NBD Fender American Pro II PBass

[PaperbackRyder]

I got my new AMProII PBass this week.
I also have a benchmark bass, my '64 PBass "voice of god" which is awesome for balance, feel & tone. So the bar is set high.
The American Pro II is an excellent bass with good build quality.
The balance is very good and the neck feels GREAT in the hand. On this neck the grain is very flat across the width and stays that way for the whole length. IDK why, but that is important to me.
The frets feel tall to me b/c my other basses are old and have been dressed over the many years. I can adapt to these, at least they are not "med jumbo"...they are all well set and the bass intonates well.
Bridge work fine and the tuner are light. NOTE: the tuner posts are narrower than conventional tuners and so require a shorter length to get wound properly. Strings that I have cut to fit on this bass may not fit well on my other Fenders.
Here's the thing;
The V-Mod pickup. The two segments sound quite different. Kind o flike the difference between a '62 alder/rosewood (E & A) and a '57 ash/maple (D&G).
I use an Aguilar TH700 and Barefaced 1x12 cabs as well as a Fender Rumble 100 Combo. When I eq for a great tone on the low strings, the high strings sound weak. When I EQ for a great tone on the high strings, the low strings sound honky. I cannot seem to find the love across all four strings.
I have a Fralin to try out after I get some stage time with this as-is setup.

Does anyone else find that the V-Mod II sounds like I described?

 

[Killing Floor]

!!!!!!

 

[Yahboy]

Try reverse it if cloth wire are long enough.

The cheap 15 bucks Wilkinson wpb Alnico V pup I installed on my Squier pbass has similar unbalanced voice issue like your vmod ll pup. The EA side sound bassy and bit louder , meanwhile DG sound midrangy bright with some low end lacking.

Once I reverse it, man, both DG sound full and the EA sound solid, wonderful tonal Balance with Labella LTF4A loaded.

 

[bobba66]

Holy crap what a pretty bass!

 

[bassist4dalord]

Congrats! That bass is gorgeous. Good luck with the pickups!

 

[Bassdoggydogg]

I got my new AMProII PBass this week.
I also have a benchmark bass, my '64 PBass "voice of god" which is awesome for balance, feel & tone. So the bar is set high.
The American Pro II is an excellent bass with good build quality.
The balance is very good and the neck feels GREAT in the hand. On this neck the grain is very flat across the width and stays that way for the whole length. IDK why, but that is important to me.
The frets feel tall to me b/c my other basses are old and have been dressed over the many years. I can adapt to these, at least they are not "med jumbo"...they are all well set and the bass intonates well.
Bridge work fine and the tuner are light. NOTE: the tuner posts are narrower than conventional tuners and so require a shorter length to get wound properly. Strings that I have cut to fit on this bass may not fit well on my other Fenders.
Here's the thing;
The V-Mod pickup. The two segments sound quite different. Kind o flike the difference between a '62 alder/rosewood (E & A) and a '57 ash/maple (D&G).
I use an Aguilar TH700 and Barefaced 1x12 cabs as well as a Fender Rumble 100 Combo. When I eq for a great tone on the low strings, the high strings sound weak. When I EQ for a great tone on the high strings, the low strings sound honky. I cannot seem to find the love across all four strings.
I have a Fralin to try out after I get some stage time with this as-is setup.

Does anyone else find that the V-Mod II sounds like I described?


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Why don't you like medium jumbo frets?

 

[TN WOODMAN]

Only played one identical to yours in GC a few months ago when picking up my Stingray & was blown away by the overall sum of the parts. My example had the best looking chocolate rosewood board I’ve seen on a production bass in years.

Can’t comment much on the pickup being it was just a quick demo & knew it wasn’t coming with me . Although the thought crossed my mind on the ride home.

 

[aero58]

Have you already tried raising the high side pickup a smidge?….Awesome bass, BTW!!

 

[Deleted member 271037]

This is a well doumented problem with the V-Mods, starting with the first American Vintage (non-II) series. Some people say they're gotten better results by moving the coils around, current E-A coil to D-G and vice versa.

I was very surprised that Fender kept using this type of pickup in the AmPro II series after all the criticism they got from the first AmPro series. The whole idea of using different magnets (alnico II/V) for the two coils seems like something they did to make this "feature" consistent with the V-Mod guitar pickups, where this approach perhaps makes more sense. On P-basses it doesn't make sense at all and it causes an unbalanced tone between E-A and D-G. If you're not happy about it you can first try reversing the coils (although you may have to unsolder and splice the wires). If this doesn't solve the problem you need new pickups.

