This is kind of long winded . I made these changes over a few years so bear with me .
I bought this Squier used at our local GC a few years ago . It played great but the tuxedo look didn't do it for me and neither did the tone . It was such a solid well built bass I though I'd mod it some to make it sound better . The first thing I did was change the preamp to an Audere Classic 3 band . The knobs that came on the bass fit the new pre so that worked out . With the Audere the output was lower than any of my other basses with the stock SQ Squier pickups so I snagged a pair of Nordstrand Big Blade single coil pickups . Wow ! Now it sounded really good . I then found a replacement pickguard on Amazon in black and it was looking better . I bought a black Hipshot-A style aluminum bridge from the Talkbass classifieds to save some weight and make changing strings easier . Then last Christmas bought a set of black Hipshot Ultralite tuners to help with weight and the look . The original hardware was smoked chrome so I wanted to change the string tees and knobs to match . I ended up painting the string tees with satin black Rustoleum and they matched very well . Last week I bought a Fender stealth string retainer that I had to paint black so I also painted the knobs too . I think they turned out really great and it inspired me to post this thread .
I'll try to post some before and after pictures .
I bought this Squier used at our local GC a few years ago . It played great but the tuxedo look didn't do it for me and neither did the tone . It was such a solid well built bass I though I'd mod it some to make it sound better . The first thing I did was change the preamp to an Audere Classic 3 band . The knobs that came on the bass fit the new pre so that worked out . With the Audere the output was lower than any of my other basses with the stock SQ Squier pickups so I snagged a pair of Nordstrand Big Blade single coil pickups . Wow ! Now it sounded really good . I then found a replacement pickguard on Amazon in black and it was looking better . I bought a black Hipshot-A style aluminum bridge from the Talkbass classifieds to save some weight and make changing strings easier . Then last Christmas bought a set of black Hipshot Ultralite tuners to help with weight and the look . The original hardware was smoked chrome so I wanted to change the string tees and knobs to match . I ended up painting the string tees with satin black Rustoleum and they matched very well . Last week I bought a Fender stealth string retainer that I had to paint black so I also painted the knobs too . I think they turned out really great and it inspired me to post this thread .
I'll try to post some before and after pictures .
