Things You Wish Leo Had Done Differently...

[Gilmourisgod]

I think the Jazz bass is a masterpiece of ergonomic design with one problem: neck dive. I know this can be solved with careful pairing of neck and body or ultralite tuners, but I've never picked up an off the shelf Fender Jazz that wasn't at least a little neck heavy. Otherwise Leo is my hero. He fixed most of the inherent problems in his early designs when he ran G&L.

 

[BassShark]

I wish he didn't place covers over the pickups and bridge right where you pick. Other than that, when you realize some of these instruments were designed before the Corvette was, that's amazing.

Yeah, you can't actually play the bass with the covers on, unless you play with your thumb as Fender thought the basses would be played.

Before I bought my first Precision Bass brand new in 1975, I had the dealer ask Fender if I could order it without the covers, I didn't even want the holes to be there. They refused. Years later I was assembling replicas from kits/parts and I HAD TO put the holes for the chrome covers even though I had no intention of ever installing them.

 

[bholder]

I think the Jazz bass is a masterpiece of ergonomic design with one problem: neck dive. I know this can be solved with careful pairing of neck and body or ultralite tuners, but I've never picked up an off the shelf Fender Jazz that wasn't at least a little neck heavy. Otherwise Leo is my hero. He fixed most of the inherent problems in his early designs when he ran G&L.

That's why Fender tried the longhorn style for a while, to cure the neck dive, but they gave up on it after a few years.

 

[BassShark]

I think the Jazz bass is a masterpiece of ergonomic design with one problem: neck dive. I know this can be solved with careful pairing of neck and body or ultralite tuners, but I've never picked up an off the shelf Fender Jazz that wasn't at least a little neck heavy. Otherwise Leo is my hero. He fixed most of the inherent problems in his early designs when he ran G&L.

The right strap is all you need. I find that just about any bass balances perfectly with a Neotech strap, even notorious neck divers like Gibson Thunderbirds. With a narrow nylon strap, almost every bass is neck heavy.

 

[jamro217]

Yeah, you can't actually play the bass with the covers on, unless you play with your thumb as Fender thought the basses would be played.

Before I bought my first Precision Bass brand new in 1975, I had the dealer ask Fender if I could order it without the covers, I didn't even want the holes to be there. They refused. Years later I was assembling replicas from kits/parts and I HAD TO put the holes for the chrome covers even though I had no intention of ever installing them.

Who can blame Leo for imagining how his newly created musical instrument would be played? He wasn't a player. "...Hmmm...now that I built this thing, how does it work? ...I know!...like this..."

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Bass shark
That's true about the strap, I guess I'm talking about seated playing. I practice seated, and it's aggravating having to hold the neck up on a neck heavy bass. I have a fretless Jazz built with Warmouth parts, and it's way neck heavy, to the point it's a little uncomfortable to play for long periods. Guess I need to consider Hipshot Ultralites, or add weight to the body.

 

[bholder]

Who can blame Leo for imagining how his newly created musical instrument would be played? He wasn't a player. "...Hmmm...now that I built this thing, how does it work? ...I know!...like this..."

Yeah, I think he was thinking along the lines of players not wanting to play right over the pickups anyway, not realizing they'd actually like and want the more overdriven sound. As brilliant as Leo was, some of his best inventions didn't work out quite the way he intended / expected.

 

[Bassamatic]

My biggest gripe is that the P pups should have been reversed. To me - they sound much better that way.
I also prefer the side jack.
And Ps with J necks.

And not selling out - at least to CBS - would have been great for everyone.


BTW - According to my genius engineer who also does a lot of custom guitar / amp electronics - the pickups covers are not for shielding, but instead to reflect the magnetic field back down to the strings to help even out the magnetic pull from the pickups so the strings vibrate more symmetrically.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Must admit, practicality aside, the ashtray covers look COOL. I've always gassed for a sunburst 70's Jazz with bound and blocked neck, ashtrays, the works. There is one of these in my future.

 

[BassShark]

Who can blame Leo for imagining how his newly created musical instrument would be played? He wasn't a player. "...Hmmm...now that I built this thing, how does it work? ...I know!...like this..."

What made Leo such a visionary was that he was aware that he wasn't a musician and consulted with local musicains whose opinions he respected for input. Asked them what they would like to have in a guitar what they thought was needed that didn't exist. I think the fact that he wasn't a guitarist actually helped Leo, since he lacked the predjudices of set-in-their ways manufacturers like Gibson who couldn't bring themselves to produce "a plank of wood" like a solidbody guitar until Leo's Broadcaster/Tele forced them to.

A few years later I think he stopped doing that and went the other way, trying to get jazz musicians to accept the Jazzmaster, which he designed with them in mind...a futile effort...

 

[BassShark]

Bass shark
That's true about the strap, I guess I'm talking about seated playing. I practice seated, and it's aggravating having to hold the neck up on a neck heavy bass. I have a fretless Jazz built with Warmouth parts, and it's way neck heavy, to the point it's a little uncomfortable to play for long periods. Guess I need to consider Hipshot Ultralites, or add weight to the body.

