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gretsch junior jet ii pickups problems?
- Thread starter Crobybass
- Start date
Thanks for all the replyswe play like crappy Swedish -77 punkrock so maybe some humming would even do well
For the record, I play a Jazz bass and I'm forever schooling young sound engineers on the fact that they can't eliminate that hum. I would think they would have encountered it before with noisy guitarists but they always want to try various things to see if they can get rid of it - it's happened a couple of times recently. The hum gets lost in the mix when we play, so it doesn't bother me much, and if it bothers them between songs I guess they could throw a noise gate on it.
I have had one for a good few years. Great bass, not just a great bass for the price. I have never had an issue with hum, and I play this as much or more than my Fender or Godin, both much more expensive. It is fun to play, sounds great, and you do get quite a selection of tones from it. I do notice some "scratchiness" when using the selector switch, and will probably eventually replace it, but it is not that annoying. I highly recommend this bass.
Here's a link to all the mods I did, I got rid of the pickup switch altogether and went VVT
The Official Short Scale Bass Club -- Part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQy5NUb2t98
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNG-a6qm-kQ
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/the-official-short-scale-bass-club-part-4.970319/page-508#post-26621573
Not a great player and just recorded on the Ipad, but hopefully this helps some, as always any questions please ask
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I bought one about a year ago thinking it had mini-humbuckers. Obviously not. Still, these PUs pump out some thick, fat sounds. You'll never be disappointed with the bottom end on these, IMO. I've never had any problems whatsoever with noise. TV Jones makes some PUs that will fit but I see no reason to replace what's in there. Just IMO based on playing this thing a lot over the past year.
i've had one for a little over a year, and it's great. when i tried it out in the store, there was no hum. took it home, and it hummed. took it to a gig, and it hummed like crazy. took it to two shops to check out, and they found nothing wrong. i shielded everything i could reach on the bass, and now the hum is all but gone. it's really a pretty great bass -- the neck and n/b positions sound terrific, and my pickup switch seems totally solid. plays really well, stays in tune, looks pretty killer.
if you want to spend an hour or two shielding everything, i think it's 100% worth the money.
if you want to spend an hour or two shielding everything, i think it's 100% worth the money.
I've never heard anyone playing on a Jr. Jet and not sounding great, at least not when it was the Bass's fault. End of story.
What are the dimensions of the pickups (excluding the mounting rings) and the distance between the two mounting screws?
I'm wondering if a cheap mod would be to put a set of guitar mini humbuckers in one of these.
I'm wondering if a cheap mod would be to put a set of guitar mini humbuckers in one of these.
My profile photo here shows me with my junior jet ii. I bought it about a year ago in Tallahassee. When I found out about the pickups - I thought they didn't sound like humbuckers - I contacted the manufacturer. I decided to keep the guitar because I still liked the sound of it and it's easy to play being lightweight enough and balanced. The only problem I had was a loose cable jack connection which, hopefully, the technician at GC has fixed. Although I kept the guitar, the manufacturer sent me a free compressor.
The pickup dimensions on my junior jet ii are 35x70mm, not including the mounting rings. I've looked into replacing the pickups but the odd size apparently makes that difficult without altering the pickup cavities which I'm not inclined to do. Tv Jones Thundertrons might fit without significant alteration but after sales tax and shipping, they might cost more than I paid for the guitar. Nevertheless, I still enjoy playing it.
D
$100 compensation? How does that work? Through the dealer where the bass was purchased or directly from Gretsch?
As for the stock pickups in the Junior Jet, yes they are single coils and yes every single one I've seen didn't cancel noise with both pickups at full because they had used two bridge pickups. They are extremely dark and kinda hollow sounding for a single coil, actually leaning heavily towards what I would consider a humbucker tone, so I can understand why they got away with it for so long.
Like others have mentioned the pickup selector is junk, like with most Gretsch guitars/basses. It WILL fail, if it isn't already faulty out of the box (which is often the case with Gretsch). It's a bit like Epiphone's jack outputs that come with a built in self-destruct.
Gretsch must have gotten a huge batch of poor quality switches for cheap and instead of taking the loss they transfer the cost of a new switch (or in Epi's case, jack socket) to the customer. Very poor!
As for the stock pickups in the Junior Jet, yes they are single coils and yes every single one I've seen didn't cancel noise with both pickups at full because they had used two bridge pickups. They are extremely dark and kinda hollow sounding for a single coil, actually leaning heavily towards what I would consider a humbucker tone, so I can understand why they got away with it for so long.
Like others have mentioned the pickup selector is junk, like with most Gretsch guitars/basses. It WILL fail, if it isn't already faulty out of the box (which is often the case with Gretsch). It's a bit like Epiphone's jack outputs that come with a built in self-destruct.
Gretsch must have gotten a huge batch of poor quality switches for cheap and instead of taking the loss they transfer the cost of a new switch (or in Epi's case, jack socket) to the customer. Very poor!
Or... they just used a certain switch of lesser quality to be able to meet a retail price point.
Can't fault them for that unless they said the switch was of a superior brand when it was not.
Any instrument is subject to using parts or construction techniques that will help meet a certain price.
Otherwise we'd never need to improve them.
Yeah, but a man in his pyjamas with a plastic lobster claw exposed this as the crime of the century so we can't be sure.
Honestly, if one were inclined, this would likely be an easy remedy to the whole single coil Gretsch debacle (though I haven't seen anyone use magnetic viewing paper or open one of these up, but the ones I've played seem to buck the hum).
Epiphone Viola Bass Pickups | Reverb
Epiphone Viola Bass Pickups | Reverb
Since you've brought it up, how much of a tonal difference do you notice between the two pickups? Seems to me they're both in some sort of neck pickup position, and would sound pretty similar when soloed.Epiphone Rumblekat
Haven't played one in years, but I remember it as one of the better short-scale basses I've come across.
So...
Of course, they're not the only company with the pickups so close together.
Hopefully, someone with more experience will chime in.
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