weird japanese sixties bass

[Steven Ayres]

I'm thinking about having a locksmith make the same from metal ....

The pickups will likely tend to emphasize highs. I'd go with wood first as a replacement, but only after cutting the plastic ones down to fit. That way you'll hear what the designers wanted it to sound like, and you can decide whether that's the sound for you. I expect metal will sound harsh.

 

[RickBlair]

You could try using some Fender-style saddles (fitting as necessary) without having to go through the effort of replacing the bridge or doing any other major modifications. I would keep the bass as original as possible but the old plastic saddles are likely to give you problems if you use the bass a lot.

Rick B.

 

[Cutter8]

Very cool bass! “Ugly beautiful” is a perfect description.

It looks to me like you can use standard Fender saddles with that bridge rather than fabricating replacement saddles.

As far as the cleft is concerned, given that it is extremely thin and doesn’t move, here is what I would suggest:

• Go to a hobby shop and get some extra thin cyanoacrylate and CA curing accelerator (see first pic) and some disposable plastic superglue pipettes (see second pic) or pipettes tips (see third pic).
• The pipettes have extemely fine tips that permit very precise application. If you apply the extra thin CA very slowly right on the cleft, capillary action will draw the glue into the crack.
• Hit it with a spritz of the accelerator, give it a few seconds, wipe off the accelerator and you should be good to go!

CAVEAT: I have some rudimentary luthiery experience, but I am definitely not an expert! Hopefully someone more experience than I have will chime in if they think this is bad advice.

 

[jj.833]

Thanks everyone for so many ideas!

use a small shim at one end of the neck or the other depending on which way the string height needs to go.

Good idea. Didn't think of it, never tried. Does the bass sound the same with a shim?

Unless the seam gets worse I wouldn't mess with it. The pocket walls ought to prevent further separation.

Agree. I wasn't able to measure the depth of the crack, it's too slim even for the smallest needle. I guess it just needs watching and being prepared. I'll look at the end of the neck, if I need to take it out. I guess the crack would be bigger there.

Those originals look like they might be dry and ready to crack and crumble like most 1960’s plastic parts Ive ever worked with.

I'm a bit afraid to meddle with them. If it really needs correcting, I'd take them out - everybody has a vintage parts drawer - and make new ones. Someone suggested an idea to make them wooden, this I would be able to do myself, even if I have to glue a nut in the wood. I'll see.

the same woodgrain (pretty sure it was solid mahogany)

Looks like mahogany, but the bass is extremely light, even compared to my alder Fender. Dry sound also is 'mahogany' dark, let's say similar to gibson SG guitar. I forgot to look from how many parts the body is glued.

n regard to those bridge saddles, filing is the way to go. I went a hair to low on one of mine, but a little shim underneath the saddle was all that was needed to correct the height.

Thanks! I can't think of any problem the shim underneath the saddle could cause.

I recommend using low tension strings.

Please, can I ask why? Is the neck fragile? And, what's low tension? I was thinking on using .45-.105 Fender nickels or .45 Rotosound Nickel Swingbass.

Are you able to o adjust the bridge for intonation?

I guess so, the screws look perfectly alright. Haven't tried yet.

You could try using some Fender-style saddles

Sadly, the distance between strings is shorter than on jazzbass, and the height of the saddles is some 2cm. (Dragon teeth I call them.) But you might be right, maybe there's something similar on the market. If the saddles need harsher adjusting, I'll keep them stored and look for some new ones; if I don't find anything I'll carve them or let them made.

Thanks again. This is probably my longest post ever ;-)

 

[jj.833]

Another problem: the G string tuner is somehow loose. Not in the way that the whole tuner would wobble in the headstock, but in the way that the string tends to detune in a few minutes. I doubt such a tuner could be bought... Is there a cure to this?

 

[GretschWretch]

Another problem: the G string tuner is somehow loose. Not in the way that the whole tuner would wobble in the headstock, but in the way that the string tends to detune in a few minutes. I doubt such a tuner could be bought... Is there a cure to this?

View attachment 3376040

Lower tension strings because the necks of these basses tend to bow with higher tension strings. This is a generational thing and not just this particular bass. See if the Phillips screw anchoring the spur gear on the wonky tuner is loose. That might account for the string not holding tune.

 

[jj.833]

Hi everyone,
I put new strings on the bass (Rotosound Swingbass 40-100 nickel), and I hear that the neck pickup sounds strangely. Distorted, wacky sound. Please listen to attached records.

Does anyone have any idea what could cause the problem?

It's not strings: the bridge pickup sounds nicely, as well asy dry acoustic sound.
It's not the height of the pickup: I set it quite low, some 8mm below strings; the distortion is the same in all positions.
Before I replaced the strings, the old strings didn't do it. They were not much played, but not much sounding anyway.

Thanks a lot!

(For anyone interested, otherwise the bass works perfectly. I cleaned the surfaces, done some minor adjustments recommended above, didn't do anything with the neck crack. New strings seem to solved the G tuner trouble.)

 

[GretschWretch]

I'm thinking it's not the pickup so much as the amp. You're getting a bit of speaker fuzz from overdrive, probably due to the different strings. I've had speakers break up with some basses at low volume while they hold up fine with other basses cranked to the max.

