Is this the start to the electronic rabbit hole?

[Hectobar]

Jazzs can sound thin, fat, clear and thuddy. There is a world of tones in tweaking those 3 knobs. It has taken me 30 years to figure that out.

I’m a jazz bass guy knobs all the way up. Results are bright clarity that some might call thin. I solved it with an onboard preamp and a wee bit of bass boost. If I had simply rolled off some of that tone knob I probably would have ended up in the same place.

Good luck!

 

[J Wilson]

I completely believe that 'what pickup(s)/preamp/Newports/wiring' questions should include what amp/cabinet(s)/combo are you using to begin to have a good answer. Any bass is going to sound different through a Bronco or SVT810 or Demeter component rig. What if your bass as it is now would sound great through something else?

This never seems included in these questions.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I need to ask a few questions about my 2021 Players series fretless Jazz bass.
When I purchased her I had never played a Jazz bass before let alone a fretless.

I loved it and still do right from the start.
Now that I have a few years with the Jazz bass I notice that it can sometimes sound very thin.

I have been told that it would often sound thin because the Electronics in Mexican Basses are not of a good quality.

Just replace the control panel and pick ups with American ones.

Before I start chasing my tail on this; is this true ?
I have no experience in this area at all and my Dog has more experience with a soldering iron than I do.

Can I start with the same pickups and add a better quality control unit ?

Any info/ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
c
Clayton

There's really no difference between the Mexican pickups and the American ones. There is between the fender singles and the noiseless. Also, vast differences between each generation of fender noiseless pickups.

Now, you want it fat, and full? Get a set of quarter pounders. You want it raw and open? Get a set of fralins. You want it deep, smooth, and spunky? Get a set of blades.

 

[Barmy]

FWIW, I have a Player (fretted) jazz bass and I put in a solderless 4-band Audere jazz bass preamp, with the stock pickups, and can basically get any tone I want. It did add a bit of weight but it's more than worth the tradeoff to me.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

I have been told that it would often sound thin because the Electronics in Mexican Basses are not of a good quality.

Going to have to stop you right there. Are the pots the same quality as CTS or Alpha? No, they aren't. They won't last as long.

Do they affect tone? No, they do not. At least not how you're thinking. The impedance (250k, 500k, 1Meg) filters your signal but won't make it sound "like butter" or "sweeten" anything.

So to answer your main question, yes...you have most definitely entered a rabbit hole. See you a million posts later!

 

[Deleted member 271037]

The "control unit" in Player series instruments is fine. No better or worse than what you would find in MIA Fenders. The pots/cap Fender use do not have the tightest tolerances so they may not be exactly 250k/.047 but close enough for most players.

The pickups in Player series J-basses are voiced slightly different to what I would personally call a "vintage" J-bass tone. The Player pickups are ok but it's possible you might prefer a differently voiced pickup. We're talking about relatively subtle differences here though.

You will probably experience a MUCH bigger difference by changing to warmer/fatter sounding strings or by looking at other parts of your signal chain. It might even be setup related. Have you checked the pickup height relative to the strings?

Or maybe passive J-basses isn't really your thing? Perhaps you would prefer a different type of bass altogether? Maybe a humbucker equipped bass for a beefier tone or an active bass which would enable you to dial in more lows (although more lows can often cause more problems than it solves)?

My advice would be to play as many different basses as you can in a store and see if you prefer a completely different type of bass. Remember to bring your own bass as a tonal reference!

 

[Rip Van Dan]

I need to ask a few questions about my 2021 Players series fretless Jazz bass.
When I purchased her I had never played a Jazz bass before let alone a fretless.

I loved it and still do right from the start.
Now that I have a few years with the Jazz bass I notice that it can sometimes sound very thin.

I have been told that it would often sound thin because the Electronics in Mexican Basses are not of a good quality.

Just replace the control panel and pick ups with American ones.

Before I start chasing my tail on this; is this true ?
I have no experience in this area at all and my Dog has more experience with a soldering iron than I do.

Can I start with the same pickups and add a better quality control unit ?

