/ Register

Replaced the tuners on my MIM jazz basses

Discussion in 'Hardware, Setup & Repair [BG]' started by Beefbass, Jun 28, 2003.

  1. Jun 28, 2003 #1
    Beefbass

    Beefbass Guest

    Feb 4, 2001
    Hey everybody. I have two MIM Jazz basses; a fretted 2000 model, and a fretless 2002 model. Nice basses, except for the hardware, particularly the tuners. And the bridges-the one on my fretless, the A string kept dropping down all by itself. The local music shop said to use crazy glue on it.

    Well, I did that, but thought why should I have a new bass with a bridge being held together by crazy glue?

    So I shopped around, and ended up going to the Warmoth site. I got two sets of Schaller BML tuners, and two Gotoh 201 bridges. The tuners were $46 for a set of four chrome, the bridges were $23 a piece.

    The bridges of course went right on. Big improvement IMHO over the stock bridge. The tuners required new mounting holes to be drilled, but that was easy. They fit the existing bushings, so that was no problem-the new ones were almost exactly identical anyway.

    Well, they are also a huge improvement over the stock tuners, and not too expensive. So now, I'm really a happy camper with both basses :)

    I have a MIM P bass deluxe special that will soon need new tuners also ( they weren't as bad, and since the vintage style bridge is actually pretty nice, I thought I would do the Jazz basses first.)
    So in the near future, I will change those tuners, but leave the stock bridge.

    I asked a lot od questions about these mods here before going thru with it, and you guys were a big help-especially Hambone! Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it ! :)
     
  2. Jun 28, 2003 #2
    Trevorus

    Trevorus

    Oct 18, 2002
    Urbana, IL
    that's what talk bass is here for. It's a great resource.
     
  3. Jun 29, 2003 #3
    glwanabe

    glwanabe Guest

    Apr 21, 2002
    I also aquired the gotoh bridge from warmoth, excellent bridge. I will be replacing the tuners on my affinity precision soon.
     
  4. Jun 29, 2003 #4
    Beefbass

    Beefbass Guest

    Feb 4, 2001
    It really is a great resource-no argument here. :)
     
  5. Jun 29, 2003 #5
    SuperDuck

    SuperDuck

    Sep 26, 2000
    Wisconsin
    I've done many things to my MIM Jazz, but never got around the swapping out the tuners. They never gave me problems, so I figgered I would just leave them be.

    What was wrong with yours? Slippage? Falling offage? Maybe I'll swap mine out on principal. :D
     
  6. Jun 29, 2003 #6
    Beefbass

    Beefbass Guest

    Feb 4, 2001
    Well, they just weren't very responsive. You could twist them a little in each direction, before they would catch on. Then, you had to turn them quite a bit to get them to make the smallest changes in pitch. Very frustrating.
    The new Schaller BML's are great-no such problems with those. You do have to drill new mounting holes. But I found no need to change the bushings-the new tuners fit right in. So really, an easy, and effective fix.
    If yours are fine though, you may not need to change them. But mine weren't very good at all, so I did it. I'm glad I did.
    The one thing I did notice-with the new tuners (which BTW do not have tapered shafts)and Gotoh 201 bridge, the strings seem to have a little bit more tension. But thats actually good-I could lift the A string right out of the nut on both basses, and can still do it on the Pbass. But with the new hardware, no such problems.
    When I tune a string downwards in pitch, I pull up on it, so the tension goes past the nut-thats why I was pulling up on them BTW.
    I'm really happy with the mods, IMHO it was well worth it.