Is it really worth the trouble?

[Father Gino]

Here’s my story...
Last summer I pulled the trigger on Lakin J bass. I hadn’t owned a Fender kind of bass since 1979 or so. I loved it. Why didn’t I do this years ago. I loved it so much that I figured I needed to try a P bass because I never had one. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Very recently bought a Lakin P bass. It came with an EMG Geezer pickup. The seller no longer had the original pickup. This thing is great!! So smooth and full but with enough high mids to keep its tone well defined. And a bit of an attitude when plucked more aggressively. It’s presently got an older set of DR Fat Beams on it. I love this thing! Why did I never get one before? My brother says for the same reason I got a Beta-Max years ago.

So what am I liking so much about this bass? Do I just like P basses or is that Geezer really sound that good? And what now seems relatively lacking with the J bass? Would it sound significantly different (dare I hope for better?) with different pickups? I’m investigating different strings at present. Labella flats presently. This is time consuming because I’ve always despised new strings. But it’s a lot cheaper than spending $200 on new pickups. Also the Lakin stock J pups may not be quite the same size as Fenders (they’re both the same width)

How bad can Lakin pups be? They sound brittle in comparison to the Geezer to me now. Not as sweet and smooth. Should I take this To potential pup swapping frustration, or just keep trying different strings for a while?

 

[sikamikanico]

Do I just like P basses or is that Geezer really sound that good?

Yes.

You may just be a more of a P bass kinda guy, or maybe it's the GZR pickup... It's a very popular P pickup, so they got something right when they designed it. I find it hard to believe that Dan would have bad pickups in his basses, but J pickups just sound different. Indeed, I'm quite picky when it comes to J pickups, I find that most J's lack the "oomph" I seek. Particularly more traditional/vintage voiced ones. Have you tried other P and/or J basses recently? Go play some and see how you like different makes and models of each bass, which shuold shed some light on whether it's the pickups or not...

Also, here's Ed Friedland's review of these basses, is that sort of what you're hearing?



But you're right, the sound also greatly depends on the strings. Changing either strings or pickups can do the job, but it's much cheaper and easier to trial and error different strings. I would start there before replacing pickups. What strings do you currently have on it?

There's another trick that I find can help thicken the sound, but it involves hacking the electronics. It's placing a capacitor across pickups (hot to ground), which lowers the resonant peak. A cap of a relatively small value works well, maybe 680-2200 pF. You can make it switchable to give you options, but then you need to replace a pot or drill a new hole. However, you can test the idea first. The easiest is externally if you have a cable where you can unscrew the jack housing, exposing bare wires. Just hook up two alligator leads and try a variety of caps between them. If you don't have such a cable, unscrew the control plate on the bass and connect the alligator leads to the output jack. A bit more clumsy but it works....

 

[Father Gino]

Thanks for the reply. I knew this was an unanswerable question, but you’ve given me some food for thought. This P Bass is a revelation to me and part of my lessening of love for the J is due to the honeymoon period of the former.

Yes I’ve seen Ed’s review. No, mine doesn’t sound like that but I doubt I’ll ever sound like Ed playing any bass. I looked at some videos of Bobby Vega because the Geezer P pup is a copy of a 62 p pup on one of his basses. I don’t sound like him either. I wasn’t very familiar at all with Bobby. What a monster!

I have a real hard time judging basses in Guitar Center’s little bass room. I’ll only know what a bass sounds like after I’ve had for a bit and played it a bunch of times in real world situations.

I have been using DR Fat Beams on the J for close to a year. I put a new set on recently and maybe that’s an issue. I’ve always hated new strings. I put the older set of Fat Beams on the P and they sound great. Now I’ve put a new set of LaBella flats on the J. It’s certainly thicker now. I’ll play both of these basses at two gigs next weekend so that should give me a better appreciation of what’s what.

I doubt that I’ll play the pickup swap game anytime soon. I probably would like some other pups better but I just don’t want to spend the time and money getting there. It’s not as if this J bass sounds terrible.

There’s a lot of strings out there. Maybe some kind of half-rounds would get closer to what I want. Just have to figure out what I want

I like the zing/sparkle of the J with the fat beams sometimes, but I have a hard time making it super mellow with just my fingers. The idea of a switchblade cap to cut some of the highs easily is intriguing. Where do I get caps from? Does it matter who makes them? Assuming that they’re not expensive, what range might you recommend?