Some people also find the V-Mods too scooped. They're certainly a bit different from a classic, vintage P-bass tone. The V-Mods have a smoother, mellower tone with less midrange "bite". Whether this is good or bad will depend on personal taste but the unbalanced tone between the coils is unfortunately a real issue.

The V-mods also have lower output than most P-bass pickups but I personally don't think this a problem.

On the positive side I love the neck profile on the AmPros. Absolutely PERFECT for my taste. Unfortunately mine also came with a slightly warped neck and needed the frets levelled out of the box. It also had some very rough tool marks along the edge of the fretboard and came with a wire sticking out underneath the pickguard, leaving the pickguard permanently disfigured. I also hate the fluted tuning posts as I keep breaking strings when bringing strings back up to tension after loosening them for service/setup (but they seem to work fine when installing brand new strings and with normal day-to-day use). Definitely not Fender's finest moment...

 

[Fernando Costa]

I believe the V-Mod II pups also have different magnets for each pair of strings - like the original V-Mods - and this causes a slight difference in the tone of each pair of strings. I have a Jazz AM PRO 2016 and this tone difference bothered me.

I decided not to change the pups and currently I don't notice the difference anymore, not even in recordings. I don't know if we got used to it or if we made up for it with the way we played. Today I like the V-Mods (I really think that only I like them...), anyway, I would wait a while before changing this pup. This P-Bass is a great bass, later on if you can't get used to it there are plenty of options for you.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

once again, the Fender precision is the number one bass

 

[sgiacomo]

The V-Mod pickup. The two segments sound quite different. Kind o flike the difference between a '62 alder/rosewood (E & A) and a '57 ash/maple (D&G).
I use an Aguilar TH700 and Barefaced 1x12 cabs as well as a Fender Rumble 100 Combo. When I eq for a great tone on the low strings, the high strings sound weak. When I EQ for a great tone on the high strings, the low strings sound honky. I cannot seem to find the love across all four strings.
I have a Fralin to try out after I get some stage time with this as-is setup.

Does anyone else find that the V-Mod II sounds like I described?


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No issues here in fact mine sounds awesome across the audio spectrum. I have been primarily using my Genz Benz Shuttle 3.0 10” combo with matching 10” extension cab.

 

[Moe Hickey]

To my ears the pickup is more complex in its sound so I enjoy the variances.

 

[Relsom]

I have a Pro II P-Bass also. Though not uncomfortably large, I found the last Am Standard (pre Pro) necks feel smaller and more to my liking. But there's no denying, that satin amber tint is marvelous.

 

[Matt R.]

Man, I’ve tried AmPro J and P Basses. They are awesome, but the VMod pickups on both are just garbage to my ears. A lot of people definitely like them, but that’s also the most frequent complaint I’ve noticed on these instruments

 

[JRA]

while i don't know the Vmod pickup issue(s), i can spot a sweet looking instrument, and yours is all that! congratulations on your new instrument!

 

[Frankie Fender]

Beautiful bass, fit and finish are great and the neck with the rolled edges is to die for. I returned mine because I just couldn't stand the "tall" vintage frets. My four P basses all have medium/jumbo and that's where it's at for me. I corrected that by getting the 75th anniversary P Bass, Med/jumbo frets and a '62 pup! To each his own.

 

[Pet Sounds]

I was excited to get a Pro I in Olympic White when they first came out (my name is Pet Sounds, after all!), but I have never bonded with it on account of the V-Mod I pickup. Someday I'll replace it. I picked up a sunburst/maple Pro II last year, and I love it. To my ear, the V-Mod II sounds much better than the first V-Mod, more like my idea of a traditional P-Bass sound.

 

[Honkey tonk]

Shill, I can't imagine buying a 2 thousand dollar top the line anything and replacing pickups , sweet bass congrats...

Used to be fun to get a mm for couple hundo and throw parts at it , now those are too nice to bugger up

 

[PaperbackRyder]

And another thing....
Since the new tuner posts are more narrow, it takes a shorter total length to make the 3x winds around when installing strings. So I cut them shorter. No biggie until I try to use them on one of my older Fenders. So now whatever strings I try on the new AmProII should be kept segregated from the others.
Not a deal breaker, just another data point.