Any info/ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
c
Clayton

Before you go down that rabbit hole try, adding a little boost to the low-mids on your amp anywhere between 250Hz and 500Hz. Playing in a group, that removes the "thin" sound and gives you good presence and definition. Doesn't take much. I typically boost those low mids to about 1:30 is all. If you boost it too much, your sound will honk at you. It that happens, just keep slowly turning it down until the honk goes away.

Doesn't cost you a cent to do that and might be all you need. If not, then happy hunting for the right combination of pickups and control panels to suit your needs.

 

[micguy]

Magnetic pickups don't have any kind of rolloff in the low or low mid frequencies - the Physics are very straightforward, they are absolutely flat down there. If a set of pickups sounds "thin" it's not because they lack something at low frequencies, it's that the upper mids and highs are excessive, grabbing your attention sonically. Lower value pots, a loading capacitor, eq on a pedal, a cable with more capacitance, strings that aren't as bright - there are a lot of ways to tame the high frequencies of a bass guitar that will make you hear the lows more easily. A lot of those things cost far less than a new set of pickups - which will be a crapshoot in terms of whether you'll like them better or not.

Don't change your pickups. Experiment with everything else in your rig first.

 

[MonetBass]

I will add that when I first got my 2021 Player Jazz, it did sound overly bright unless I turned the tone knob down. Putting some DR Sunbeam strings on it helped with that quite a bit.

 

[pbass2]

If you want pickups that will give you those extra mids, pop a set of DiMarzio Model J's in there. It won't sound quite like a traditional single coil jazz anymore, but it will absolutely not sound thin, no matter how you twiddle the knobs (even with everything dimed in what is usually the "scooped mids" setting). Extra benefit is they are hum-canceling.

 

[micguy]

I will add that when I first got my 2021 Player Jazz, it did sound overly bright unless I turned the tone knob down. Putting some DR Sunbeam strings on it helped with that quite a bit.

If a bass sounds too bright with fresh strings on it, thats a good thing. Turn the tone knob down until the strings mellow out a bit, and you're good. ALL strings follow a similar curve in terms of brightness - they start out as bright as they're going to get, they lose some of that brightness quickly, and then over a much longer period, they are relatively stable, losing brightness, but not very fast at all.

If you buy strings that are "just right" out of the pack, when they lose that first bit of brightness, you'll be bummed - "those strings died right away". But, if you buy strings that are too bright, once you get through that initial "too bright" period, when they settle in, you'll find that they are where you want them to be for a very long time.

If you look at string reviews on here, you'll find folks that say a certain set of strings "died really fast", and others that say the same set "last a long time before they die". What's at play here is the folks that say they "died quickly" just like brighter strings - they bought the wrong strings for them on that bass.

Always buy strings that are "too bright out of the pack". Turn your tone knob down for a while, and/or do as I do - I never take a bass to a gig that hasn't had at least a week of play (15 to 20 hours) on the strings - I just don't play a bass in public with strings that still have that initial "zing".

 

[logdrum]

You want passive and premade and easy to install control plates.

Check this guy out on reverb, no association. He uses quality parts CTS Pots, Carlson switches and Switchcraft jack and cheaper too - than the sweetwater link. Plus he has a video on how it will sound

Short Circuit Electronics | Reverb

I just got the concentric vol/tone with parallel/series switch and it definitely an improvement with my control plate which uses CTS and Switchcraft also

 

[Ostie]

I will add that when I first got my 2021 Player Jazz, it did sound overly bright unless I turned the tone knob down. Putting some DR Sunbeam strings on it helped with that quite a bit.

This. I’d experiment with strings before I started yanking out pickups. They’re cheaper than pups, and reversible. And there’s so many different choices now.

Having said that, I bought a MIM Jazz standard new back in 2001. I got a good deal on some SD Basslines Vintage ‘62 pups and put them in. It’s a very good sounding bass now, but it sounded good before I modded it. I never recorded it before and after, so I couldn’t A/B it.

