hooky_lowdown

London calling uses a hollow bodied bass, so no coincidence your hofner gives you a sound you like.

It'll fatten up your sound.

Or get a Darkglass Vintage Microtubes Bass Overdrive Pedal.

This guy nails the Paul Simonon sound. You should get very, very close with your gear - Select the P pickup on your Jag (Volume on full, Tone about 80%) > Roundwound or Half round strings (NOT flats) > Pick (optional, but you will need to dig into the strings when playing) > Set your amp to 'Vintage' and add Gain and Drive to get some mild overdrive. Cut Treble, add Low Mids and a little Bass.

It may seem strange, but you need to do a good warm up for 15-20mins. Start slow and gradually warm up your shoulder till the muscles are relaxed and warmed up.

Factory Special Run - they have this on Squier's as well.

Very cool colour. Nice to have a maple neck too.

This, what Dave said. What should be remembered here is the difference you get between playing live, and recording. You could upgrade pickups with some inexpensive Wilkinson or Entwistle's which will improve the tone of a cheap bass in a live situation, and as well for recording. However, upgrading to high end pickups won't be as big a difference as the Wilko's etc, but for recording, the high end pickup will make a huge difference - even over the Wilkinson or Entwistle's. Also, tone is a subjective thing.

Why does it need a new pickguard? Looks fine to me.

Well done.

Dakota red would have looked better imho.

I doubt it. What you can do is report the seller/item to eBay.

There are many places you can buy grill cloth, some do Vintage cloth like that used on the old Bakelite radios, which I think looks class.

You could use a silver cloth spray, it will work but will not look as good as the fender grill which as EBS says, has a silver foil in the weave.

Nice trip down memory lane, especially the Dolomite. 😎

Why didn't you change the neck?

Interesting you say output is comparable, as many people say the output of the Squier 50s CV p bass is weak, and upgrade to get more output and more lows.

What specific pup did you have in your 51 style? An original 51-57 pup is not high output, and not that loud, especially in combination with the 0.1 cap. It would not spike a speaker as suggested due to its lack of highs.

Used to run a sansamp bass driver to PA, and had a small lightweight combo as a monitor. Always worked a treat and sounded awesome.

51 single coil has a high output? That's a first for me, they are generally low output, between 6-8k.

The 51 pup will have a fatter, warmer sound. The jazz pup despite position will still retain some of its honky characteristics.