Ok I guess I'm going 80s.

I know that they fit the 80's P-Bass Specials, Not sure about the Duff. I bet it will fit, pretty standard, no mod bridge upgrade.

Hope that helps.

 

I just want to be sure I understand. A few hours ago you were asking which bass to get, the Duff sig or the 80's MIJ. Then you decide to get the 80's...fine. Now, you haven't held the bass in your hands yet and you know so little about it that you're asking us about it but you've already spent money on pickups. Why didn't you wait until you had at least played the stock pups for a while?

 

SLap SLap SLap, let him have it LO... I just joined this one, yeah high speed decisions. OK.

Well here's the scoop. The BADASS II will fit on most J basses, but the Artist specials have some different curves and angles to the body. They put a BAII on the Geddy Lee MIJ right out of the box, and my 2007 MIA AM DLX the body curve at the bottom is a little different.

The bridge bolts in position but on my bass, but it was thru body stringing, and you abandon that with the BAII. Needs two more holes drilled for the bridge too.

The bottom rear corner just bairly sticks off the body a little bit, its close, but looks OK. I would have liked to have gotten it back another 1/4" so the bridge pieces could have been extended further. To get the Intonation right they are screwed back a bit further than I'd like.

The BAIII is supposed to be a direct bolt on for the new J's. BUt I've heard some jive in both direction on that.

SO, go buy yourself a BAII but be ready to send it back if the body is cut differently on your artist's bass. BOB

 

The badass II fits on the 80's MIJ Jazz Bass Special. No mods required, fits flat on body (nothing sticking out either). I know becasue I had the same setup, and I've had 3 Jazz Bass Specials so overall pretty familiar with them.

Stock PUPS are pretty nice, so i'd focuss just on the bridge if anything. I had 1/4 Pounders in it, sounded great, but then reverted back to the stock ones and wondered why I ever replaced them.

Good luck. The silver/pewter ones turn sort of greenish with age as the clear coat ages. (assuming it already had turned by now)

 

There really is no problem with the original bridge on these. There really should be no need at all to replace it.
I personally have no experience with Badass bridges but I could never see (or hear) any inherent tonal advantage they had over stock bridges. I've heard some people say that they add sustain, which is a good thing, if you need more sustain. But I've also heard that they can suck low end from your tone. This would not be a good thing as those jazz specials don't have much natural low end to them (basswood body?)
I've also heard that it's harder to get ultra low action with them.
Also bear in mind that the bridge on these basses, especially later ones, is NOT the stock Fender bent plate bridge anyway.

Play it a while before modding it. And if you really want to change the bridge out don't think that badass is the only option.

 

I have a fretless Jazz Special. Good, solid bridge, works like it should. Pickups are fine, but could probably be better. I attribute the somewhat hollow low end to be a characteristic of the basswood body though, not a problem with the pickups.

 

I agree with Belka on playing it first.

The stock Jazz bridge is a POS hunk of tin in my opinion. Sure it does what it is supposed to do. The thing with the BAB is the solid connection from the strings to the body. Lets face it - its the body that adds the tone to the bass not the air.. How would you measure sustain?

OK, on the tougher to get a low action, oh yes I agree there 100%. I had issues with that UNTIL I did the drop string conversion on my bass last weekend.

I like my action slammed and with the thicker bridge I was fighting it since I bought the bass. My luthier suggested shimming the neck, but I wasn't for that even though almost everybody does that. The other suggestion was to rout out the body 1/8" to sink the bridge.

The nut did need machined some as the pressure to play the first fret was too high.

I suppose since you make your own notches in the bridge pieces for the strings you could sink them there too.

The Slap guys play with a higher action, so this bridge lends itself to that sort of play.

Shim might be the answer there.

Anyway, when I did the B-E-A-D conversion shot on it. I had to of course file out the nut. I bought a small set of files at SEARS and they worked perfectly for the "NUT JOB".

So I took the nut down so low that I almost just have to breath on the first fret to make the note, the first 5 are just a dream.

I will also mention my luthier had done a jewell job and got my frets like a pancake. This 2007 American Deluxe was a total mess. A MIM or MIJ would scare the heck out of me. I did play a Geddy Lee at the GC that was wonderful however. A lot of that could have been the thinner neck. I have thought seriously about getting out the sander and reradiusing.

So anyway the luthier leveled the frets and then micro polished them until they glistened.

(Jewelled Frets)

Now the action is just fantastic. You will want to seriously scope out this new bass to see if that needs to be done.

Anyway, have a blast. I'll never buy another bass off the rack. My previous one was a hand built fretless and man, the quality of that bugger was sweet. I just didnt have too many choices on the rack when I bought this. If the GEddy had been sitting there when I bought mine, I would have probably grabbed it up even though it was a MIJ I believe.

I really only wanted a MIA.

BOB

 

Very true, forgot about about that... The later ones have a higher mass bridge, but it's some sort of alloy I think... And if I remember right, it has a strange 4-bolt pattern which means that BAII will NOT be a direct fit.

Post a freakin' pic!

No pic, no bass! LOL

 

If you are changing out your bridge, you are customizing, chances are pretty good screws are not going to match up.

Thats where you need to be fairly confidant at what you are doing. You want the measurment from the nut to the bridge pieces to be the same. Thats nice with adjustable bridge pieces. Tweak the intonation right in.

You also need to watch the centering and string spacing. In the end if it is done right, you at least will be able to say it was done, even if your tin ear doesn't notice any tone change.

The combined changes on my bass have made it a much better player than off the rack. The one standout change that made the most difference was the Jewelled Frets.

The micro polishing is just show, but the fret level was a godsend. I will not own a fretted bass that is not PLEKKED from now on, then micro polish. That would be the best $235 spent on a guitar you could do.

BOB