Do you rewire your basses?

[SpawnofHastur]

Not sure if this goes here, but I'd like to ask, so here it is.

The question, as seen in the title, is: do you rewire your basses? I was reading an article (by a guitar player, admittedly) about how to get close to 'his tone'- the two main things that he said he used was heavy EQing (common enough) and completely rewiring the interior of his instruments to bypass the tone pot and, if the guitar has more than one pup, the pick-up selector switch- he says it really improves the tone of his guitars. He's even gone so far to claim that with said rewiring and the EQing, the cost of the guitar he uses and the strings don't even matter:

On our newest album, Paradise Found, I recorded the two band tracks using a cheap Korean travel guitar (Austin Hatchet) with totally dead strings that I carry on the plane as a backup. But it is wired electronically the same as my L-5s, and a lot of EQ was used in mixing. Most people won't have any idea that it's a different guitar.

So, does anyone here rewire their basses? If so, how, and what do you intend to achieve by doing so?

 

[Jjango]

Well, it's important to remember that that guy's opinion is just his opinion. We all have different opinions.

I like to install a series/parallel option in Jazz Basses. Other than that, the only thing I bother to change is if a bass has cheap pots in it.

 

[FunkMetalBass]

I shield all my basses, but I don't rewire them unless I'm swapping a preamp, but that's it - my soldering skills aren't good enough for the guitar.

 

[SpawnofHastur]

Well, his logic for his rewiring is actually pretty sound.

The more stuff the signal from the pickup has to pass through- wire, pots, switches- the more it will degrade. Add in the fact that the tone-knob in a guitar or bass doesn't really do much but subtract from the sound, if you're EQing your instrument heavily having the tone-knob in it doesn't really add that much.

 

[Spinal Tapper]

I just purchased some cloth wiring and new CTS pots for my CIJ P bass - haven't installed them yet, but my CIJ Jazz has cloth wiring and it seems to have more vintage-like tone.

Plus, it's only like $15, so might as well...

 

[Jefenator]

On all my passive basses, I find the tone knob to be indispensable. And I actually like the "loading" (or darkening) effect you get from 250K pots.

The only way I would consider bypassing all that is with a switch, so I could get that on-steroids straight-to-jack sound occasionally, then flick it back to stock.

+1 upgrading from cheap pots. Quality capacitor and beefier output jack are also a good call, IMHO.

 

[SpawnofHastur]

Playing my preferred passives, I don't like using a tone-knob, personally. Mostly because I prefer the Jazz Bass approach of having two pickups in parallel and blending the tones of the two pickups to get the sound you want.

Sure, it's fiddly, but it's VERY versatile.