PROJECT FRANKEN-JAZZ: Squier Deluxe Active Jazz V

Of all the amazing basses in the world, I have always held the Fender Jazz design as a personal favorite. The look and feel of these instruments is simply where its at for me.

Unfortunately many of us have found Fender's quality to be lacking lately, and subsequently the market has responded with so many souped-up, hot-rodded and modified jazz copies that we can virtually have anything we want in a jazz bass. Different neck profiles and string spacing, better pickups etc.

Unfortunately, I have never found a jazz bass that had everything I wanted. The closest Ive come to a stock jazz copy that made me truly happy was the Sadowsky NYC line, and the Lakland JO5. So Like many people Ive decided to a project jazz.

I knew the Warmoth necks could be made exactly the way I like them (22 fret, maple on maple, extra stiff, and with generally superior fretwork to the Fenders), but what stock bass to start with. Owing to the huge expense Im going to incur in aftermarket mods it made no sense to start with anything more expensive than a mexican fender 5. After tinkering with a bunch of different basses however, I discovered that the Squier V actually sounded better stock. Even tho I plan on replacing the neck, I also found the fretwork to be superior as well!! Whats not to like? Comparable body wood, equal weight, properly shielded control cavity.... this was it!! The only gripe is the equal sized neck and bridge pickups.

Planned mods
- Warmoth Maple / Maple neck 22 fret w banjo-wire frets
- Black Gotoh tuners
- Graph-tech nut
- Feiten Tuning
- Bartolini 9J pickups
- Sadowsky Preamp w/ Vintage tone control
- Leo Quan Badass III Bridge
- Schaller Straplocks

Will post " Stage I " pics this weekend!

 

any suggestions on an alternative?

I need maple / maple, very stiff, traditional 4+1 headstock to fit small tuners, flattened "U" profile and the ability to get very thin ( think Lakland, vintage Fender) fretwire, with excellent fretwork stock.

 

Probably not going to do the USA customs neck after some research. At just under twice the cost with the options I'd want, It just doesnt work for me. Given that both Warmoth and USA Customs offer no real options as to neck profile (Warmoth is medium thin asymetrical, USACG is medium large U shape only, with options as to thickness) I think the warmoth will be easier for me to play. I'm not really worried about weight as I prefer a heavier instrument, and neck dive isnt an issue considering I estimate the body on my Squier V to be close to 8lbs and the warmoth neck would have to be obscenely heavy to cause any real trouble.

I've decided I need to pick between one of the two following sets of electronics / pups:

1)

Match a bartolini NTMB with a pair of Standard Ceramic Bar CBJD-L1 pickups (2 "bridge position" Classic Bass series DEEP at ~95mm in length)



(I'm concerned that these pickups wont fit as the generally agreed upon length of the stock pups is ~93mm.)

OOOOOORRRRR

Match a pair of Seymour Duncan SJB-5B with an Aguilar OBP-3 4 knob / 1 switch config.

(The barts might be too big, these might be too small.... its give or take ~1.8MM either way it seems.....experience anyone?)

Anybody have any opinions? I'm looking for very a very thick, deep tone with an underlying Jaco buzz. NOT looking for the ringing, more anemic sound found on lots of jazz basses. I want GIRTH and STRENGTH!