So, as some of you know I bought my first bass a little over a month ago, a mid 90’s Korean Squier Jazz, it was comfy, had a few dings and was in kinda rough shape so I figured I’d take a plunge and do some work on it myself, if it went boobies up, whatever it wasn’t expensive and it’s be a learning experience. So when it arrived, first thing I noticed was the control plate was really badly off centre, someone mentioned it might be a previous owner fitting an upgrade, but taking it apart there were no extra holes, weird but nothing too scary, so I replaced the white pickguard for black and realigned the control plate (tip, DON’T buy cheap amazon pickguards, I had to recut the pickup hole to fit the thing) tuners are okay, nothing to write home about so they might get swapped eventually (suggestions welcome) the other thing that was annoying was the bridge, seemed like the saddles were shot, so I ended up buying a replacement bridge (overkill probably but it was cheap) so instead of the vintage example I threw on a fender high mass, good lord this things stable, and it sustains like a mother. I couldn’t get on board with the Strat knobs it came with so I got some knobs from mim bass my friend trashed, entirely cosmetic but I feel looks way better, anyway here’s the results of my labour, before and after, Just my opinion but I feel it looks a million times better, that bridge is gorgeous. Like it looks half desirable now. I’m not done with the mods yet, pickups on it are kinda weak so I’m researching different models, that’ll be my next likely, possibly fender CS or toneriders if I’m cheaping out. But yeah, what’s your opinions? I’m genuinely interested, and if you have any other tips I’m all ears, my aim from the start has been just to make it an all round nicer instrument functionally
Looks much better now IMO. I recently installed DiMarzio model J's in my Squier VM Jazz & really like them. They're humbuckers though & pretty different from the stock jazz single coil sound.
quantum visual improvement, I even like the dings lol what what kind of music are you into? cos I have a EMG HZ Jazz PU at the bridge on my Peavey Zodiac BXP that provides a rich and woody... I'd say very vintage tone.
Looks good I know you asked for Pup recommendations, but have you ever thought about a parallel/series wiring option? Multiple ways to go about it. You could even temporarily hard wire it in series to see if you might be interested.
Nice looking bass, good job! I'm in the process of fitting Toneriders in my Jazz, I'll let you know what I think when I wire it all up after work
Get some Fralin pickups. You can call them up and get them made to your specs. That way you get the tone right the first time. You can talk directly to Lindy and he'll make what you want.