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"Official" Jackson Minion Bass Club

N

Never2Late

May 24, 2023
267
925
#1
When researching the Jackson Minion bass I found little bits and pieces of information spread all over, so I thought it would be useful to have a single place for owners to share thoughts and information.

Let's start a club!

If we'd like to do numbers, reply to this thread and I'll start keeping track.

Please include a picture of your Minion Bass! :D
 
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#3
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#4
My Minion Bass:
IMG_1856a.jpg
 
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#8
Club Numbers!

How about if we reserve the first 6 numbers for the still-active TB users in the post list above (in post 3), in date order, for players that still have their Minion and reply that they want to participate?

@ilansgroove, that makes you Jackson Minion Club member #4! :D

@evs, you are Jackson Minion Club member #6! :bassist:

That makes me Jackson Minion Club member #7. :)
 
#9
My experience so far with the Minion.

Setup.
Out of the box, the neck was straight with almost zero relief. That was giving me a bit of fret buzz, so I ran through a quick setup to get it to factory specs. I had to loosen the truss rod by more than a full turn, to completely loose, to get .012" relief at the 8th fret. After letting the neck settle for a day I then tightened the truss rod about 1/8 turn until it was just snug. It's been stable at .012" since.

I lowered the strings to 5/64 (E and A) and 4/64 (D and G) measured at the 17th fret. At those settings, I got occasional buzzing on A and D when testing the setup with aggressive plucking, fretted at the high end (15+). Since I don't play in that range and don't pluck aggressively, it hasn't been an issue.

After that setup, the strings were almost touching the pickups so those had to be lowered.

The frets themselves are nice, with no sharp edges, and the satin finish on the back of the neck is also very nice.

Balance.
I play with the neck pointing up at around 45 degrees. Using a cheap 2" poly strap, hands off the bass, the neck slowly dropped. But just a little, not diving like my EB-0. Changing to a 2.5" cotton strap resolved it.

Weight
My Minion weighs in right at 6.5 pounds.

Sound.
These pickups sound marvelous. Nice, distinct P sound and J sound, beautiful when mixed. There's occasional slight electrical noise when playing in my house. It's the same with my Ibanez Mikro's. My fully shielded Epiphone EB-0 was silent, so I'm planning to fully shield the cavities in the Minion (and my Mikro's).

Overall, I love it. The Minion bass is exactly what I expected. It's a joy to play and a great addition to my short-scale family.
 
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#10
Random observation:

I read somewhere on the interwebs that the Jackson Minion and the Squier Mini might come from the same factory and had identical bodies. I recently tried out a Mini and took pictures and found that was not true. While their basic shapes are similar, they are quite different. For example, the neck pockets: the Minion body meets the neck at the 17th fret, where the Mini body meets its neck at the 16th fret. And the edges on the body of the Minion are less rounded than those on the Mini. And, of course, the hardware between the two is completely different, as are their layouts. Just mentioning as an FYI that they don't appear to be related other than both being under the Fender family umbrella.
 
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#12
I have one - told my wife that I bought it "for our daughter" who was 2 at the time...It's a surprisingly great bass and one day I'm going to hotrod it with active EMG pups and the complimentary BTS system...I'd like to buy one more white one and a purple one and swap the necks around because the purple Minion bass should really also have the maple fretboard as well...😉

20201012_165707.jpg
 
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#14
@EWH FYI about white/maple JS1XM Minions: they're showing NLA (no longer available) at all the bigger dealers that I was familiar with in the US. I contacted Jackson Guitars about a month ago to see if they've been discontinued, and received a reply (from Fender support) that they only had 1 left in stock, with "no expected resupply date".

Since that response was a bit unclear, I ended up buying one mail-order from a new-to-me dealer that showed 12 in stock. They now show 9.

So, if you're at all serious about buying another one in white/maple, it might be best to do it soon. There's a chance they'll be resupplied at some point, but most online dealers will typically show "temporarily unavailable" or something similar when that's the case.

The great news is that 2 new colors have been added! (I love red)
 
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#16
Never2Late said:
@EWH FYI about white/maple JS1XM Minions: they're showing NLA (no longer available) at all the bigger dealers that I was familiar with in the US. I contacted Jackson Guitars about a month ago to see if they've been discontinued, and received a reply (from Fender support) that they only had 1 left in stock, with "no expected resupply date".

Since that response was a bit unclear, I ended up buying one mail-order from a new-to-me dealer that showed 12 in stock. They now show 9.

So, if you're at all serious about buying another one in white/maple, it might be best to do it soon. There's a chance they'll be resupplied at some point, but most online dealers will typically show "temporarily unavailable" or something similar when that's the case.

The great news is that 2 new colors have been added! (I love red)
Click to expand...

Last time I checked (a few months ago) the white/maple version was still available - I just checked with Thomann now and it's not so, looks like I missed the bus...Every time I like something, it gets discontinued - happens *every* time...🙄 I can still get the purple one and the black one - and now also the red (not a fan of red unless it's candy apple) which is metallic apparently...I can hunt down a used white one someday if I really want one, I'm sure...We'll see what happens...🤔 I'm interested in a color review of the metallic red version though...
 
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#18
EWH said:
... and now also the red (not a fan of red unless it's candy apple) which is metallic apparently... 🤔 I'm interested in a color review of the metallic red version though...
Click to expand...

I stopped by my local GC a few days ago and they had a red Minion, so here's a color review: It's candy apple red. :D

Okay, candy apple red was originally a coat of gold covered by a coat of transparent red gloss. But, modern candy apple red paints can include metallic, pearl, or metal flake, and that's what's on the red Minion. It looks like a metallic basecoat covered with a coat of transparent red gloss, but it might just be a single step paint job. Either way, it's very shiny and looks really good.
 
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#19
Setup round 2, after a month of playing (post #9 has initial setup)

Neck Relief:

I rechecked neck relief and found that the largest gap was at the 6th and 7th frets rather than the 8th where I had previously measured, and is typically recommended.

So, I ended up tightening the truss rod about a 1/4 turn to bring relief to .011" at the 6th fret.

Nut Height:

Playing at the low end (frets 1 and 2) was requiring more effort than I wanted so I checked the nut slots (string heights at fret 1) and found them all much higher than the recommended .022". So. I filed the nut slots to get them down to .022".

Result:

Without touching the bridge at all, those adjustments completely eliminated the occasional buzz I had when testing super aggressive plucking on A and D at the high end (15+). It's all clean now. It also lowered all the string heights to 2/32" (measured at the 17th fret), making it even easier for me to play.

.
 
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#20
For anyone not familiar with bass setup, John Carruthers' (free YouTube) 4-part bass setup series is easy to understand and follow:


There are other luthiers that recommend having the neck as straight as possible; just enough relief to eliminate buzzing when the first fret is pressed. For my Minion and my Mikros I ended up with less relief than the .012" recommended by John. And as described in the previous post, relief might need to be checked at a lower fret for 28.6" basses. I also like my strings as low as possible, and have them at 2/32", half the height recommended by John. So, the video series is useful as a "how-to" but the measurements are specific to the instrument and how you play.

A capo helps a lot. I have these (no longer available), but identical models are available for around $4: Capos on Amazon.com

For nut slot filing, I use a hack saw blade followed by 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around the flat side of the hack saw blade, being careful to watch the shape of the cut (angled downward and bottom/sides square). I was going to buy nut slot files, but this method worked for me on my Mikros and Minion.
.
 
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