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Have you ever regretted modding your bass?

Mod it?

  • Mod it!

    Votes: 74 44.3%

  • Keep it stock!

    Votes: 80 47.9%

  • Bass is a fish, fry it in oil

    Votes: 13 7.8%
  • Total voters
    167
#82
No way, although I kind of expected to feel that way. Every mod has ended up being an aesthetic or functional improvement. Pretty amazing to have turned out like that, and I owe most of it to this forum for the great advice. I love my basses now!
 
#83
I absolutely regret modding my 1968 Fender Precision. This was in the 80's.

Phase 1 - I replaced the weak original pickups with Barts. Wow, what an improvement in tone! Unfortunately I couldn't leave it there.

Phase 2 - I added a J pickup and a Bart preamp. The work was expensive and the benefits were marginal. It was a better sounding bass, but I wish I'd kept it stock and bought a bass that did what I wanted without me destroying the value of a vintage Fender.

I moved to 5 string basses a few years afterwards, so all that effort and cost was for very little gain.
 
#85
Snarf said:
Not sure if this is the right forum. It was a toss up between here and the repair forum.

My daily driver has been with me since the beginning. ~2001 MIM P bass, bought it when I was probably 13. Since acquiring that bass, I bought and sold several basses. I've had high end boutique custom jobs, MIA jazzes, Stingrays, etc. I thought I needed a 5 string, I thought I needed an expensive active EQ, blah blah blah. None of that ended up being true, and it took me 20 years to find that out.

I went back to playing this P bass almost exclusively about two years ago. I play for a living, and the comfort and familiarity of this bass, along with the fact that it is a P bass and so mixes well in almost every setting, makes it ideal. My GAS stopped so hard I'm surprised it didn't register on the richter scale.

One thought regarding bass gear keeps coming to mind, however. I think it would be pretty great to put a jazz pickup at the bridge, and a 3-way switch. That will get me closer to that MM and tighter slap sound that I sometimes need on stage. Keep it passive, and keep the original P pickup. That pickup was blessed by a higher power and is a total tone cannon.

So now you have an idea of how important this bass is to me. My question to the forum: Have you ever regretted modding a bass of similar value to you? Has the instrument ever lost "something" after the modding process?
Click to expand...
Yes when I tried to install a set of new noiseless pickups on my otherwise perfect Fender MM MIJ .. disaster with the preamp .. demoralised … sold the bass …
 
#86
Snarf said:
Not sure if this is the right forum. It was a toss up between here and the repair forum.

My daily driver has been with me since the beginning. ~2001 MIM P bass, bought it when I was probably 13. Since acquiring that bass, I bought and sold several basses. I've had high end boutique custom jobs, MIA jazzes, Stingrays, etc. I thought I needed a 5 string, I thought I needed an expensive active EQ, blah blah blah. None of that ended up being true, and it took me 20 years to find that out.

I went back to playing this P bass almost exclusively about two years ago. I play for a living, and the comfort and familiarity of this bass, along with the fact that it is a P bass and so mixes well in almost every setting, makes it ideal. My GAS stopped so hard I'm surprised it didn't register on the richter scale.

One thought regarding bass gear keeps coming to mind, however. I think it would be pretty great to put a jazz pickup at the bridge, and a 3-way switch. That will get me closer to that MM and tighter slap sound that I sometimes need on stage. Keep it passive, and keep the original P pickup. That pickup was blessed by a higher power and is a total tone cannon.

So now you have an idea of how important this bass is to me. My question to the forum: Have you ever regretted modding a bass of similar value to you? Has the instrument ever lost "something" after the modding process?
Click to expand...

MiM P basses are cheap and there are lots on the 2nd hand market.
I'd say keep yours the way it is, find another one that you like to play and mod the second one. That way, you don't burn any bridges.
 
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#87
4SG said:
In over 40 years I've never made an unreversible mod to a bass I liked. Switch out the tuners, bridge, pickups, sure---but nothing where I couldn't replace the original parts. If I want to experiment I'll put a bass together using the components I'm after. You're very attached to your bass, OP. You might regret routing a hole in the number 1 you've had since you were a kid.

View attachment 4775854
Click to expand...

This is my mindset. Reversible mods can be fun and open up new potential in an instrument. Anything permanent, in my mind, warrants looking at purchasing something different that already comes with the “new” feature in its stock form.
 
