MIM J upgrades?

[bassbenj]

This is not intended to be critical or disrespectful, but until you have gotten familiar with top shelf fret and nut work, off-the-shelf products will seem fine to you, and people like me will appear to be cork-sniffers, all obsessed beyond the point of reason. Once you can tell the difference, those stock fret jobs will look like what they are: unfinished, or incomplete. They will work and sometimes play okay for many, but they are not finished, which partly explains the price of those basses.

I will make a prediction: your life is going to become much more complicated when you get familiar with pro quality fret dressing.

Yes, I'll agree that your life gets more complicated when you get familiar with a pro-quality fret dressing. BUT I don't agree that ALL MIM J basses must have one. Mine (Deluxe V) surely didn't.

And Yes, I"m "familiar" having had a luthier do my Ken Smith and a Pleking on my Conklin. In fact, I fully intended to get the MIM Pleked too. Just bite the bullet and plunk 'em down. And then after I gave it a good setup and started playing it, the more I played it the more I was convinced it was a waste of money!

(Note I like to dig in so I don't like action micro-inches from the frets, but still I know what a decent fret job feels like)

What I noticed was that while hum shielding was good it wasn't perfect. So I spent time doing a COMPLETE (including jack and battery compartment etc. in copper foil. Now it's PERFECT.

And again after playing it for a while my main gripe was the tone of the pickups. They are stacked coil "noiseless". I've always hated stacked coil tone anyway and these aren't any different. But I also hate single coil hum! I played around with the Fender preamp some (which unlike many people I rather like) but had a big hassle trying to get it to impedance match to the pickups. (long story) So eventually I just plain gave up until I get the bread for some Norstrand N5JSE side by side coil pickups.

So I have NO problem with my MIM jazz. The neck the THE most stable I've ever seen except for my Graphite Modulus. Plays like a dream. I'm hoping that with new pups everyone will eat my dust. I guess time will tell. But That's ALL I did. There were NO sharp frets sticking out. No high frets giving buzz with low action. Tuners were smooth and stable. Bridge is still the thin stamped Fender bridge but I've never believed that bridges make much difference anyway. One day I may get a Babicz because I really like the design, but I don't think it "needs" it by any stretch.

No problems here, and still don't need the Plek job.

 

[Giraffe]

...The point of all this rambling comes down to this. The average MIM bass is a better player off the shelf than 99% of the people who will ever own one. A pro level fret/nut dressing won't make a bit of difference in the average owners ability to make the thing sing. For every gifted surgeon there are thousands of butchers. Both professions use the same basic tools but only the gifted surgeon can make full use of all the many details which separate a scalpel from a cleaver...

I hear you, fhm. I agree with that except the part about the bass being a better player than 99% of the owners. That part I don't know if I understand. I honestly think that a majority of the semi-serious or serious players/practicers would practice more and subsequently play better if they got the $100 or so worth of work that the factory chooses not to do. Most of the players I deal with greatly appreciate the difference between the factory standard (install them well, and hope that they are mostly level) and the other standard (measure, level, measure, think, level, do that about five times, then perform the painstaking crowning and polishing until they shine like glass).

A good surgeon can tell the difference between a killer scalpul and a crappy Harbor Freight scalpul, and if the surgeon has a choice, he uses the good one. Same with a butcher and his cleaver. There are some tools that are going to work better than others, and the guy who is going to swinging the thing all day and hacking at meat and bones, he probably wants the good one, too. It is better to use a better tool. The Mexi fret and nut jobs are good enough, but they can be made nearly sublime with a little time, or money, whichever you have more of.

The same guy will produce a better work product if he uses better scalpuls, meat cleavers, or electric basses. Semi-serious guys can tell the difference and benefit from it.

 

[Giraffe]

...(Note I like to dig in so I don't like action micro-inches from the frets, but still I know what a decent fret job feels like)...

That's a good point to bring up. There's a point of diminishing returns after a player's preferred action goes beyond a certain height. Guys who have been playing for a while and settled on a higher action (because they liked it rather than because they couldn't afford anything better) come to the shop and ask about fret work. I usually recommend that they take the money they had earmarked for fretwork and go buy some Irish whiskey with that money. Then they can bring the Irish back to the shop so we can sit around on the floor and drink the whiskey and play with power tools. The fretwork is less important as the action gets higher.

Those high nuts are a different story. They make your intonation more slipshod than it has to be. Ask any Guitar Scientist.

Now a sensitive artiste has to ask himself: Do I want to play more in tune, or less in tune, or do I not give a $#%& because the #&^%*@# drunks and degenerate drug addicts at the $%&^#$% bars I play at can't hear a thing and wouldn't care if they could? It's about the price of an okay dinner, for one, to get those nut slots where they need to be.

I'm sorry, all, I just can't help beating that drum. First, the frets (for most players) and nuts; good set of strings and maybe pickups; if it's a keeper, do anything else that needs to be done, if it's not a keeper after frets, nuts, and pups, put it up for sale.

 

[westy1970]

I played it tonight against my USA P Deluxe and found the above quotes to be true. I adjust the truss rod but I thing a nut and fret job is what is going to help. I have an MIM Deluxe also and the action on both of those is very low and easy to play. Not so on this one. I wanted a "beater" I could take to lessons but it's barely playable and the string buzz is killing me. The downside is I don't have a luthier I trust in my area so I will have to save my money, buy the tools and learn to do it myself. I have a neck from an old strat I can practice on but for now, this one goes in it's case.

 

[fhm555]

...One day I may get a Babicz because I really like the design, but I don't think it "needs" it by any stretch...

What surprised me most about the babicz was how much faster my right hand became once it was installed, and then I realized it was because the strings are always in the same place, something that was rare for me with the stock L plate. Another thing I really like is that it holds adjustment without string tension.

 

[Testing_123]

My late '90's MIM J-bass has been rock solid since I bought it (new), used for a bunch of different projects, live and recording.

Changes from stock:

1) Replaced pickups with DiMarzio Ultra Jazz.

2) Replaced bridge -- originally went with a BadAss II, but swapped that out with a Gotoh 201, which I prefer.

3) Series/Parallel pickup mod.

4) Aesthetic changes - different pickguard, knobs, p/u covers.

5) Schaller strap locks.

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There's not much else I want or need to do to it beyond regular care/setup. Low maintenance. Very happy with it.