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converting a P to a P/J Q's!

W

williamk

Apr 2, 2008
871
28
#1
hi there
maybe this should belong in "setup & repair" or something...please let me know.
I have a p-bass I'm really in love with. I still love the sound of a
jazz and recently wrote a thread asking for a light jazz bass as I would have wanted one that is as light as my p bass (btw thanks to all who suggested stuff in that thread!) but then a thought came to my mind...could I simply add a j-bass bridge pickup to my p-bass and have only one bass? my questions are the following: how hard is this to do? I wouldn't do it myself obviously, I'm a n00b when it comes to lutherie. secondly will this affect the p-bass' "p-bass" sound? or will this not change? Is this something commonly done or have some of you been thru the process?
Thanks!
 
#2
It's a fairly simple process. Route a hole for the jazz pickup, drop it in, wire it up (requires modding the stock p wiring ) and there ya to. Despite what some people say, it will still sound like a p bass with the p pickup soloed. Only advice is to take it to a reputable luthier.
 
#3
thisSNsucks said:
It's a fairly simple process. Route a hole for the jazz pickup, drop it in, wire it up (requires modding the stock p wiring ) and there ya to. Despite what some people say, it will still sound like a p bass with the p pickup soloed. Only advice is to take it to a reputable luthier.
Click to expand...

ok cool, good to know...I guess finding the "right" pickup can be quite the challenge too!
 
#4
I recommend a noise-cancelling pickup that will match the character of the P pickup. So if you have a "vintage" style P pickup, then someone like Fralin or Aguilar can make an end-to-end dual coil pickup that will match the P or even a DiMarzio J model, or even one of the new Fender Noiseless. If you have something like a SD quarter-pounder, then something like a DiMarzio Ultra-Jazz or a SD overwound stack (even though I don't really like stacked pickups - they lose low end definition, but that may not be an issue anyway in the bridge position) would be a suitable match.
 
#6
When I did mine, I took care to match the impedance of both pickups, or get them close.
In my case, it was an SD 1/4-pounder P with a 1/4-pounder bridge J.

I've since torn those out and am routing the body for a MM, as the luthier who did the route for the J didn't center it properly. -_-
 
#7
williamk said:
hi there
maybe this should belong in "setup & repair" or something...please let me know.
I have a p-bass I'm really in love with. I still love the sound of a
jazz and recently wrote a thread asking for a light jazz bass as I would have wanted one that is as light as my p bass (btw thanks to all who suggested stuff in that thread!) but then a thought came to my mind...could I simply add a j-bass bridge pickup to my p-bass and have only one bass? my questions are the following: how hard is this to do? I wouldn't do it myself obviously, I'm a n00b when it comes to lutherie. secondly will this affect the p-bass' "p-bass" sound? or will this not change? Is this something commonly done or have some of you been thru the process?
Thanks!
Click to expand...

A few hints. First you'll have to rout a cavity for the J bridge pickup. Since you are a noob I do NOT recommend trying that yourself or even a luthier of lesser skill or experience. Routing a neck pickup is the place for a noob to start because the pickguard covers a multitude of sins. The bridge J on the other hand is not covered and out there in the open. And worse the bass is already finished. So you have to have a nice "clean" rout with no chews on the edges and no chips and spots on the existing finish. This is NOT a job for the inexperienced.

I converted a Squier special P 5er to PJ but it started with two Jazz pickups. I only had to rout the one under the pickguard (which did not come out very nice) and just had to take a dremel tool and sand the original bridge route just a tad longer to take the Dimarzio J I put in there. That came out looking great because it was only sanding.

Next, if you want to keep your P tone, keep your P pickup. That makes sense. And next if you go volume/volume controls double the size of the volume pots. So if your curent volume pot is 250k ohms, use two 500k ohm pots for vol/vol. The reason is that the volumes are in parallel and even if the J is off, the P pickup will be loaded with half of the 500k resistance which is 250k or the original value, hence the original tone. This is a small effect though.

And remember that a P-bass pickup is a humbucker. And they are also quite hot. For that reason you want to use some kind of "noiseless" J pickup because un like a jazz bass with single coils these pickups will NOT cancel hum if the J is a single coil. I used a Dimarzio and it is great but a bit weak. Hence to balance the tone with both pickups on "full" the P-pickup volume has to be reduced to about 80%. So as iiipopes said, you want to have as hot a jazz as you can find to match the output of the P-pickup.

