Tele bass on the cheap

Few years back i bought this ^^^ new for €200,-

Not to discourage a nice project involving doing unspeakable things to a totally innocent bass guitar, but it might be an idea

 

If I understand it right, you want to make a new hole closer to the neck and make it two pickup thing. I say put down the pickguard and experiment. Omit the tone button (it's pointless anyway) and make it volume - volume. If it sounds ugly, you can revert back almost painlessly: put the new pickup away, cover the hole with pickguard, and revert back to the original wiring.

Check the dimensions of the pickup - it's guitar pickup, it might be too short for a bass. Would it play nice ... don't know. I have telecaster guitar with some fender tele pickup and this kind of pickup plays lows, highs, not much body... nice, softish, but opposite of what the Precision bass pickup kind of should be.

In my experience, bad bass won't play much better with a great pickup. I'd try the bass as it is, and experiment only when I find I like it, but want something a bit else, supposedly more bassier and soft sounding.

 

It's a great cheap bass, perfect for a modding platform with minimal outlay and risk. I have the older Wilkinson pickup in mine and it sounds really nice to me, the stock tuners and bridge are fine too. I'd go for a big humbucker in the neck personally, but like jj.833 says, you can experiment with it and revert back easily if you want.

 

@BassJeesus

It depends on your wants. If it's tone then the Roswell does the job no problem If it's looks+tone then think about a pickup ashtray. The big poles on the Roswell don't quite hit the 51 style

The PB-50 is a bass I know very well,must be 5 years I've been singing it's praises. Swapping one single coil pickup for another won't really gain you much regarding tone. I've tried custom handwounds,the usual aftermarket brand names and ultra cheap from ebay.

All were very much alike.

My advice is buy a PB-50 and spend the pickup money on a set of flats.A Telecaster bass is a joy to behold

 

I wouldn't say they were baseball bat thick but playing double bass my idea of thick differs from most I'd say thick enough for comfort.

 

I say go for it!

You can always take the neck pickup out and put a replacement pick guard on it if you don’t like it.

Might be a good idea to use a stacked pot for the volumes, or even go the 61’ Jazz wiring with stacked pots for each pickups volume and tone.

 

IMHO the ‘72 Tele basses sounded horrible. That’s why they were not very popular. That neck pickup just sounds bad. On the plus side I do like the way they look. That’s why I built my own version but with a standard split P-Bass pickup and the ‘72 Tele bass pick guard.