 

[jj.833]

I'm thinking it's not the pickup so much as the amp. You're getting a bit of speaker fuzz from overdrive, probably due to the different strings. I've had speakers break up with some basses at low volume while they hold up fine with other basses cranked to the max.

No no, it's recorded straight to soundcard through Sansamp Para (bypassed). No speaker involved. On the same setting, there's no problem with my Jazzbass, as well as there's no problem with Ibanez bridge pickup, so I think it's neck pickup trouble. But I'll check the bass on amp and different situations. Thanks for the tip

 

[Eilif]

Even if spacing is different, have you considered a set of vintage style fender saddles with grooves all the way across? Like this:
vintage fender jazz bass bridge

 

[jj.833]

neck pickup sounds strangely

I think I got it. It's mechanical. The pickups are mounted to the tortoise pickguard. The hole for each pickup in the pickguard is trimmed with chrome border. The distance between the border and the pickup is only about 0.5mm. When the bass resonates, the metal pickup cover is rattling, hitting the metal border in the pickguard.

I narrowed the distance inserting a house painter tape, so the pickup has nowhere to move. The weird distortion is gone. It looks ugly though; I'll find some eye pleasing solution, probably I'll fill in a piece of black leather.

 

[ejaggers]

I've got my hands on Link Removed japanese Ibanez bass. It's ugly, beautiful, and sounds surprisingly fine unplugged as well as plugged. See pics, and if you are willing, please look at few technical questions below.
View attachment 3375007
View attachment 3375009
View attachment 3375010
View attachment 3375011
View attachment 3375012

I am trying to help this bass shine again, I'd be grateful for any advice. So far I found two problems:

- the neck is glued from three pieces of wood (5 on the headstock, pic 2). Where the neck meets the body, there's a little cleft on the G string side suggesting that the glue is slowly giving way (pic 3). The cleft is about 30mm long, about 0.5mm wide on the body side. Is this a problem? Is there a way to repair it? Would I damage the bass, if I adjust the truss rod?

- the bridge (pic 4+5) is clearly not a fender copy There seems to be no way of adjusting the height of the strings. Or, anyone having such a bridge, is there?

I'll buy strings, clean the neck, check the frets and try to adjust the string height. Hopefuly the bass won't fall apart.

jj,

Did you ever get you bass like you want it?
That's a sweet looking bass, and I'm considering getting a old '60s.

057912

 

[jj.833]

@ejaggers,

I did. I made a shim; to find the right dimensions of the shim, I made a layered paper model like this:

After hearing no notable sound difference shim or no shim, I just kept it there. This solved the high action. I also glued the neck crack with cyanoacrylate. Before:

I have no photo of the result; the crack is gone now, and have not reappeared so far.
There also was a problem with the tuner on G string getting loose; this somehow settled itself, as sometimes happens.

The frets would want to see a luthier's file, but this can wait till the problem gets more severe. The action is almost perfect now. How does it sound? Sometimes it's absolutely perfect; sometimes it's a bit too dirty. Needs to be played different way from a fender, as everything is a little bit different: the strings are farther from the body, the distance between strings is shorter, the pickups are in different places, the frets are thinner... I could do more adjustments to make it more 'common', but I felt that with every adjustment I made, the bass gets more playable, but loses a bit of it's weird character. So I stopped before doing anything big or anything that could not be undone.

I take it as a good studio instrument that can be used to obtain uncommon sound. I wouldn't use it in bigband for sight reading, because every careless slip of finger results in harsh sound that I'm not used to cope with. For the money invested, I can't imagine getting more touchy, wooden, true sound. It's definitely worth it!

 

[buldog5151bass]

I would think the issue on saddles is finding some that will fit on those screws.

 

[JIO]

@ejaggers,

I did. I made a shim; to find the right dimensions of the shim, I made a layered paper model like this:View attachment 3441472
After hearing no notable sound difference shim or no shim, I just kept it there. This solved the high action. I also glued the neck crack with cyanoacrylate. Before:
View attachment 3441475
I have no photo of the result; the crack is gone now, and have not reappeared so far.
There also was a problem with the tuner on G string getting loose; this somehow settled itself, as sometimes happens.

The frets would want to see a luthier's file, but this can wait till the problem gets more severe. The action is almost perfect now. How does it sound? Sometimes it's absolutely perfect; sometimes it's a bit too dirty. Needs to be played different way from a fender, as everything is a little bit different: the strings are farther from the body, the distance between strings is shorter, the pickups are in different places, the frets are thinner... I could do more adjustments to make it more 'common', but I felt that with every adjustment I made, the bass gets more playable, but loses a bit of it's weird character. So I stopped before doing anything big or anything that could not be undone.

I take it as a good studio instrument that can be used to obtain uncommon sound. I wouldn't use it in bigband for sight reading, because every careless slip of finger results in harsh sound that I'm not used to cope with. For the money invested, I can't imagine getting more touchy, wooden, true sound. It's definitely worth it!

Cool bass and well worth doing the needed adjustments to make it playable. I believe many of these basses were probably never correctly set up and so your work on it is finally bringing it into trim. Along with Fender looking guitars/basses (especially Jaguar/Jazzmaster style) Burns was a much referenced 'look' on many guitars/basses made in Japan in the early-mid 60's.