MIM Geddy Lee & pickup "growl" + height

Keep it old school…. …Ruler, pencil, paper.

 

You don't need to worry about measurements or repeatability. They won't really help much anyway. And you don't need to worry about the number of turns on each side either.

Just plug in your bass, adjust the pickup and listen to it. When it sounds the way you want it you're done.

The goal is not to get a good distance, but a good sound.

 

Everyone is different! Pluck a note/string and start with quarter turns of the screws. I can't comment on that particular bass, or any jazz for that matter, because I don't own one at present.

 

I stopped shielding Jazz basses. The noise is part of the sound

 

Just saw interesting video mentioning that at stewmac. The tech says he runs his guitars unshielded and that gives a better sound. I don’t usually look at my control cavities so what I have is unknown. I usually like stock and don’t replace anything other than my drop in John east pre in 1 bass.

 

That was strictly bassed on my experience with 2 Jazz basses I shielded. I actually un- shielded the second. The difference was subtle, but discernible

 

did you shield the pickup covers themselves? how about the pickup cavities? what material did you use?

if you use shielding that's too "good" like copper and wrap it right up against the pickups it'll actually dull the tone a little due to eddy currents.

as for pickup height in general, it's a tradeoff on those old-school flat pole J pickups: if you get too close the outer strings get too hot compared to the middle strings; you have to keep them further away, especially on the bass side, and just make up the volume with the signal chain.

 

Not buying this. On the face, anyway.

I’m a piano tuner/tech and a pro sound guy (means I do it successfully for a living), so I trust my ears implicitly. I play mostly with a $650 set of in-ear monitors. And there’s a very specific tone I’m looking for and partial to with Jazz basses with single-coil pups.

I’ve shielded 3 Jazz basses pretty thoroughly after experiencing significant noises issues. I did the control cavity, pickup cavities, under the pickguard, and even the little wire tunnels. I was careful to not let the foil touch anything but the surface it was applied to. And I tack-soldered each piece of foil together at a small point of the overlap.

In each case, I noticed no change in tone. I don’t doubt the potential exists for problems if the foil is allowed to get too close to a pickup. And that shouldn’t happen with properly-applied shielding paint.

I kinda equate that sort of thing with losing vintage tone because the 50-year-old lint and dust was removed from the vintage guitar’s control cavity. I’ll never discount anyone’s assertions about such things. I don’t put much in them, but to each their own.

And thankfully, all my basses sounded the same, but much quieter after the shielding work.

 

It's one of those things that would be super easy to prove or disprove with before and after recording. Nobody ever seems to want to do those sorts of tests when it comes to stuff that affects the tone of an instrument.

I personally think that a noisy instrument is basically useless. So I would shield even if it significantly changed the tone. Tone can easily be adjusted.

 

The best sounding Jazz bass I have has shielded pickups - i.e. the windings of the pickups are wrapped with electrical tape and then that is covered with copper foil that is grounded. It is the stock configuration of this brand of bass and it's a brand used by many of the top players in the USA. I haven't heard any of them complaining about a loss of tone.