Maybe going for a jazz - help

[MAGUS®]

After many years plucking soapbar/humbucker basses and musicman/humbucker style basses, i am itching for a jazz loaded bass.

I trawled the net and forums for soundclips and came up with the fact that I love the bridge pup single coil sound on a particular J Bass copy. Its an old 70's Guyatone J Bass copy, presumably a copy of the Fender late 60' 70's Jazz. It had block inlay neck, and pups had kinda rounded corners, unlike the sharp corners i see on many J basses

Just a basic V V T set up, nothing weird. The clips i found were played through a Demeter HBP-1.

Ist clip is bridge pup soloed with tone full up

2nd clip is bridge pup soloed with tone rolled off

Finger style played over the bridge pup

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How much of that tone is down to the bridge pup itself or is the Demeter giving it most of that sound ?

I'm trying to decide if i could go find any old Jazz copy and get that kinda tone, without laying out the coin for an expensive preamp or that particular Guyatone bass, which are hard to find, apparently

 

[garp]

My guess is that the tone is being colored more by the Demeter than by the Guyatone.

I think you might drive yourself crazy — and perhaps broke, too — trying to chase a specific tone from that kind of permutation. Any J-copy — or even a real Jazz Bass® — with a pair of single coils would be an excellent starting point. Then you can have fun swapping pickups and preamps on the elusive tone quest.

 

[Malak the Mad]

Garp is probably right. It's a fair bet that if you did a side-by-side test on a pair of similar, if not identical Jazz basses, you'd get slightly, maybe even notably different results. Both may sound great, but probably a little different. And that difference may not be a big deal to some, but if you're looking to get a carbon-copy sound, you might end up frustrated and disappointed.

So, onto the inevitable "tidal wave of suggestions"; If you want to start on the ground floor, why not try out some Mexican-made Fenders and perhaps even a Squier Classic Vibe? There's a lot of love for them here on TB, they're pretty damn reliable (at least, I know mine are) and it'd be a reasonably priced platform for mods and upgrades.

Just some food for thought, yes?

 

[MAGUS®]

Thanks for your advice my friends - perhaps i was being a tad unrealistic.

Of course , what i wanted to hear was ' yeah thats classic JB, go grab any cheap copy '

Replies appreciated - as stated, probably go for a something affordable, then maybe swap out some different pups.

At least we know that there's a single coil sound in there under the demeter

 

[MAGUS®]

Here's a sample - Geddy Lee Jazz , bridge pup, Aguilar Tone hammer.

Completely different preamp, but another J bridge pup

I'm staring to think maybe its more about the pickup than the preamps ??

Scroll to the bottom - Steve Jenkins

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[garp]

Well, now there’s another variable being introduced: the Geddy Lee signature model is modeled after his ‘72 Jazz, which uses the ‘70s position for the bridge pickup. While I’ve never had the opportunity to A/B the ‘60s/‘70s positions, there are some here at TB who feel the bridge pickup position makes a world of difference in a Jazz’s tone.

 

[wild4oldcars]

I seem to remember reading somewhere on here that the geddy sig had 60s spacing, and people were upset at it being inaccurate? idk maybe im imagining a memory

 

[MAGUS®]

I agree with pup positioning being a factor, because its the same for all basses, Jazz or otherwise. The thing i cant be sure about is the difference between a 60's jazz and a 70's jazz, and the position of the respective bridge pups.

But dammit - that tone is so similar to the link i posted earlier to the Guyatone 70's copy, its beginning to look like a combo of J bridge pup, and perhaps the 70's position. ( Whatever that may be ? ) And of course preamp controls matter, but there doesnt seem too much tone difference between the Demeter and Aggy in that respect

 

[MAGUS®]

Found this on the forums - 4 basses ( ok 3 are Sads, but what the hey ) 2 with 60's spacing and 2 with 70's spacing - its not a huge change in the distance from the bridge, but then again, i've not really any experience with J's so the miniscule change in distance could be huge

I've actually have two of each! And they each have their own character in terms of tone. The LPB Fender and '59 Burst Sadowsky have the 70's spacing while the other two have the 60's spacing.