But other than these points it's pretty simple mod. And you'll need a long drill for the wire channel from the bridge cavity to the control cavity. Luthier doing routing probably will handle that too.

Good luck. And as far as I"m concerned it's WORTH the effort to do this!
 
#10
williamk said:
could I simply add a j-bass bridge pickup to my p-bass and have only one bass? my questions are the following: how hard is this to do? I wouldn't do it myself obviously, I'm a n00b when it comes to lutherie. secondly will this affect the p-bass' "p-bass" sound? or will this not change? Is this something commonly done or have some of you been thru the process?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Don't do it.

There are so many reasons not to, starting with spending money to absolutely destroy the value of your bass.

Lots of technical misinformation in this thread.

Bottom line: If you're absolutely hell-bent on a P/J, BUY a P/J and change the V/V/T wiring to the configuration used on the Fender Tony Franklin (Switch/V/T) with a 3-way rotary switch.

Passive V/V/T absolutely will change the sound of the P (and J) pickup due to the added inductance trainwreck, which will also keep the V/V/T intended function from working worth squat. Passive V/V/T's a terrible engineering gaffe and always has been. The more dissimilar the pickups the worse it works.
 
#12
williamk said:
yes, I have to say I had considered this...but I already bought it used and really feel like it's a keeper and that I will not want to try to sell it. food for thought anyhow...
Click to expand...

That's the way I look at them, too.
If it's good enough to mod it, it's a keeper and I'm NOT selling it.
Hence why I'm modding mine for the second time to fix the problem created by the first mod.
 
#14
Actually if you keep the V and T controls as is and use a switch to select the pickups you absolutely will not change the sound of the P bass. A whole lot of us never use our V/V and V/B controls to do anything except select one pickup alone, the other alone, or both equally anyway....

Ken
 
#15
iiipopes said:
I recommend a noise-cancelling pickup that will match the character of the P pickup. So if you have a "vintage" style P pickup, then someone like Fralin or Aguilar can make an end-to-end dual coil pickup that will match the P or even a DiMarzio J model, or even one of the new Fender Noiseless. If you have something like a SD quarter-pounder, then something like a DiMarzio Ultra-Jazz or a SD overwound stack (even though I don't really like stacked pickups - they lose low end definition, but that may not be an issue anyway in the bridge position) would be a suitable match.
Click to expand...

I recommend the same thing, a split coil jazz bass pickup, that way you have an even number of coils.
 
#16
Stumbled upon this thread while doing some digging for bridge pup info for a PJ bass.
So the general consensus is to install a split coil or noiseless pup?
I was really considering going with the Fender Custom 60s Jazz Bass pup to pair with the Original '62 P-Bass pup.
Mistake?
 
#18
I had an American Fender Hot Rod P-Bass, the one they made for a few years circa '98-'00.
Anyway, if I don't get any more hum from that Custom 60s Jazz pup than I did from the bridge pup in that Hot Rod Precision, then I'm ok with that.
 
#19
WillEVee said:
I had an American Fender Hot Rod P-Bass, the one they made for a few years circa '98-'00.
Anyway, if I don't get any more hum from that Custom 60s Jazz pup than I did from the bridge pup in that Hot Rod Precision, then I'm ok with that.
Click to expand...

It's hard to say exactly how much hum a single coil will give you, because it depends on what hum sources are around. For example my one amp seems to be an excellent source of single coil hum. Some venues are especially bad.

So the best test would be what your experience has been playing a Jazz bass with single coils with one of the pickups soloed. If that hum never got too bad for you and you loved the tone, then the single coil choice could work for you. Personally I love single coil tone, but hate hum, so I opted for the Di Marzio hum cancelling J.

Let me add that unlike a jazz bass where if you turn up both the neck and bridge pickups it becomes hum cancelling, a PJ since the P is cancelling but if the J is not, will NOT cancel hum when you turn them both up. So the both pickup escape of a Jazz bass is not there.
 
#20
bassbenj said:
Let me add that unlike a jazz bass where if you turn up both the neck and bridge pickups it becomes hum cancelling, a PJ since the P is cancelling but if the J is not, will NOT cancel hum when you turn them both up. So the both pickup escape of a Jazz bass is not there.
Click to expand...

Would a stack J pickup effectively cancel the hum when both volumes are dimed?
 

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