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customizing a squier affinity pbass

#9
Link Removed

Apparently changing the capacitors and such can make a GREAT improvement over an existing bass. This setup from Bayou cables is only $25 and it includes the whole harness, all you'd have to do is solder them to the pickups it looks like!

My little P-Bass mod project is turning out to be quite expensive! Although I'm excited to work on it!!

Right now, for B-Day presents, I'm looking at getting:

  • BadAss-II Bridge (pre-grooved)
  • Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders
  • Bayou Cables Pre-wired Harness

After that I'm looking to get some new tuners. Does anyone know what is a good drop in fit for my Squier P-Bass?
 
#13
sublime0bass said:
the only downside is a powdercoated Badass2 will not be electrically conductive, so you wont be able to string ground
Click to expand...

This was a huge issue for me on my P bass with black BAII. I'm surprised there is not more discussion about this problem with the black BAII bridge.

To me, an ungrounded bridge on a Fender bass is completely unacceptable.

What we did to fix the problem was to scratch the coating off the bridge plate around one of the mounting holes on the bottom, and under the screw head on the top side. Then a ground wire that attached under the bridge plate was wrapped around the screw to keep it secure (we added an extra "jumper" so that I could take the pick guard off more easily in the future without being tied by short ground wire.) We found that the screw was also a poor conductor - we scratched the color off of the bottom of the screw head to correspond with the screw hole which now had exposed metal and we made sure to do the same along the threads where ground wire attached underneath the bridge plate. We found that once the ground wire made contact with the screw which made good contact with the bridge plate, the saddle already had a good contact with the bridge - so all was fine.

I'm really surprised that anybody makes a Fender replacement bridge that doesn't conduct electricity out of the box. If you buy a black BAII - It will be necessary to take steps to assure that your strings are grounded.

OP - If you want to hear some clips of a P bass with BAII and Quarter Pounders in a more garage band type situation - you can follow this link to my bands site and click on the music player:

www.flufferrocks.com ;)
 
#14
^im just going to star ground, except i dont really know how and can't find a decent link

although i theorized doing all that afformentioned sanding. i've declined to thus far but my pbass sounds AWESOME now that its got all those mods, and i dont care to play with my finger on a knob
 
#16
Matt Freeman of rancid uses a jazz bass too. Atleast he did in all their good cds. After life wont wait rancid isnt as good as they were. Anyway I just recently picked up a squire vm p bass. And was amazing with the quality. Squire is definatly getting better. Im not sure with their affinity series. I played one when I was first starting out almost 7 years ago and I wasnt impressed. I put a duncan spb3 in almost a week after I bought it. And the tone is amazing. I plan on getting the badass 2 bridge for the p eventualy but the stock one is fine for now. If you havent already get new strings the stock squire strings were terrable. When I bought the p bass I remember thinking that it wont replace my jazz but it did. As for the badass2 bridge good choise. I have one on my jazz and it sounds amazing. But you are going to want to take a dremel to the back side of the bridge so you have a good connection for the ground. Even the chrome ones dont very well
 
#17
StewMac sells good quality parts. I have used them and had no problems. The Cap Is the capacitor across the legs of the tone pot on a Jazz bass and between the two pots on a P-Bass that effects how much of the highs are rolled off. the highre you go the more highs are rolled off so a .068 would be much brighter than a .1. It all depends on what sound you are going for.
 

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