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#88
I have no regrets. She's a 1969 Telecaster Bass and been my player since 1972 or so. It desperately needed some TLC after 50-odd years of playing time. She got the whole works from new frets to pickup, wiring and bridge all done by Michael Dolan. I had him do the contouring done to fit my aging body better and have it look a bit like Jeff Beck's Esquire.

dixS73nl.jpg
 
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#90
Yeah but it was a really cheap bass anyway. My first bass was one seen commonly on ebay. It sounded pretty good, set up nicely and didn't look too bad. But I have a thing for matching headstocks. The body was a transparent red. Headstock was plain wood. I sanded the front of the headstock and tried a half dozen different red stains and each looked worse than the last. Finally just sprayed it gloss black.
 
#91
I had a Squier VM fretless years ago, and I swapped necks with a guy I knew from other friends. I had just finished my Warmoth fretless and I wanted a fretted bass I could leave at our rehearsal place at the time. He had a fretted MIM jazz and wanted a fretless, so it seemed like a win-win. I went a couple weeks before installing the MIM neck, and there were MONSTROUS gaps around the whole neck heel. The neck looked like a stick somebody would use to hang the body for finishing. It was just about playable, and I held on to it for a couple years, but ended up selling the whole mess for $80.
BTW, I never heard back from the other guy, either directly or through friends. Can't imagine what he would've had to go through to get that oversized neck to fit his Jazz body.
 
#94
I made major mods to my early 60's stack-pot Jazz bass in '70. I thought it made it better at the time, and I played it for 20 years. that said, if I'd left it original it would have contributed mightily to my retirement fund. LOL. but who knew at the time?
 
#96
I say go for it. It seems you already know that you like the P/J sound AND since you're going with a switch, there's no worry about extra loading on your current pickup/circuit/tone. Also you clearly don't plan on ever selling this bass. So the only thing you have to lose in this case, is the aesthetic of a stock P bass... I've never been one to assign much importance to aesthetics.
 
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#97
The only mod I regretted I was able to reverse. I had a really great EMG CS soapbar in the middle position of my gig 5-string bass. For some reason I thought a P-soapbar would slot the mix better. Wrong. The mids were too pushy for the body resonance characteristics, which were/are also middy, at the expense of loss of low end.

Fortunately, the guy I sold the CS to was willing to sell it back to me, and I found a buyer for the P-soapbar. I still play that same CS pickup in the same bass as my #1 gig bass, now with a custom 33-inch scale neck, years later.

micguy said:
I build my own basses, so if/when I put one together and decide it isn't quite right, I change something. Is that modding or just optimizing?
Click to expand...
Yes.
 
#98
People keep saying not to risk it, but also think of the reward of modding it and making it even more your own which will only make you love it more, especially in the future when you reflect on DIYing your own bass! Now you would have a truly unique and personal instrument that is truly your own and not just another copy/paste Fender P.

I say risk it. No risk no reward!
 
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#99
mellowgerman said:
I say go for it. It seems you already know that you like the P/J sound AND since you're going with a switch, there's no worry about extra loading on your current pickup/circuit/tone. Also you clearly don't plan on ever selling this bass. So the only thing you have to lose in this case, is the aesthetic of a stock P bass... I've never been one to assign much importance to aesthetics.
Click to expand...

Yeah the PJ sound is great. It is its own thing, but it's a proven good sound, and gets you in the ballpark of other classic tones for live work. Obviously studio is different, but I don't do a whole lot of record dates. You also get the solo bridge pickup, which I wouldn't use a ton, but for the odd jazz gig or bass solo in low-volume context, could be a thing.

What I love about the bass is the neck, the frets, the weight, and the tone of the original stock P pickup. My biggest concern with routing is not so much aesthetic regret (again, I would never do this myself, this is a job for a pro), but altering the original tone when that pickup is solo'd.
 
#100
Snarf said:
Yeah the PJ sound is great. It is its own thing, but it's a proven good sound, and gets you in the ballpark of other classic tones for live work. Obviously studio is different, but I don't do a whole lot of record dates. You also get the solo bridge pickup, which I wouldn't use a ton, but for the odd jazz gig or bass solo in low-volume context, could be a thing.

What I love about the bass is the neck, the frets, the weight, and the tone of the original stock P pickup. My biggest concern with routing is not so much aesthetic regret (again, I would never do this myself, this is a job for a pro), but altering the original tone when that pickup is solo'd.
Click to expand...
If you get a bridge pickup with strong magnetic pull , it can affect the string vibration, damping it for one.
It will introduce hum.
Unless you increase the output of the bridge pickup, it will be overwhelmed by the output of the split coil.
Therefore with weaker magnets, you would need more windings, which will have a different tone profile.
A large component of the MM pup is the strong magnets, and large poles, if that is a goal, keep that in mind. Look at M&V pickups. https://www.mvguitars.com/home-3-1-1-2
Or similar split coil designs


That said, I'm not one to rain on a mod effort, if you are accepting that this mod is a one way street.
 
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