NBD - my first Fender ever!

[jg42]

I remember my first fender. Four years ago. Total "a-ha" moment when I first plugged it in.

a-ha?

 

[Davbassdude]

I Love the Rosewood fretboard, I Love the Pickups and that bridge looks Badass (excuse the pun)! I'd Love to hear how it sounds.
)

 

[stuntbass77]

I wish fender made a Lee Sklar model with reverse P' and same position as his bass. It's cool fender is making a double P, real as it's own sound

 

[Stranger Danger]

I used to own one, put some fender flats on it to make it really come alive.
Split p pickups need flats imho.
As far as the pots go, they used 500k pots, so they are pretty quick to get a strong output signal. I suspect they had to use 500k pots because the pickups use ceramic magnets which are kinda low output.

Ceramics are much higher output than alnicos. And AFAIK, Fender doesn't use ceramic pickups.

 

[Stranger Danger]

And 500 K pots aren't stronger, they're brighter.

 

[holdfast]

As long as you make sure the pot you replace it with is logarithmic and not linear it should fix the issue. The human ear has a natural...curve to how it perceives volume. The louder something is, the more decibels (dB) it takes to notice a change in volume. It sounds like right now the pots in your bass are linear, and that's why you're not noticing much of a change over the whole range. I could be wrong on this (please correct me someone if I am!) but if you replace the pots you have with logarithmic ones of the same resistance then you should be good!

I believe it is the other way around.

I don't know what's inside this bass, but if the volume pots are "A" pots (log taper), for example, A500K or A250K, that is why you are getting most of the change in volume at the end of the turn. If you can use a soldering gun just swap in "B" pots (linear taper) of the appropriate value, for example B500K or B250K, depending on what value is currently in there and you will get a much more gradual volume increase and decrease when you turn the pots.

I'm not schooled in electronics, but this has been my experience switching out A pots for B pots in a couple of my instruments recently.

 

[ejaggers]

I've never heard A P/P pickup configuration.......Cool Looking bass ....Congrats

057912

 

[sonicxyouth]

My school has the same bass. Poor thing has been beat up by high school kids for years... The action is so high its unplayable but still sounds amazing! My question is, if it is a Jazz bass why the two P pickups?

 

[jg42]

My school has the same bass. Poor thing has been beat up by high school kids for years... The action is so high its unplayable but still sounds amazing! My question is, if it is a Jazz bass why the two P pickups?

Well, it's a "Blacktop" jazz. There is also a "blacktop" precision bass. As you might have guessed, the Blacktop P doesn't have P pickups either - they sport a couple of humbuckers. So the idea (I guess) was to create something new and different.

 

[godofthunder59]

Cool ! Love the twin P pups.

 

[bholder]

Well, it's a "Blacktop" jazz. There is also a "blacktop" precision bass. As you might have guessed, the Blacktop P doesn't have P pickups either - they sport a couple of humbuckers. So the idea (I guess) was to create something new and different.

Neat, I didn't know about these:

 

[jg42]

Neat, I didn't know about these:

Neither did I, until I started a topic about choosing the P bass... So ended up getting one of these instead.

 

[bholder]

a-ha?

View attachment 558629

They didn't seem quite so young and ridiculous at the time, somehow. I did like that video, they did some well-crafted earworm pop.

 

[JIO]

I've never heard A P/P pickup configuration.......Cool Looking bass ....Congrats

057912

A double P was first introduced in 1983 (Elite series) - on a P body. A unique twist on a J now.

 

[jg42]

here is how it sounds: (recorded through Great River Pre -> Mytek ADC, Elixir strings, tone wide open)

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[Rich McCoy]

Ceramics are much higher output than alnicos. And AFAIK, Fender doesn't use ceramic pickups.

Well I just measured the DC resistance of my BT Jazz pickups and they came in at 5k and a little over 5k respectively, which is pretty weak.
And these are definitely ceramic, complete with magnets attached to the bottom of the pickups.