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What is this and how much is it worth?
- Thread starter Bodeanly
- Start date
I might claim the "signal to noise" ratio that year was particularly high, however, especially when compared to recent years...
I owned one briefly but sold it because of the color ( I dont like black basses). While I didn't love it or hate it, I thought it sounded pretty good - the P and the J were in very close proximity and this made a very tight and punchy sound - especially for slap bass......my 2014 Ibanez Destroyer has a P/J in this exact same setup and it has a very similar punchy response
And what that knob do ?Passive. They should be.
Edit: By "electronics" I just meant the knobs and wiring.
Smooth_bass88
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- Oct 31, 2006
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I think that’s an optical illusion, it looks like the reflection of the A tuner on the face of the D tuner.
I would shape a new pickguard out of anodized aluminum or just burnished aluminum that is more of a normal shape and screw it only into the existing holes. Keep the original pickguard so it can be easily reverted.
Or make a band called the picards and wear Star Trek uniforms and bald wigs.
Or make a band called the picards and wear Star Trek uniforms and bald wigs.
Probably a sweet bass for free if you put a little work and/or money into it.
I would skip refinishing it. Waste of money. You really want to plow 200-300 bucks into refinishing a $400 bass before you even get to making it play and sound good?
So here's what I would do (more or less in order):
Take the old strings off. Restring it with decent but inexpensive strings (DAddario, etc...) in your chosen gauge of rounds (flats wont tell you how the pickups really sound very well and cost a fortune). These are just "temporary" to figure out where you're at. Before you restring it, hit it with about a bottle and a half of guitar polish.
So now, you can see how it plays/sounds. If it plays great from the get go, you're all set. If not, get the action, intonation, and truss rod roughed in yourself to see if you can get it close.
If the neck does have issues as some have mentioned is common, time to figure out if you just want to part it out, and think about a replacement neck. Could likely get one anywhere in the $100-250 range that would work I bet.
If you keep the neck, I would give the fretboard a good oil and polish the frets. This should bring it back close to new. The back of the neck is probably finished, and you could sand that down and/or tung oil it if you wanted. I would mask off the headstock and body join before doing this.
Now to the electronics... if everything sounds really good, again, you're all set. Pots, switch, and jack are easy to re-solder or replace if needed. Pickups being P/J should have lots of options for replacements. This would also be a great platform for customized electronics, like adding a series/parallel switch or stuff like that.
The pickguard does look like it might have some of the type of damage KBD mentioned from the jack placement. You have a few options if that' the case. One would be to try to find someone who would make a replacement copy of the original design. Maybe with slightly heavier duty plastic. Or have someone make one in a design that will fit the bass but is closer to a traditional P or J style. An additional option that could work with either of these is drilling the bass for a new side mount jack.
I think if you did some or all of this, you should be able to keep the spending in the $300-600 range depending on how much you do, and might end up with a bass you could hopefully sell for $400-500 after playing for a few years. Which wouldn't be too bad. If you go into expecting that you might be sinking $200-300 that you probably won't get back on resale, anything better than that will be a bonus. But that's why I laid out the "order of operations" like I did, because you can figure out whether or not it needs the big ticket repairs/upgrades before you get knee deep in spending.
Good luck!
I would skip refinishing it. Waste of money. You really want to plow 200-300 bucks into refinishing a $400 bass before you even get to making it play and sound good?
So here's what I would do (more or less in order):
Take the old strings off. Restring it with decent but inexpensive strings (DAddario, etc...) in your chosen gauge of rounds (flats wont tell you how the pickups really sound very well and cost a fortune). These are just "temporary" to figure out where you're at. Before you restring it, hit it with about a bottle and a half of guitar polish.
So now, you can see how it plays/sounds. If it plays great from the get go, you're all set. If not, get the action, intonation, and truss rod roughed in yourself to see if you can get it close.
