan SJB2 or 3, a few noiseless sets, some EMG passives (haven't read good things about them), and one guy selling Morch pickups (Danish), all in the $90-$110 range per set.

not familiar with morch, but of the rest, ultra-jazz are quite powerful but still flat-pole (so dropping them low might do the trick) duncan 2 "hot" are also flat-pole and just kind of dull-sounding to my ear, duncan 3 "quarter pound" are pretty nice, loud and aggressive and newer ones actually have staggered magnets for good balance. the quarter pounders could be a good choice, maybe a little "angry" sounding for fretless but you can always nudge back the tone knob.

with fender noiseless stuff, the newer ones sound better than the older ones but they're still kind of bland; they typically get paired with a preamp in the bass to boost them up.

if you're not so worried about noiseless vs real single coil, there's an argument to stick to real single coils for a livelier tone.

 

[MrUsefulAlien]

not familiar with morch, but of the rest, ultra-jazz are quite powerful but still flat-pole (so dropping them low might do the trick) duncan 2 "hot" are also flat-pole and just kind of dull-sounding to my ear, duncan 3 "quarter pound" are pretty nice, loud and aggressive and newer ones actually have staggered magnets for good balance. the quarter pounders could be a good choice, maybe a little "angry" sounding for fretless but you can always nudge back the tone knob.

with fender noiseless stuff, the newer ones sound better than the older ones but they're still kind of bland; they typically get paired with a preamp in the bass to boost them up.

if you're not so worried about noiseless vs real single coil, there's an argument to stick to real single coils for a livelier tone.

I'm not too worried about SC vs noiseless, I have a series/parralel switch and use the former a fair amount.
I'm also not concerned about flat pole d pickups, since on other basses they've performed to my liking, with nice and even volume.

What do you think about the dimarzio dp123?
Thanks for the other insight about each pickup's tonal character.

 

[walterw]

I'm not too worried about SC vs noiseless, I have a series/parralel switch and use the former a fair amount.

if you're using a series wiring setup then noiseless pickups could get dark and muddy, that's four coils all in series. single coils would make more sense here.

I'm also not concerned about flat pole d pickups, since on other basses they've performed to my liking, with nice and even volume.

actual jazz basses? because that is the issue; have you tried adjusting this one to be just like the ones you say work fine?

What do you think about the dimarzio dp123?

a good pickup, not super-powerful but smooth sounding, and of course with adjustable poles to fix string balance.

 

[MrUsefulAlien]

if you're using a series wiring setup then noiseless pickups could get dark and muddy, that's four coils all in series. single coils would make more sense here.

actual jazz basses? because that is the issue; have you tried adjusting this one to be just like the ones you say work fine?

a good pickup, not super-powerful but smooth sounding, and of course with adjustable poles to fix string balance.

Glad you mentioned that! I will definitely get single coils then, I get a lot of mileage out of the series setting.

How do you mean 'actual'? Jazz bass copies to be technical, 3 of them, only the fender doesn't work right. Other 3 are: Lakland DJ4, Blade Tetra B4 (rounds), and Maruszczyk Elwood (with flats). They don't have these volume discrepancies, maybe the modem pickups make up for it. I'll say this, the E and G sound louder and fuller on the fender (to a point of detriment).
The CIJ jazz has an overpowering E and G, by an standard. The other J's have better balance, and relatively quiter/thinner/more focused E and G strings (what I'd consider a typical jazz bass E).

 

[walterw]

How do you mean 'actual'? Jazz bass copies to be technical, 3 of them, only the fender doesn't work right. Other 3 are: Lakland DJ4, Blade Tetra B4 (rounds), and Maruszczyk Elwood (with flats). They don't have these volume discrepancies, maybe the modem pickups make up for it.

those all three look like nice basses!

i can tell with at least the first two that they have a much flatter fretboard radius, meaning there isn't as much height difference in the strings over the pickups; that's likely the reason.