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Do the pros mod their basses?

#23
darkstorm said:
lmao. Its due to so many pros upgrading their stock pups with dimarzio, seymour duncan and emg that these companies became famous in the first place. Same for baddass bridges. Pros upgrade their stock basses on regular basis
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Hmmm,... I definitely don't have a 'comprehensive sample set' (I'm more familiar with Nashville based professionals, as well as some L.A., Toronto & NYC players), but the vast majority of my professional colleagues (guitar and bass) play stock instruments. For the minority that do have an instrument modded, it's almost always pickups- then a much smaller sampling of bridges, tuners, pots, etc... Admittedly, I see much more guitar modding than bass- easily 3 or 4 times as much!

Honestly, most pro's just aren't "Tone Hounds". They just pick up an instrument (sometimes anything laying around) & do the job.



***again- all based on my own experiences over 15 years or so, YMMV! Also not equating "pro" with "famous" ;).***
 
#24
Back in the 1960's and 70's, Fender, Rickenbacker and maybe a few others were the only legit game in town... otherwise, it was just guitar manufacturers dipping their toes into the bass making water and not doing a very good job of it. Fenders dominated, even more than they do today.

So what do you do if you have a stock Fender that you need to tweak but don't have any options for buying a new bass off the rack? Keep in mind, in those days, Fender's product lineup wasn't as large and diverse as it is today, where nearly every permutation is available at a wide variety of price points. You take it to an expert like Roger Sadowsky or Mike Tobias. Those guys started out fixing Fenders and wound up making their own instruments and the people they did those repairs and mods for were gigging musicians who needed the help.

You could say that pros were the FIRST people to mod their basses, at least in a significant way. The aftermarket parts scene that we take for granted today came about because there was such a large number of pros who loved their Fenders but needed some upgrades here and there.
 
#25
I'd have to say undoubtedly yes.
If you think about it, there would be no need for "signature" models at all if the pro didnt change something about a stock instrument!!!
It also kinda depends on how "modded" you mean. I would think a TON of the pros add some kind of straplocks right off the bat. Technically adding straplocks is a "mod" right?
 
#27
Really depends on the pro and if they are into it or not....

Timmy C is crazy about modding. He has even rewound his own pickups in an attempt to get a unique grind.

I saw Johnny A. from Staind post above. As I recall, his pickup is wired directly to the output jack and bypasses all tone controls. Now I don't know if he did this himself or not, but it is still a "modded" bass as far as I am concerned.

Many top pros have endorsement deals that allow them to work with Master Builders or custom shop folks to get exactly what they want brand new. So, they do not need to mod once they take possession of the bass. Its already built to their specs as a "one-off" of an original design.

Everyone who plays long enough knows how they get their sound. If they want basses with overwound pickups, thats what they get. Shaved neck -- no problem. BadAss bridge -- done. They may not do it all themself. But there is always someone who will get it done for them.
 
#28
Lessee here...

Leland Sklar's bass has a Charvel body, a Precision neck shaved down to Jazz bass dimensions, it's been refretted a lot (with small fretwire), a pair of EMG P PUPs, etc.

Marcus Miller's Fender has just about nothing that came from Fender any more except the wood and maybe the tuning machines.

Billy Sheehan's "Wife" is highly modded.

Bob Babbit's got a Precision with a high-mass bridge and some modded electronics (though I think he wound up taking them out).

Paul Simonon's Precision wound up having some mods done :)

It seems all of the Jazz Basses Jaco actually used were highly modded.

Geddy's Jazz bass didn't come from the factory with the BA installed.

Probably less going on now compared to when Fender only made ONE Jazz bass and ONE Precision bass- not counting left-handed/right-handed, maple/rosewood, )and fretted/fretless for the P) choices. If you wanted anything different it was a modification.

John
 
#30
Mayers said:
While other don't do anything like Les Claypool, John Patitucci and John Myung.
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It's funny that you mention Claypool and Myung, cause reading through the thread those were two of my influences that I thought of.

JM played a highly-modified four-string back when Dream Theater made their first album, with an extra pickup added between the stock pups. He went to a six-string, the Yamaha signature model he endorsed, and before switching to the six-string Bongo bass, he actually had another Yamaha with only one pickup, having decided that if he was always going to dial the balance to the one spot, he might as well just have the pickup placed there and not mess with it.

Claypool has always played odd gear, besides his J-basses and other gear he collects. His main four-string was modded with a Khaler tremolo, not to mention he strung it with two A strings and two G strings, still tuned to EADG, to add some floppiness.

Besides that, I can think of a few artists, like Billy Sheehan, that make some simple mods, but I think the artists worth noting are known for their technique, and not all of their bells and whistles.

Also noteworthy is how Emmett Chapman kept adding strings, gears, levers and such to his guitar, only to stumble on a technique that led him to throw it all out and "simplify" by making the Chapman Stick.
 
#31
Blue_Whistle88 said:
I know that John Myung, contrary to what was stated further up, has modded a couple of his basses. The Spector NS-2 that he used to record I&W was stock, and the Tobias Basic 6 that he used for a bit afterwards was also stock, as was the Tung that he used after that (though there weren't many Tung basses made so one could almost call them "custom built"). But, while his first Yamaha signature bass was always stock, the second one he had (RBX JM-2) had a second pickup installed with accommodating electronics about a year or two after he first started using them. To the best of my knowledge though he continued to use a stock JM-2 alongside the modded one for quite awhile.

In addition to that, he's had a modified Musicman Stingray for quite some time (since the I&W days even IIRC), the mod being a second pickup installed in the neck position. He's used that bass on one or two albums I think. Recently he has been playing stock Bongo 6 strings, usually HS but occasionally HH models. They're not modded but even more recently he's been experimenting with different dimensions and "body masses", so maybe that could count as modded? Not modded hardware, but modding the bass itself.

EDIT: A good point that was made further up, pretty much any artist that has a signature instrument is playing a modified instrument. You could call those signature basses "stock", but ultimately most of those players don't play those exact models that the companies sell, they play further modified and custom-made versions (despite the marketing ;))
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you beat me to it but here's a (very bad quality small) picture of said early musicman 4 string bass Google Image Result for http://s2.hubimg.com/u/1757065_f260.jpg

you can make out a neck position mudbucker and a Pbass pickup added to it... tone heaven!

He also played a modded fender jazz in his college years
 

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