What’s your #1 mod regret?

[maxschrek]

I wish this still had the original pick up or at least the original pocket for one. But I was young and didn't know, Bill Lawrence was the hot ticket at the time.View attachment 4093328

Daaaayum, I'll bet it sounds good, though?

 

[bassliner50]

Not a horror story, but installation of Badass II bridge on my P bass. Sound, tone, sustain imperceptable from original bent metal bridge. Tiny, tiny hex screws to adjust height. It cost me about $60 and took me time to install properly. Original bridge cover no longer fits. Where is the advantage?

 

[mongo2]

Man. That's rough. We never know do we?

So good to hear that you can still play bass. I had carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists a couple of years ago, while talking with the doctor I told him that I was a musician and asked how long it would be before I could start playing after the surgery. He said "You can start right away, it may make playing the guitar a little difficult at first but it is excellent physical therapy". I told him I played bass and he quickly said " Bass? Oh, you'll have no problem at all"!

My wife was in the room. She busted out laughing...

In all seriousness I wish you all the best in your recovery Sir!

Thank you. Best of luck to you as well.

I had a show to play on bass a couple of days after I was released from the hospital so the first thing I did when I got home was try playing. Long story short, with practice and simplification of my parts I was able to play the show and haven't missed any. I told my neurologist about it on my next visit about a week later and his his chin actually dropped and he was agape with surprise. I enjoyed that, maybe a bit more than I should have.

 

[Wood and Wire]

dumping my scooter in the sea and not fighting rockers no more

There's an alternative ending, where you go over the cliff too...

 

[Rezdog]

Greetings from the North,

Back in ancient times I butchered my 72 4001 Rickenbacker and modified it with a pair of Jazz Bass pickups like Roger Glover's from Deep Purple during his 'Machine Head' days. It sounded Ok but I looked in the mirror and I still had not become Roger Glover! Oh that poor Ric

Rezdog

 

[Frety_Kruger]

I try not to modify if its not to my liking at the time of purchase....I don't buy

 

[2saddleslab]

I've modded damn near most everything I own, no regrets whatsoever.

 

[DennyOnBass]

Spent a TON of money on a piezo bridge for my old Modulus 6 string bass. The bridge ended up making the overall tone of the bass worse than the original Kahler, and the piezo just sounded ridiculous and was pretty useless to me.

I had paid someone to install it, but was pretty dismayed with myself for spending so much money on something that ended up being such a bad idea and decided to pull it out myself. I ended up messing up the wiring, so it wasn't even really resellable. At some point the whole thing ended up in the trash and I went back to the original electronics.

 

[brianrost]

I had a preamp installed in my Peavey T-40. The phase switch was removed and the preamp toggle replaced it...off, on and some kind of boost. Can't recall the brand, but it was some small company that vanished quickly. Didn't do anything useful.

 

[JPaulGeddy]

Think I'm going through it now. Built a jazz bass, dropped in an Audere pre and was absolutely in love with everything about it. Except - it was a poorly faux-reliced body. Decided to swap the body out.

Found a great deal, only to realize it was one of those model years where the neck and bridge pickups were the same size. Additionally, there was not enough room for the preamp. Ok, well, I have always wanted to try Bartolinis. Let's do that instead of routing.

And they're good, but overall, I'm not nearly as happy as I was when I started. Figuring on either grabbing another more-ready jazz body to put back the Audere, then either sell the loaded body or pick up a neck for it.

Couldn't leave well enough alone, and purely for aesthetic reasons. sigh. Lessons.

 

[Standalone]

I stripped an MIJ Fender P Bass and hacked out space for a humbucker. I have *no* idea why. I was 17. Maybe it was a good lesson to learn. I traded what was left I guess, I don't even remember. I imagine that the bass is living a better life somewhere in Delaware these days.

 

[John Webb]

I painted the word "Fragile" on my 1965 Jazz tweed case using Java Green VW paint.

 

[Bass Viking]

My #1 regret is not doing a mod. I had 2 Warwicks: a Thumb with a plastic Just-a-nut and a Corvette with a brass nut. Wish I’d swapped nuts before I sold the Corvette.

 

[Bass Viking]

Not a horror story, but installation of Badass II bridge on my P bass. Sound, tone, sustain imperceptable from original bent metal bridge. Tiny, tiny hex screws to adjust height. It cost me about $60 and took me time to install properly. Original bridge cover no longer fits. Where is the advantage?

Sorry to hear that. I installed Badass bridges on a couple of P basses and it seemed to be an improvement. You just never know.