Or you can use a strap adjusted to a shorter length for seated playing.

 

[jamro217]

I think the Jazz bass is a masterpiece of ergonomic design with one problem: neck dive. I know this can be solved with careful pairing of neck and body or ultralite tuners, but I've never picked up an off the shelf Fender Jazz that wasn't at least a little neck heavy. Otherwise Leo is my hero. He fixed most of the inherent problems in his early designs when he ran G&L.

One relatively inexpensive way to remedy this without mutilating your bass is to mount some lead fishing sinkers to the bottom strap button with 100 lb. test line a foot or so below the bottom of the body. The beauty is that you can add as many as needed to get just the right balance (unlike FOH soundmen, but that's another story entirely). If they look too plain, you can paint them or have them chrome plated to match the rest of the hardware. One word of caution, don't go swinging the bass around onstage too much or you could end up breaking your legs.

 

[BassShark]

Yeah, I think he was thinking along the lines of players not wanting to play right over the pickups anyway, not realizing they'd actually like and want the more overdriven sound. As brilliant as Leo was, some of his best inventions didn't work out quite the way he intended / expected.

I don't know if it's more overdriven per se picking over the pickups, but there is a bit more output, so in a way, yeah there is.

With what passed for a bass amp before the advent of the Acoustic 360 or Ampeg SVT, getting overdrive wasn't a problem anyway. You had plenty of distortion even if you didn't want it!

Re "some of his best inventions didn't work out quite the way he intended / expected", that's definitely true. Strats played with distortion and their trems used for dive boming effects, even the so-called "out of phase" Strat tone was unintentional. But that may be the mark of a great design, that it can go far beyond its original purpose...

 

[bholder]

One relatively inexpensive way to remedy this without mutilating your bass is to mount some lead fishing sinkers to the bottom strap button with 100 lb. test line a foot or so below the bottom of the body. The beauty is that you can add as many as needed to get just the right balance (unlike FOH soundmen, but that's another story entirely). If they look too plain, you can paint them or have them chrome plated to match the rest of the hardware. One word of caution, don't go swinging the bass around onstage too much or you could end up breaking your legs.

I was thinking of going the other way - depending on the headroom available in the practice and gigging spaces - how large a helium balloon would it take to cure neck dive on a 12 string thunderbird bass?

 

[nerkoids]

One relatively inexpensive way to remedy this without mutilating your bass is to mount some lead fishing sinkers to the bottom strap button with 100 lb. test line a foot or so below the bottom of the body. The beauty is that you can add as many as needed to get just the right balance (unlike FOH soundmen, but that's another story entirely). If they look too plain, you can paint them or have them chrome plated to match the rest of the hardware. One word of caution, don't go swinging the bass around onstage too much or you could end up breaking your legs.

Or get a VM 70s Squier. The body outweighs the neck easily. Outweighs almost everything else out there, to be honest...

 

[bholder]

Or get a VM 70s Squier. The body outweighs the neck easily. Outweighs almost everything else out there, to be honest...

There's a T-40 body on eBay at the moment that'd surely give it a good run for the money!

 

[jamro217]

I think the Jazz bass is a masterpiece of ergonomic design with one problem: neck dive. I know this can be solved with careful pairing of neck and body or ultralite tuners, but I've never picked up an off the shelf Fender Jazz that wasn't at least a little neck heavy. Otherwise Leo is my hero. He fixed most of the inherent problems in his early designs when he ran G&L.

My '68 P bass has a strap button on the back of the headstock. (I don't know if it's stock or if I bought it from a jerk.) If you have a long enough strap and can tie the end around the neck where the truss adjustment hole is (so you don't drill into the headstock), maybe it would sit better. You'd look like a folkie with an acoustic, though. If that is going in the wrong direction, maybe try getting a 2" replacement neck screw and mounting a strap button to the top facing, bridge end hole of the neck plate.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

24 fret, better cutaway because it is impossible to play above the 13th fret without some stupid hand position, a more ergonomic body. All thing other manufacturer improved upon but since it isn't named FENDER it doesn't sell as well

 

[BassShark]

How about a neck tilt on every bass, instead of just a select few from the 70's?

You say that as if it would've been a good thing! The Micro-Tilt was a rather useless feature that served more to speed production than to help the consumer. Instead of disassembling an finished instrument at the end of the assembly line to install a shim if the neck angle was a little too shallow, all an employee had to do was turn an Allen screw. Once the proper neck angle's been achieved it rarely if ever has to be adjusted again (on a solidbody) and the neck sitting on the tip of a little Allen screw partially decouples the neck from the body, and along with the 3-bolt neck sucks tone and destabilizes tuning. I personally have no use for 3-bolt Fenders. Except if I can buy 'em cheap enough to sell to people that like 'em!

 

[jamro217]

I was thinking of going the other way - depending on the headroom available in the practice and gigging spaces - how large a helium balloon would it take to cure neck dive on a 12 string thunderbird bass?

That's an even better idea. An added bonus is that if you overfill the balloons, just siphon a little off when it's time to do that BeeGees cover.