 

[BAG]

I spent quite a lot of time tone chasing with my fretless jazz bass. The neck is a warmoth and the body is a Squire CV.
I got some Bill Lawrence J45 pickups because i love the sound of my P46 equipped Pbass and to be honest, I could barely hear any difference from the stock pickups.
That's not saying there is anything wrong with the Bill Lawrence pickups, it pretty much told me that there was nothing wrong with the stock ones.
I now use a preamp pedal for the Jazz to EQ it for a sound I like without having to change the amp settings.
The biggest improvement for me was putting on black tapewound strings. It was an immediate "there's the sound I've been chasing" moment.

 

[red_rhino]

Coincidentally, Electronic Rabbit Hole is awesome name for an FX pedal. The knob values and ranges change randomly every time you plug it in. You'll spend the next 20 years trying to figure out exactly what it does.

 

[Maxi Funkl]

I spent quite a lot of time tone chasing with my fretless jazz bass. The neck is a warmoth and the body is a Squire CV.
I got some Bill Lawrence J45 pickups because i love the sound of my P46 equipped Pbass and to be honest, I could barely hear any difference from the stock pickups.
That's not saying there is anything wrong with the Bill Lawrence pickups, it pretty much told me that there was nothing wrong with the stock ones.
I now use a preamp pedal for the Jazz to EQ it for a sound I like without having to change the amp settings.
The biggest improvement for me was putting on black tapewound strings. It was an immediate "there's the sound I've been chasing" moment.

I've been thinking about putting tapewounds on 1 of my fretted basses. you've just gave me food for thought.

 

[GreyBeard]

(Emphasis added.)

Seems to me that if it only "sometimes" sounds thin, the problem probably isn't the bass.

What are the conditions you write of that seem for it to sound "thin" to you?

 

[MonetBass]

If a bass sounds too bright with fresh strings on it, thats a good thing. Turn the tone knob down until the strings mellow out a bit, and you're good. ALL strings follow a similar curve in terms of brightness - they start out as bright as they're going to get, they lose some of that brightness quickly, and then over a much longer period, they are relatively stable, losing brightness, but not very fast at all.

If you buy strings that are "just right" out of the pack, when they lose that first bit of brightness, you'll be bummed - "those strings died right away". But, if you buy strings that are too bright, once you get through that initial "too bright" period, when they settle in, you'll find that they are where you want them to be for a very long time.

If you look at string reviews on here, you'll find folks that say a certain set of strings "died really fast", and others that say the same set "last a long time before they die". What's at play here is the folks that say they "died quickly" just like brighter strings - they bought the wrong strings for them on that bass.

Always buy strings that are "too bright out of the pack". Turn your tone knob down for a while, and/or do as I do - I never take a bass to a gig that hasn't had at least a week of play (15 to 20 hours) on the strings - I just don't play a bass in public with strings that still have that initial "zing".

What I meant was "brighter than my other Jazz bass with new strings on it". I understand that new strings will be bright, even nickel-wound ones.
EDIT: I waited until I'd played it for a few weeks before deciding to change to the DR Sunbeams.

 

[swink]

I need to ask a few questions about my 2021 Players series fretless Jazz bass.
When I purchased her I had never played a Jazz bass before let alone a fretless.

I loved it and still do right from the start.
Now that I have a few years with the Jazz bass I notice that it can sometimes sound very thin.

I have been told that it would often sound thin because the Electronics in Mexican Basses are not of a good quality.

Just replace the control panel and pick ups with American ones.

Before I start chasing my tail on this; is this true ?
I have no experience in this area at all and my Dog has more experience with a soldering iron than I do.

Can I start with the same pickups and add a better quality control unit ?

Any info/ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
c
Clayton

Sell the Mex buy the American... it's cheaper than the search for the holy grail of pick-ups.

 

[capnjagg]

Honestly, try turning down the bridge pickup to taste, and play anywhere in the space from the neck pickup to the heel of the neck and see if that helps. I wish I’d understood when I was younger that Leo didn’t design that bass with two volume pots just for me to run everything wide open all of the time.