Bought one of these for my youngest and body is full-size which is way too big for her. Outside my return window so I figure I’ll try out the short scale thing… so to start:
Bass had a very high pitched tone. Not round and full but a quick look inside during the upgrade process shows 500k pots with a .047uF cap… makes sense. I’m not sure why they chose to go with the 500k values but not a fan of stock tone. Tried it both with rounds (stock) and flats (chromes). Notably and expectedly zero cavity lining for interference and tiny pots in the cavity.
so I lined the cavity and under the pickups with foil tape.. swapped the pickups for 63 pure vintage types.. FYI they are cool with the wax wire and all but the metal plate they come on was unexpected and my tin snips had to be employed to fit the pickups.
Next came a 250 linear cts pot for the volume. Removed the thin black tin bridge and put on a hip shot high mass bridge. Finally put a set of Dunlop bright flats for a short scale on it. Immediately tone was improved and weight of bass feels much better on a strap.
Currently awaiting shipment of 300k CTS pot for the tone and a .1uF cap for the circuit. Going for a old school tone with the pickups and flats so I’m following fenders direction on this with cap value. Bass is mahogany to my understanding so darker naturally tone wise. Maybe this was why they went 500k on both pots.
Also have a set of hip shot tuners(OE ones are horrible) on order with some new knobs. Will update some pics once they are on.
Overall bass sounds much better already and is super light on the shoulder.. neck is okay on mine.… not as comfy as my 70s CV precision bass however I do like the reduced distance between frets on the low end. Check out some pics below
Bass had a very high pitched tone. Not round and full but a quick look inside during the upgrade process shows 500k pots with a .047uF cap… makes sense. I’m not sure why they chose to go with the 500k values but not a fan of stock tone. Tried it both with rounds (stock) and flats (chromes). Notably and expectedly zero cavity lining for interference and tiny pots in the cavity.
so I lined the cavity and under the pickups with foil tape.. swapped the pickups for 63 pure vintage types.. FYI they are cool with the wax wire and all but the metal plate they come on was unexpected and my tin snips had to be employed to fit the pickups.
Next came a 250 linear cts pot for the volume. Removed the thin black tin bridge and put on a hip shot high mass bridge. Finally put a set of Dunlop bright flats for a short scale on it. Immediately tone was improved and weight of bass feels much better on a strap.
Currently awaiting shipment of 300k CTS pot for the tone and a .1uF cap for the circuit. Going for a old school tone with the pickups and flats so I’m following fenders direction on this with cap value. Bass is mahogany to my understanding so darker naturally tone wise. Maybe this was why they went 500k on both pots.
Also have a set of hip shot tuners(OE ones are horrible) on order with some new knobs. Will update some pics once they are on.
Overall bass sounds much better already and is super light on the shoulder.. neck is okay on mine.… not as comfy as my 70s CV precision bass however I do like the reduced distance between frets on the low end. Check out some pics below
