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Fender Jazz '62 AV RI club

bassman_al

bassman_al

Supporting Member
Commercial User
Apr 16, 2008
2,299
117
Fairfax, VA USA
Disclosures
Dealer for Aguilar, Lindy Fralin, KorgUSA
#1
I have noticed sine I bought my beloved '62 RI/AV that it is enough of a different animal to warrant its own club. Although I am generally not that much of a club guy, I do find it helpful as a way to compare experiences with others who own the same instrument.

I won't be giving out numbers. I am not sure why people care that much about numbers in a club anyway, but I also don't want to troll, so I will move on to...

Welcome to the club. All you need to do to join is to subscribe to the thread!

One thing I am curious about is neck and set-up issues with others who own this bass. Mine requires that I adjust the truss rod 3-4 times a year, sometimes only 2 depending on the weather. And normally I don't tinker.

I am able to get the action to 3mm fret to bottom of the E string at the 17th fret, Fender specs suggest 2.4 mm. So pretty close. The action overall is wonderful, even with the big Jamerson La Bella's that I just put on.

Do others have problems with the neck on this bass? I also had to have the frets completely dressed and leveled. The luthier, wo is a Fender-certified Gold level technician named Larry Smoake, said there a a lot of uneven spots in the fretboard. He told me its not about this particular make or model, it could happen with any bass and it would be difficult to catch the problem when trying it out during the buying process. his words made me feel better since I had bought mine from a TB-er on E-bay. Its my favorite bass, just a stunning finish, glossy, with a wonderful feeling neck and has great tone. Totally worth the extra maintanence that I do. My learning curve on truss rods has gone up, so I can pretty quickly do what I need to to get the neck to play like I want it to. So no mods were necessary to get it to be the bass that I wanted it to be. Its heavier than my other basses, but not so much that I can't gig it

So what is your experience with this bass? I am interested in good and bad! Thanks for sharing!

Al
 
#3
I did a serach and came up with one thread that was more about posting pics of AV/RI basses. I posted on taht one a while back and had forgotten about it! I even said that I would never sell my '72 P-bass. Silly me...

Anyway, I am hoping that my thread will be specifically for '62 AV/RI Jazz basses, since they feature that super slim neck and the stacked V/T knobs, they are going to have their own tonal personality, more options than other Jazz basses.

I am interested in hearing clips, hearing about what string people use (I am currently using a set of Jamerson flats from La Bella) and hearing about any problems and solutions people have had with these basses. Particularly set-up and action issues. For instance, my neck sets up really nicely overall, but action is exceptional toward up to the 12th fret, after that its hard to keep those strings as close to the fretboard, even after the fret leveling job was done...

Thanks for stopping by this thread! Here is a link to a pic of my '62 AV Jazz.

Jazz | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
 
#4
I acquired this Lake Placid Blue 62 AVRI Jazz a couple months ago. It has some squirrelly issues with the neck---mainly, I think, it hadn't been adjusted in a long time, but there is a bit of ramp effect at the body end. Fortunately, I don't play a lot up there and it's not too bad. Other than that, thought, I like it a lot. It's very comfortable to play.

Link Removed

Before I got this one, I had mainly played either P-basses or Gibsons for most of the last 20 years. I had an early MIM Jazz for a while that was just not a good bass. (Nothing against MIMs, I've played some great ones, but that Jazz was not one of them.) I think that experience put me off J-basses for a while. But I've been liking this one.
 
#5
I've had/played my AV62RI for years. Actually it's one of the lighter weight basses I own. Two issues I had with it were the A & D strings were just a tad shy when compared to the E & G string. I concluded it was the stock pup with flat poles just wasn't working as well as it could with the tight radius of the neck. Had Carrey Nordstrand make custom pups with raised poles to compensate for the radius and the output problem was very solved. Also, the neck developed a very pronounced ski jump. Had my luthier pull some frets, re-plane the fretboard, replace the frets and re-level all the frets... that problem is now permanently solved.

I've tweaked this bass over the years and it's become the only fretted Fender Jazz bass I'll ever need. An instrument that just sounds, feels, plays to that level of perfection that makes it a lifetime instrument.

Too bad I now almost only play fretless :hiding:
 
#7
Thanks for all the posts! Looks like we all have the same issues. Mine has a ski jump as well, but the result is that the ation is half a millimeter (literally) higher than what I prefer, but only on the upper frets. And its not terrible, they are still very playable. But maybe someday I'll have the frets pulled, fretboard re-planed, etc. For now I'll just stick with it as is. I think mine is a keeper, I have had it for a few years now and still love it.
 
#9
TheJazz.jpg
My LPB '62 AV Jazz.
 
#10
my AV neck takes a dip down toward the body as you look down the neck from the headstock. like a mini downhill. Its pretty subtle depending on what type of strings I am using at the time. Its more prominent now due to the heavier gauge strings (La Bella "Jamersons"). But as I said before, even with the dip I can still get the action to within half a millimeter of the Fender recommended string height at the 17th fret.

Hope that helps, and I may end up standing corrected by someone more knowledgeable than I on the topic.
 
#16
bassman_al said:
my AV neck takes a dip down toward the body as you look down the neck from the headstock. like a mini downhill.
Click to expand...

If the neck dips down towards the body that's not ski jump, that's fall away. People pay big bucks for Sadowskys to get that -- it's a good thing! Ski jump has the neck slopping up (action getting closer) from the neck joint, not dipping down.
 
#18
So there is no doubt that the Jaco tribute bass is a beauty. And I hate to sound like such a picky person, but the '62 AV Jazz is really unique, or at least very unusual, so mods to it definitely alter that unique quality. Not in a bad way, becausse its all a matter of taste. The stacked volume/tone pots make it that way. And changing the bridge is definitely going to change the tone, again not in a bad way.

I thought this thread would be of most use to people with stock AV '62 Jazz basses. Control plate, the type of neck used for this bass, etc. are all going to be topics that are of use to readers here.

So while I appreciate the post, and the beautiful pic, I'll respectfully ask that we stick to topics and pics that are of or related to the stock '62 AV Jazz bass.

Al
 

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