Professional Concerns About Geddy Lee Bass

[mongo2]

I've installed Duncan Hot Stack humbucking pickups, Lace Sensors, Dimarzio dual coil J humbuckers and Fender dual coil J humbuckers in Jazz basses to eliminate hum with only one pickup or both at unequal volumes. All of them worked fine for that. My favorites are the Duncans followed closely by the Fenders, both with the right amount of output for my taste. I found the output of the Dimarzios to be the highest and Lace Sensors to be a bit lower output.

 

[kerrycares]

Turn it up loud and play

 

[SteveCS]

You put a lot of work into quoting all those posts.

Not really. Everyone knows what the 'random guy' (not sound man - my bad) in the OP was referring to, even if s/he chose confusing or vernacular language to express it. They are prone to interference from external sources often beyond the control of the player - lights/dimmers, transformers, HVAC, etc. Those folks that claim to have never had any kind of hum issue with a SC Jazz are blessed, IME. The most irrational advice in the thread has been the "play both pickups on full" solution - fine for bucking the hum but just about the best way to suck most of the life from a Jazz, unless you want that sound.

 

[tb-player]

Not really. Everyone knows what the 'random guy' (not sound man - my bad) in the OP was referring to, even if s/he chose confusing or vernacular language to express it. They are prone to interference from external sources often beyond the control of the player - lights/dimmers, transformers, HVAC, etc. Those folks that claim to have never had any kind of hum issue with a SC Jazz are blessed, IME. The most irrational advice in the thread has been the "play both pickups on full" solution - fine for bucking the hum but just about the best way to suck most of the life from a Jazz, unless you want that sound.

Yeah. Not feeling able to utilize every sound in a jazz bass defeats the purpose of owning a jazz. And yes, every passive jazz I’ve ever owned has had hum issues in varying degrees, til I took it apart and fully shielded the bass with copper tape. That usually fixes it.. If I find myself in an especially problematic room and hum is still an issue, a wireless unit always does the trick.

 

[2thAche]

Jaco played a lot of different basses.

His most well known pertains to the point of the thread and makes it a joke, but thanks for making the effort to kill the fun.

 

[Bix]

Play it however you like and turn the volume down between songs and you should be fine. As many have mentioned, run both pickups and any hum should be cancelled. Guitarists with strats and teles will face the same single coil hum issues unless running pickups together.

 

[Fenderz2015]

This has been incredibly helpful! Thank you all!

 

[dkelley]

Geddy has an annual supply of custom shop basses. The Mexican version is not the same. If he wanted to keep playing it I’d throw out and redo everything from frets to electronics. Why, that’s what had to be done with my Mexican bass. Good for the price (when they were $550 anyway) but let’s not pretend there aren’t compromises to get to the price point.

mexican made jazz basses are fantastic instruments, in general, geddy or not, and have been used by professional bassists for as long as I can recall (and I'm in my 50s). There are bad basses from all builders/nations, but mexican fenders are typically considered the same as american fenders but with less high end pickups and cheaper pots. I'll tell ya... cheap pots (unless they are broken) don't affect tone/noise, and most of the mexican guitars and basses have had perfectly good pickups in them... just maybe not as ideal for perfect tone as the higher end instruments. Fretwork tends to be just fine on mexican basses.

Geddy would have the frets done and neck adjusted and intionation done and pickup heights adjusted and possibly the pickups swapped out and pots swapped out (for reliability while touring) on every bass he buys, regardless of where it was made. He can afford to.

I'm just surprised at the hate for mexican fender jazz basses, geddy or not, which have for many many many years been the standard that many pros have used.