Fender Musicmaster

I have one, a '76 bought new in '77. I have it torn apart at the moment awaiting a rebuild. Fun to play, but without upgrades, the sound's not that good. The pickup and bridge especially need to be swapped, and the bridge is a bit tricky due to the narrow spacing. Short scale make it great for "lead bass" and bending, but...
Edit: mine had a cheapo strat 6 pole single coil under the covers (explaining uneven string response) and the electronics were always scratchy and crackly, even cutting out occasionally. Planning on replacing with either a blade humbucker in single coil format, or if I can get one, a "split coil" hum cancelling original P single coil. I tried a Schaller roller bridge, but those don't quite go narrow enough, next I'm trying a different kind of Schaller bridge with adjustable string spacing (the Bassbridge 2000 4 string):

 

Oh I love Musicmasters. I own a '71 red MM and it's great.
The Musicmaster has a mustang guitarpickup with an extra cap make it sound more bassy. You don't really need a new pickup, you can just cut out the extra cap.
If you do look for a new pickup you should really check out the Aero Musicmasterer. It sounds great even if you leave the extra cap on!

The bridge is no high-tech piece of kit, but it looks great. You should check out the Wilkinson swivel saddles to solve any intonation problems!
Here's mine (stock) with a refinished MM I upgraded with the wilkinsons and aero pickup

 

I guess I'll try cutting out the cap, but not really all that promising or convincing, considering you replaced yours. As for the bridge, at least on mine, I think the phrase "bent foil" was invented for it - not only impossible to properly intonate stock, but way to light, thin & bendy for my tastes. Makes the sound tinny (to my ears, anyway).

 

No longer have my '78... First one was stolen, second was victim to a bad trade, (suffice it to say I'm a sucker for a sob story)... Just wanted to second the recommendation of the Aero... Great pickup!! Though I never had one in either of mine, I have heard one locally in a Vista and it was very convincing!

Bholder, you may want to try bypassing the electronics altogether and try wiring the pickup directly tothe output jack before giving up on it completely... It really is a ballsy little pickup that is choked by the electronics... You may be surprised...

-robert

 

Oh, I'm not giving up on it. I get sidetracked, yeah, but I'm also stubborn. I've been checking out the pot options on stewmac - they have the combination volume pot / rotary switch ones where "full on" lifts the tone circuit ground, basically giving that "wired straight to output" sound. But I'm going with a new pickup (one or possibly more) regardless.

 

I loved my 73'. I took out the pots and caps and put in a standard 2 pot ,cap setup like a P bass. It sounded great.