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Do you guys think this looks good?
- Thread starter trenken311
- Start date
When I hear Fender Mod Shop my mind instantly goes to "expensive". Yet what you showed me was "just" a j-bass. Sure it looks good, but I love most all J-bass. And the pickguard can be changed easily. Does it have the neck profile you like? The pickups you like? How much?
The mod shop is not the custom shop. A team built custom shop j bazz is gonna run you at least 5 grand. A masterbuilt one will cost at least 7-8 grand. Mod shop j basses are usually around 2 grand, a little less than their ultra line so they are reasonable.
You have some neck and pickup options but other than that it just allows you to pick colors that arent available in their production basses. I love candy apple red but fender doesnt seem to want to make any production basses with it anymore.
Nope.
Looks like a cheap 80s Jazz copy to me with the candy apple red (every cheap guitar back then was that color) and that stark white plain dot fretboard. These could be twins:
Looks like a cheap 80s Jazz copy to me with the candy apple red (every cheap guitar back then was that color) and that stark white plain dot fretboard. These could be twins:
It’s all right. That combo doesn’t speak to me personally. But it doesn’t matter in the least what anyone thinks but you.
Here's a beautiful Tokai Jazz Sounds in Candy Red with no pickguard from the factory. Still retains the jazz bass control plate, which I think is cool.
You could spec a body with no pickguard from Warmoth and add either a Fender or Warmoth maple neck.
I have a ton of modded Fender guitars and basses and I think it is worth considering to just buy the parts you want. You have way more control over the end product with all of the options you can pick from, and you can have them assembled if you don't want to do the assembly work yourself. For example, you can buy a candy apple red MIM Jazz Bass body, choose the pickguard and pickups that you want, custom build a super fancy neck (or find one that meets your specs like the Geddy Lee), and have it assembled by a professional luthier for well under $2k. If you assembled it yourself, it would probably cost under $1k. I'd expect around $1k total if you had a luthier set it all up. Just food for thought.
Here's a loaded body on eBay right now:
Fender Player Jazz Bass LOADED BODY, Bass Guitar Parts Alnico 5 Candy Apple Red | eBay
Here's a loaded body on eBay right now:
Fender Player Jazz Bass LOADED BODY, Bass Guitar Parts Alnico 5 Candy Apple Red | eBay
As an eBay Associate, TalkBass may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
I personally prefer a white pickguard with that red color :
Still better with a dark rosewood fretboard :
Still better with a dark rosewood fretboard :
Huh. I gave the Fender Mod Shop website a spin for the first time and just noticed a problem...
In the "Orientation" option, "right handed" is the default. If you click "left handed", there's a $50 upcharge. Click "right handed" and the upcharge does not go away. Then put the bass in your cart and the $50 upcharge remains -- congratulations, you spent fifty bucks more on your right-handed bass than you had to.
So check your work before you buy from there because deleting options does not necessarily remove their cost from the total.
(Edited to add: Looks like the Jazz Bass is the only item that costs more for a lefty. Other products I checked don't have a lefty upcharge, but I didn't look at all of 'em. I've emailed a bug report to Fender's Customer Relations, let's see what happens.)
In the "Orientation" option, "right handed" is the default. If you click "left handed", there's a $50 upcharge. Click "right handed" and the upcharge does not go away. Then put the bass in your cart and the $50 upcharge remains -- congratulations, you spent fifty bucks more on your right-handed bass than you had to.
So check your work before you buy from there because deleting options does not necessarily remove their cost from the total.
(Edited to add: Looks like the Jazz Bass is the only item that costs more for a lefty. Other products I checked don't have a lefty upcharge, but I didn't look at all of 'em. I've emailed a bug report to Fender's Customer Relations, let's see what happens.)
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I like it. The only thing I would do differently is all black hardware and a solid black PG.
I like it. If you can't get a neck with blocks from the mod shop, you could always get black pearl stickers. That would be a non-destructive way to get the look you want, and for cheap. You'd likely be the only person who'd know they weren't actual black pearl inlays.