 

[Ostie]

So a buddy of mine bought a cheap Stat knockoff and begged me to get it playable. Im no professional luthier, but i do pretty well so people toss jobs my way. Well anyway, for some reason i agree to this for free cuz friedship and stuff. I pull off the strings and go to loosen the the screws in the trem and the particle board the body is made of immediately shatters. I end up drilling out the body and putting in dowels so the screws have something to grip and fix the trem. The neck is slightly warped, i do what i can. I go to put fresh strings back on, and two of the cheap tuning machines just strip while winding the strings. I buy new tuners out of pocket. Nothing great, mind you, but useable. When i go to replace the tuners, it turns out that they sprayed over the bushings when they put on the fake Fender decal. I get small cracks in the headstock finish replacing the tuners, and decide im not refinishing this piece of junk I've been working on for free. The guitar is now playable, but you would never mistake it for a quality instrument. It was the best i could do on this piece of crap. My buddy is pissed about the cracks in the headstock and tells a bunch of our friends how i "messed up" his "Stratocaster."

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

 

[rtslinger]

putting glass leds on my jazz bass not that they don't look amazing they are just sharp as all get

 

[coyote1]

Mine is that I have a battered old Stratocaster that I bought new, and has gobs of actual road wear.... and I’ve not yet seen fit to list that wear as a “modification with mojo” and sell it to someone for twice what I paid for it.

The one mod that I did that I regretted was on that very guitar. Waaaay back in the day, in an attempt to reduce hum I changed out the stock pups for DiMarzio HS3 stacked humbuckers. But I regretted it, and re-installed the original pups.

 

[PWRL]

Gibson Les Paul Custom.

It was my dad's. I was very young (still in high school), and very into guitar tech work. I put so many pickups in the guitar for him, because it sounded like such garbage. Pure mud, no matter what.

Finally, he said screw it. I want you to put P90s in. They sound good in anything, and no humbucker sounds as good as they do. So I did. I did a nice and neat job, removing as little wood as possible. In the end, I just had to take a small amount off the pickup ring mounting ears.

They sounded the best out of everything, but still muddy. He played the guitar that way for many years. He passed away. I got the guitar.

I finally learn, over a decade after putting the P90s in, that many Gibsons of that era came with 100K pots. I knew nothing about the pots at the time. I check. Sure enough: 100K pots. D'oh!

I pull the original wiring harness as intact as I can, and put in brand new standard Gibson Les Paul wiring. Voila. It sounds killer. But the guitar still looks odd, as a Black Beauty with P90s and goof rings. It's kind of a shame, and these guitars of this era are shooting up in price. There is still enough wood left for the original pickup rings to just barely hold on, at least enough to test out the original Tim Shaws. So I put them in and test them through an amp. And wouldn't ya know it; they sound heavenly.

I decide I must restore the guitar.

The original pickup rings need to be replaced, as they are cracked and otherwise just worn out. It takes me a few years to track down the right ones, with screws and all.

I track down the right pick guard. The original and its bracket had gone missing. I am still looking for an original era-correct bracket and screws...as well as the Posi-Lok ("diamond") strap buttons. The guitar had Schaller strap locks put on it a long time ago; the Posi-Loks are long gone.

I track down the right type of chainsaw case for it. The one it came in (though not original) I had traded off with another Les Paul back when I hated the chainsaw cases (now I like them).

But, the hard part: the reconstructive surgery. I wanted it to be absolutely seamless. I made custom routing templates for everything. My first step was to completely rout away the remaining pickup ring mounting ears, all the way down to the bottoms of the cavities. This left me with simple rectangle pickup cavities, so I could easily and seamlessly rebuild the cavities as they were originally. I laminated mahogany and maple, tall enough to cut "towers" out of to replace the missing ring mounting ears. I glued the towers in, using custom jigs to hold them in properly as the glue dried. I leveled them with the top of the guitar, carefully using a chisel and sandpaper with custom made sanding blocks. I routed again, using a standard humbucker template, all the way down to the bottom of the cavities. I mocked up the new rings, and masked right up to them, where there was already a depression in the lacquer from the original rings. I sprayed black nitro lacquer, then clear. Blended it all in nicely.

The end. Well, almost. I'm still searching for that pickguard bracket and screws, and the Posi-Loks.

In the end, it was a dead perfect job. You can't tell the guitar isn't totally stock. But it was a whole ton of work over a period of 20 years, when all the guitar ever needed was some 500K pots.

Nonetheless, I'm glad you're getting it all ironed out.

 

[ELG60]

I kinda regret having my '64 Jazz Bass refinished in tobacco sunburst and EMG pickups installed when I purchased it in about 1982. In hindsight, not the most intelligent of decisions ever taken by a bass player.

The beast in question:

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

The title says it all. Let’s hear some mod horror stories!

I drilled my switch slightly too close to the knob. That's about it.

Oh, and I swapped a nut once, and chipped the corner out the D string slot when filing it. Glued it back on, caked it up, sanded it back down. You can't tell.