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Fender Jazz '62 AV RI club

#23
Mastermold said:
It's one of the best Jazz basses I've played, great tone, light weight at 8.8 lbs and flawless fit and finish. It's strung with La Bella 760FL flats for some nice thump but it maintains nice clarity and note articulation. It's a keeper.
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I've only ever played one near when i started playing momentarily and from what i can remember i loved it! I can't remember the details that made it so but going back MIM jazz bass at the time was a downer! Olympic white with those stacked pots is hot as hell! my main bass is a stingray, but i have couple of jazz's. I can imagine myself gigging that baby 90% of the time. Im a jazz-man at heart but my jazz's have nothing on my stingray for playability. They sound lovely still.
Glad to hear you love yours! Good to know it performs aswell as it looks! :D
Maybe i should structure what I say a bit better? :P
 
#24
Here's a 96' 62RI/AV Jazz on the right. Hagging out with its peeps an 83' 62RI/AV P and now departed MM IV. MM got sold for a Tony Franklin Frettless. The 62' RI Jazz is my go-to bass, A US made VVT for Japanese export. TI flats through an SVT, killer tone. Never made it to Japan. Tough going for the Japanese. Wish them the best.

JB
 
#27
HELL YEA! Best club ever.

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Are we getting numbers or is this just a "Show yours". I'll die before I get rid of my 62. And no one is allowed to touch it. Don't even look. You've seen enough of that one!...Ok here's one more look...

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#29
to the OP: I hear you on wanting ONLY stock AV62's here, but i personally wouldn't exclude guys who have modded theirs, as it makes for some good conversation.

Consider this:

The first thing i did with my AV62 jazz when i got it was switch to VVT. I liked that a lot better than the [rather useless] stacked knob setup (which is/was largely just a way to make the reissue jazz different than the regular old MIA jazz since, by '62, most jazz basses had VVT anyways). Now iF you stack-knobbers out there would wire in a couple 220K resistors, THEN, at least the stack knob setup would have more than just a cosmetic difference -- it would be slightly darker than a VVT jazz, have slightly less output than a VVT jazz, and the tone controls would NOT interact :) To be quite fair, however, i did go back and forth with the stacked setup and the VVT, both with and without the resistors in place. I settled eventually on the stock 'no resistor' setup as it sounded the same as the VVT, but had a unique look (the darker tones are nice for most supportive stuff, but I liked having a brighter jazz since i had an AV62 w/flats to fulfill the 'dark' role).

I'm trying to get another AV62, this time either with VBT (has to be 500K blend by the way, in order to sound the same as three 250K pots in a VVT setup), or V, rotary switch (ala Dingwall), tone.

What strings do ya'll use? I liked DR Lo-Rider nickel's myself... Sunbeams were a little too low tension, like the [stainless] Hi beams.
 
#35
AC I see what you are saying. My intent is not to refuse to include modded AV's, its more to encourage a purity, if that doesn't sound too racist!

Although much of what you say I am sure could be proven scientifically, my ears tell me that there is a difference in tone variations that are possible when comparing the VVT to stacked knobs. But honestly I don't fiddle the stacked setup too much, I just like having the options to play with the different blends. But again, I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough on the technical side to make a strong argument for the sonic value of the stacked knobs. I just think that once a bass has gotten a new control plate and a new bridge, then it is no longer the same bass.

But all are welcome here. That is part of why I did not want to give out numbers. I am hoping this will be more of a discussion board of the variety "anything AV '62 Jazz," and by that I definitely want to invite discussion on mods and the effect on the bass. Many here are very curious about that.

Strings for me have been Fender flats, both old and new formula (9050L). I plan to try some La Bella 760FL's this spring.

Love love love the tone this bass gets, and the action and neck profile are so sweet that I often find myself playing this bass way past the time that I should have put it down and gotten back to whatever I should have been doing in the first place! ;)
 
#37
bassman_al said:
AC I see what you are saying. My intent is not to refuse to include modded AV's, its more to encourage a purity, if that doesn't sound too racist!

Although much of what you say I am sure could be proven scientifically, my ears tell me that there is a difference in tone variations that are possible when comparing the VVT to stacked knobs. But honestly I don't fiddle the stacked setup too much, I just like having the options to play with the different blends. But again, I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough on the technical side to make a strong argument for the sonic value of the stacked knobs. I just think that once a bass has gotten a new control plate and a new bridge, then it is no longer the same bass.

But all are welcome here. That is part of why I did not want to give out numbers. I am hoping this will be more of a discussion board of the variety "anything AV '62 Jazz," and by that I definitely want to invite discussion on mods and the effect on the bass. Many here are very curious about that.

Strings for me have been Fender flats, both old and new formula (9050L). I plan to try some La Bella 760FL's this spring.

Love love love the tone this bass gets, and the action and neck profile are so sweet that I often find myself playing this bass way past the time that I should have put it down and gotten back to whatever I should have been doing in the first place! ;)
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Hey always trust your ears, though, in this case, I know from my own experience, and from many others' shared experiences here on TB (with respect to stack knobs on the AVRI's vs conventional VVT) that there will be no tonal versatility advantages with the stacked UNLESS you place a couple resistors in the circuit like Fender did to the original stacked-knob jazzes. Eventually they removed them prior to the VVT switch because it allowed a more 'bright' Jazz tone. Once they went to the cheaper VVT setup, the 'brightness' of the stacked knob with/without resistors was a moot point.

I know how you feel about really loving your gear though! Talkbass has been my greatest GAS contributor since I joined a few years ago. Been through more basses and rigs than most 'regular gigging' guys i know. I Play maybe 4 times a month, so my 'need' for great gear is probably questionable (as is my need to keep trying new things!). However, that's half the fun!

Also, with the exception of the Fullerton RI club, which only deals with AVRI's from 82-84 (and also has AVRI p bass stuff), this thread is [will be/could be] a great place for AV62 Jazz info, IMO. It's always nice to have really specific threads so that nothing seeps in there that's too off-base.

bassman_al said:
and I love the start that this thread has gotten off to! Thanks to all who have contributed!
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I agree :)
 
#38
I would love to see some of those Fender 60's custom colors come back. Seafoam Green, Teal Metallic, or Firemist Gold would do it for me.

ac3320 said:
Inca silver? Nice! It really frustrates me that Fender won't do some of their custom colors with the AVRI basses! Fiesta Red, Sonic Blue, Surf Green, Shoreline Gold, etc. ... that would be awesome :D
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#39
sneha1965 said:
I would love to see some of those Fender 60's custom colors come back. Seafoam Green, Teal Metallic, or Firemist Gold would do it for me.
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Heck yeah! FWIW, i think they will probably save all that for their Custom Shop. For example, they used to offer a '64 NOS jazz that was basically the AV62 jazz but with VVT, and a non-tinted nitro neck (and usually with a quartersawn neck).

You could order one of those with any color from a dealer, but they were pretty expensive. I think now they have discontinued that line and re-formed it into another one, same premise but this more current one has medium jumbo frets. MF has them but no reviews yet (and i actually think these are cheaper than the '64 NOS). Anyways, I find the smaller the fret the better, as small frets really lend themselves to glissandos nicely :)
 
#40
Regardless of the tone interaction with the stack knobs minus the resistors, there are still more options than with the VVT. How can there not be. A selection I use often when playing with a pick is both volumes full up, bridge tone full up and neck tone rolled off completely. This does not sound the same as reversing the tone settings, nor does it sound the same as tone full up on both. How could you get the same variation out of the VVT?

FWIW I am not making an argument for one over the other, in fact I have considered going VVT to simplify things (and to see if I miss the options.....).
 

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