Thank You. I Love your Jazz Bass.
I have a Set of Red DR's already for it. I'm waiting till I'm certain this neck is stable. I have a really good righty Neck standing by in case this one is un-stable.
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Thank You. I Love your Jazz Bass.
I have a Set of Red DR's already for it. I'm waiting till I'm certain this neck is stable. I have a really good righty Neck standing by in case this one is un-stable.
Well, I had to ditch the lefty neck as it's too unstable. I painted the front face of the headstock on one of my Mike Dirnt Necks and went ahead and put the Red coated DR's on it. It sounds and plays fantastic.
Squier Mustang with double Mustang pickups and stacked knobs:
Crazy-looking, but very intriguing setup. Do the E and A strings have a very different tonality from the D and G when both pickups are running?
This is the second configuration for this bass. The first time, I had the upper D/G pickup way up towards the neck.
It sounded balanced, but lost all its zing. No higher frequencies at all.
I decided I like the stock placement better for the upper pair of pickups, and moved the lower pair closer to the bridge. (Don't look under the homemade pick guard.
)The lowest E/A pup at the bridge balances out the somewhat brighter D/G that's below the stock one,
but might sound a bit too zingy when that pickup is used alone with the tone knob all the way up.
Running them both together sounds very well balanced regardless of where I have the tone knob of either set.
I like this bass a lot.
Thoughts on buying a used squier and upgrading the neck, pickups, bridge etc.. vs getting a used American Standard?
If you shop smart (...shop S-Mart!
), you could conceiveably build something quite nice for a fraction of the cost an American-made bass. However, the trick is finding a good/great neck and body to build up from. Pull that off, while not going too crazy on the upgrades, and you’ll succeed. I know I have. 
I've posted before, but my Squiers, which happen to be my main work basses, have gone through further modification. So here they are as they currently look:
Hi
This is my Squier Jazz Bass VM 60 :
Direct in Tascam US 122 MK II :
This is my Squier Jazz Bass VM 60 :
Direct in Tascam US 122 MK II :
Been there! Both of mine needed work. Glad I did thoughI wasn't planning on re-doing the writing. This is my "fly" bass. However, once I saw the old wiring, I couldn't unsee it.
Somewhere throughout all 3 parts of this thread there is a guy playing a red bass with cream pick up covers and playing live on a stage outside wearing a trilby, anyone know who I mean? Bit random I know
I own three, and would offer this observation:
Stick with a Vint Mod or Classic Vibe, and find a barely-used one at a discount vs. a new one. These would be in the ballpark with MIM or occasionally a down-market MIA, though you will see where they cut some corners.
The only thing I did right off the bat with the two passive ones was to update the pots/wiring/jack, as this is a classic cost-cutting measure on any low retail price instrument (you can't see 'em), and updating to CTS or Bourns and a little wiring and a good jack isn't much money.
After that: Play them a while, and you see if you think they really need any serious surgery to do what you want. A lot of us have found they don't.
The reason I say this is you can certainly sink a ton of money into a Squier . . . . and then when you go to sell it, Warmoth neck, full EMG setup, primo keys and bridge . . . . you will be faced with selling a SQUIER bass . . . . for a LOT of money. Watch Reverb or EBay and every so often you'll see an upgraded Squier like that this month . . . . it's still there next month . . . . and it will still be there the month after. No matter what's under the hood, the market expects Squiers to run around $300-$500, sometimes even less, so you don't want to get caught out with some super-modified axe that has turned into a money sink . . . .
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If I may add a little something to this…
…assuming Drew is talking about a Jazz bass, the control plate may need to be replaced as well. If the Squier is using mini-pots, the plate's first three holes will be too narrow for standard-sized CTS pots. (The fourth hole is larger to accommodate a ¼" inner-diameter output jack.) Whenever I'm looking for a control plate online, I make sure the numeric specs AND the diagram show all the holes are the same size.
