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MIM Fender Jazz pimping?


cclowend
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I have just bought a beautiful MIM Fender jazz and although it sounds like a choir of angels/barry white, I was wondering about possible upgrades without losing the jazz sound or butchering an aftermarket bridge on. I may not even bother if it sounds as good through my gig rig as it does through my home rig. Ta.

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Definitely keep the original pickups! I had one a while back and upgraded the pickups to something fancy and expensive, and it lost all it's character to the point of barely sounding like a jazz bass so much as just a fancy set of pups. To this day my main bass(upgraded squier jazz) has a pair of stock 2003-2008 MiM pups installed and sounds perfect. If you like how it sounds already, leave them as they are.

Badass II/Gotoh 201(/203... whichever's the heftier one) is the only upgrade you'll ever need, for just a little extra heft... but again, if you're already happy you're better off leaving it alone for now B)

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I have fitted mine with a gotoh 201 and dimarzio dp123's and it sounds huge, and VERY hot for a passive. I am running a gk 1001rbii and with my stingray it used to clip very easily, as well as my
Jazz at the same levels. I just run it with the pad on and problem solved.
I couldn't stand the thin sound of the stock pickups and nearly sold the bass as a result! Swapped some parts and love it now, so go for it,
You can always swap back if you don't like it. Only advice with adding a high mass bridge ole a gotoh or badass, you will need to pack the neck a couple of mm to account for the the thickness of the new bridge, but not a big problem. Good luck!

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Before you look at replacing pickups or installing a preamp, try changing the pots for different values (250k is standard on a Jazz, try 500k for a brighter sound) and the tone capacitor (.047uF is standard on a Jazz, try .1uF for a bassier sound with the tone control rolled off), and try adding a pickups-in-series switch if you want a beefier sound. It's easy to find a schematic for it online and it's a simple mod to do.

These are much cheaper modifications and can bring out some very different sounds from your existing pickups. Maybe you don't really want/need aftermarket pickups.

Also, buy a good compressor. See if that's the sound you're looking for.

Edited by thisnameistaken
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