If the neck does have issues as some have mentioned is common, time to figure out if you just want to part it out, and think about a replacement neck. Could likely get one anywhere in the $100-250 range that would work I bet.
If you keep the neck, I would give the fretboard a good oil and polish the frets. This should bring it back close to new. The back of the neck is probably finished, and you could sand that down and/or tung oil it if you wanted. I would mask off the headstock and body join before doing this.
Now to the electronics... if everything sounds really good, again, you're all set. Pots, switch, and jack are easy to re-solder or replace if needed. Pickups being P/J should have lots of options for replacements. This would also be a great platform for customized electronics, like adding a series/parallel switch or stuff like that.
The pickguard does look like it might have some of the type of damage KBD mentioned from the jack placement. You have a few options if that' the case. One would be to try to find someone who would make a replacement copy of the original design. Maybe with slightly heavier duty plastic. Or have someone make one in a design that will fit the bass but is closer to a traditional P or J style. An additional option that could work with either of these is drilling the bass for a new side mount jack.
I think if you did some or all of this, you should be able to keep the spending in the $300-600 range depending on how much you do, and might end up with a bass you could hopefully sell for $400-500 after playing for a few years. Which wouldn't be too bad. If you go into expecting that you might be sinking $200-300 that you probably won't get back on resale, anything better than that will be a bonus. But that's why I laid out the "order of operations" like I did, because you can figure out whether or not it needs the big ticket repairs/upgrades before you get knee deep in spending.
Good luck!
There's a volume knob and a tone knob. I usually have the volume to 10 and the tone to 7. Neither offer a lot of color.
I got a black one of these as my first bass in 1992. I still have it, although I rarely play it because my Highway 1 Jazz is superior in every way. Others have brought up most of the complaints I have with it. The neck required lots of truss rod adjustments and fret filing. I eventually put a replacement neck on it in 2004. The jazz pickup was always really noisy and I really only used the P pickup soloed, which I think sounds really good. The pickguard was flimsy and caused all kinds of trouble with the input jack and I replaced that with a custom 3ply pickguard in 2007. The popular body is really light, which wasn't something I really appreciated until years later when I played a heavy 51 RI p for a while.
I like the JP-90 and keep it as my back up, but that's more for sentimental reasons than fitness of the instrument. Regardless, a free one is a great find!
I like the JP-90 and keep it as my back up, but that's more for sentimental reasons than fitness of the instrument. Regardless, a free one is a great find!
Plenty of folks hate JP90s. Just means more are out there for me. I love mine.
You do need to be careful with the neck. Early SNs had no skunk stripe, and these are the more stable necks in my experience. But that’s not to say you can’t find an excellent striped neck, as well.
Build quality? I’m not sure anyone would honestly have a problem with the fit and finish. But they do use mini-pots (a dealbreaker for some, but an easy swap) and they are made of poplar, so they dent easily. Upgrading the PG to something thicker is a great idea.
It’s a great bass for many players. You might or might not be one of those. Whoever had mine before me played the snot out of it, but it’s still in great shape and sounds wonderful with stock pups.
You do need to be careful with the neck. Early SNs had no skunk stripe, and these are the more stable necks in my experience. But that’s not to say you can’t find an excellent striped neck, as well.
Build quality? I’m not sure anyone would honestly have a problem with the fit and finish. But they do use mini-pots (a dealbreaker for some, but an easy swap) and they are made of poplar, so they dent easily. Upgrading the PG to something thicker is a great idea.
It’s a great bass for many players. You might or might not be one of those. Whoever had mine before me played the snot out of it, but it’s still in great shape and sounds wonderful with stock pups.
Really? Wow, I can't imagine throwing away a bass, especially a USA made fender no matter what model it is.
Funny how even fans of the JP90 basically say, "if you change everything, it's a great bass". Doesn't that mean that what you're left with is the routed body blank? Most of them are so modded that maybe, just maybe, all original ones might be worth something one day. I wouldn't count on it.
