shoulderpet

Funny you mentioned removing the tone control, I have had a little "mishap" with the pots on my build and I have just removed the volume and tone and wired straight to the jack socket, I am actually considering leaving it this way as without the loading effect of the pots it sounds really gnarly and aggressive.

The price doesn't surprise me, look at the cost of Fenders nowadays, there MIM Player series which is there cheapest most basic line is £750 and up, some Squirts are selling your £400+ , prices are crazy and everything is overpriced now.

Nice, I am thinking of adding a bridge pickup eventually but maybe another P pickup as I am more of a P bass person and most of my favourite tones from other players are p bass so would be good to be able to use a P bridge pickup for some extra high mids bite with a little of the middle position P pickup rolled in.

I'm open to anything however loud as long as it looks good really. I have a cheapy black pickguard on the way (hopefully it fits) whilst I decide what kind of pickguard to go for. Those AliExpress ones looks pretty good, worth a try at that price I think.

Ok so I had a fun lunchtime, an adjustment I made to the setup revealed that I had cut the nut too low on the D string so out came the talc(cornstarch) and super glue( I was out of baking soda so had to improvise), filled the slot and re-filed it. Got the Kent Armstrong pickup and went to fit it and somehow managed to yank out the bridge ground so off came the bridge and I had to refit the ground wire, was not expecting that, anyhow new pickup fitted so all good, not had a chance to have a proper listen to it but I can tell already it is better than the pickup it replaced.

Ok fair enough, glad you found a neck that you like. I wish that Fender would sell the Vintera p bass necks separately, those necks are lovely.

Bit confused as to why this is a "conversion" neck, surely there is no conversion needed you just buy a jazz neck and stick it on a precision bass.

Ok, I have a Kent Armstrong ceramic hot pickup on the way to replace the Wilkinson. Next question is, what colour for the pickguard? What colour would go well with red? The existing pickguard is ok but a little boring

Not much to add to this other than the few basses I have played that have had 2 tone controls, the tone control for one pickup always seemed to also turn down the tone for the other pickup, I'm sure there must be a workaround but worth knowing.

Ok so I seem to have got the pickup dialed in now after a lot of farting about with the pickup heights and it actually sounds pretty decent now so that is good 👍

And the Wilkinson ceramic P pickup is junk, they used to make a decent ceramic pickup but they have moved to these newer "variguass" pickups for there ceramics. Strange considering there alnico pickup is really good, I am waiting for the wiring harness to arrive but i wired it straight to the output jack and the string to string balance is terrible, lesson learnt I should have paid a few quid more and got there alnico pickup which is much, much better.

And, I managed to get the action at the nut sorted, now with the 3rd fret pressed there is just a sliver of a gap at the first fret for each of the strings, action at the 17th I'm not that picky about and as long as it is in Fender spec ballpark I am happy but action at the nut affects the playing feel far more imo, also swapped out the strings for some Rotos I have a cheapy Wilkinson ceramic P pickup on the way that I will fit until I have the funds to upgrade to something a bit more flash. Oh and something I don't think my previous pictures showed very well was the bridge, I love these old school notched saddle bridges

They are good pickups, better than some of the big name ones I have used

I wish that was low action, that photo is to show how the nut is cut too high, that is the action at the first fret with the 3td fret fretted, the action is ok lower down the neck but is way high at the first fret, I plan to get that sorted soon.

So, technically more me putting parts together than a build but first time I have done this, still a work in progress, I still need to add the pickup and wiring, the cream pickguard has to go(not a fan) also the nut height on the neck is on the high side so I need to lower that somewhat. Neck and body, I added the tuners and string tree ages ago Neck added to body Bridge, pickguard and strings added Nut is cut too high, I will need to address this, this is at the first fret with the 3rd fret fretted

Thanks, the body has a cutout for neck heel truss rod adjustment, the pickguard has 9 holes but I dont think it is the original pickguard as there is no notch for the truss rod adjustment, I will have to take off the pickguard and see if there are any additional holes in the body.

Thanks, I am not really bothered about the existing screw holes as long as the pickguard physically fits the bass, quite happy to re-drill new ones

Hi all I am going to be starting a build soon and by end of this week I should have most of the components to make the barebones of the build (I have the bass body, neck, neck plate, bridge should be arriving this week) however I have no idea what bass the body actually came from (pickguard is a 9 hole job and the bass is apparently from the 90s if that helps at all) so my options are a)pop the pickguard in the post and get someone to cut one based on the exisiting pickguard b)order one and hope it fits I would love for option B to be a viable option as i am building on a bit of a budget at the moment So my question is, I know Jazz bass pickguards can vary quite a lot and it can be a complete cr*pshoot as to whether a pickguard fits or not, are P basses the same or are the pickguards more universal in there measurements? thanks