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Would have you modded your old fender if
- Thread starter Willie5String
- Start date
CosmicRay
Supporting Member
Beautiful bass.
I did similar mods to my '74 as well. Removed the pickguard. Chrome control knobs. Changed the pups & bridge. Twice.
First were DiMarzio pups. Cream color. They lasted a few years, until the SD Basslines.
And then the Badass II bridge for a while until the Babicz.
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I bought a 1966 LPB Jazz Bass in 1968. It stayed stock until around 1972 and then I proceeded to mod the hell out of it. I'm still modding it, and I don't regret it one bit. I've finally got it pretty much exactly how I want it. It was always a player. I kept all the old parts.
my oldest is an 83 precision, back then i switched out the 1ply white pickguard to 80's era blk, and took the old pickups with white covers and replaced with bartolini's, tho i always kept the original pups which i recently put back in....other than that all original.
According to Invalid Link Removed, a sunburst Jazz with case was $354 in 1968. And according to Invalid Link Removed, that has roughly the buying power of $2,688 today.
So basically if you bought it new and left it pristine, you would have to be able to sell it now for over $3,000 to achieve a marginal profit. And that assume somehow incurring zero expenses while storing and maintaining it.
By comparison, if in 1968 you dropped $354 off at the bank in a certificate of deposit paying 4% interest compounded annually, Invalid Link Removed. Which is also barely better than the rate of inflation but at least it didn't involve fifty years of worrying about the condition of the Jazz Bass you were too worried about to enjoy playing.
So basically if you bought it new and left it pristine, you would have to be able to sell it now for over $3,000 to achieve a marginal profit. And that assume somehow incurring zero expenses while storing and maintaining it.
By comparison, if in 1968 you dropped $354 off at the bank in a certificate of deposit paying 4% interest compounded annually, Invalid Link Removed. Which is also barely better than the rate of inflation but at least it didn't involve fifty years of worrying about the condition of the Jazz Bass you were too worried about to enjoy playing.
'77 Jazz with Dimarzios, Badass and J Retro. Changed black pick guard to tort. Wouldn't want it any other way.
69/70 Telecaster with Bill Lawrence pick up. Wish I never did that.
I mod the livin' $#!T outta my 1960 jazz bass I bought it in 1970.
I put EMGs in my 87 MiJ fender shortly after I got it new, and have no idea what happened to the original electronics. Almost wish I'd kept them, but I didn't like the sound then, and it sounds fine with the EMGs, so... I guess those 80s models will be vintage soon, but I don't really care.
That's actually a '57 which had previously belonged to the late Paul Kossoff of Free, and not only did Murray route it out but he also had it refinished since it was originally white. It's the guitar that's heard on "The Stealer", "Come Together In The Morning" and many other songs from the late days of Free. As a Kossoff fan who has also seen Maiden many a times - going back to the days of Paul D' Anno - I, for one, wish that he wouldn't have done it...
I had no thoughts about modding guitars and basses back in the 60's and 70's. No one even considered them becoming "vintage"! Here's is the first bass I ever bought a Hagstrom Hag II, around 1967, modded for the "Heavy" sound that was the trend. That bass was seldom out of my hands for 10 years of local and touring gigs. I think it is still my favorite out of dozens I have owned - certainly plays the best. What's it worth now? I'll never find out because I will be buried with it. 
If I had been able to afford a Fender at that time I probably would have done the same thing!
If I had been able to afford a Fender at that time I probably would have done the same thing!
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I replaced the bridge on my 4001 in the mid-70s. When the tuners wore out I replaced them. It's been refretted twice. No regrets; these were all things that absolutely needed to be done to make it/keep it playable. I've never been one to think of the "value" of a musical instrument from any one's perspective but mine. It's a tool, not an investment.
Smooth_bass88
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- Oct 31, 2006
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I started playing bass in the late 70s. Couldn't afford a Fender or mods. But if I could have...
Fast forward to Oct 2020. After decades of playing Carvin, Epiphone, Ibanez, and Peavey basses I finally bought my first Fender electric bass. My first Fender "anything" was an ABG bought in July 2019. Not that I couldn't have afforded a Fender way before now. But because of other basses I played, mostly active, I just never got around to owning a Fender and now I have 3.
So I bought a brand new Am Performer Precision P/J. While the quality of the build is superb, it's still Fender's entry level bass for their American built basses. Although I'm not a fan of the Yosemite pups or the greasebucket tone circuit, I bought the bass anyway. Why? because it's a great playing bass that can easily be modded.
Popped in a hand made custom control/output set made using CTS, Vitamin-Q, and Switchcraft components, installed Aguilar's hum cancelling AG 4P/J-HC P/J Pickup Set. And closed it all back up with a custom 4 ply black pearl/white/black/white pickguard, fully shielded and cut with a 35 degree bevel, and black pickguard screws.
Now I have a bass that not only feels and plays great, it sounds superb. And it's a little unique and different. And it sounds as good as anything stock from Fender and better than most. It's a great "mix cutter" which is what I intended it to be from the start.
And if by some weird stroke of luck 20 or 30 years from now the bass is still worth something or even collectible... All the mods are reversible and I have all the original parts safely packed away and stored in the case the bass sits in when not in use.
Would I have done the same thing back in the late 70s when at the age 11 I picked up my first bass? If I knew what I was doing and had the money to do it, you betcha.
A bass is an instrument that can be just a tool, or it can be an artistic release that can be as personal as you wanna make it. Seeing that I'm now into doing originals more than anything my tone is more important than ever to me so I lean a lot more to the "artistic" side vs "just another tool" side of things.
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To a young lad in the UK in 1976, $1400 was phenomenally expensive. At the time that was about £800, getting on for a year's wages for a unskilled teenage worker. I think I'm going to say Dave was allowed to do what liked to it.....As a Kossoff fan who has also seen Maiden many a times - going back to the days of Paul D' Anno - I, for one, wish that he wouldn't have done it...
I think I'm going to say Dave was allowed to do what liked to it.....
Of course he was. He paid for it in the first place. I just said that I wish that he wouldn't have done it.
OTOH, Koss himself likely wouldn't have cared one bit since he had one of his '59 Les Pauls stripped back in the day...but then again, he did do an awful lot of drugs at that time...
Definitely in the players camp. Not that I’d get real creative like having to modify the body, but replacing pickup, certain hardware, strings (just joking), as I’ve done is ok for me.
I don’t invest in collectibles, I buy tools. A house gives me a place to stay, a car is so I can get to work to pay for the house, my musical instrument exists only for the art (don’t laugh, IMO it’s art. We can debate if it’s any good or not) I can create.
The only mods I ever made were changing pick guards. I added an H pickup to my old Gibson SG guitar about 40 years ago. It’s somebody else’s problem now.
Really nice job on the retro work. Looks great for a 46 year old instrument.
I have a 71 P, in the 80's I put in a brass nut, Bad Ass II bridge and Quarter pounder pickup. Kept the original bridge and pickup so could be returned to near original condition if I ever wanted to sell it, which I am never going to do. I've replaced the pickguard twice, they break at the output jack. I've replaced the pots three times and the jack once, they do wear out you know. It still plays great and sounds great and stays in tune great.
