funkle

Context is probably helpful. Here’s two threads where my mods worked out great: Here’s one thread where it didn’t: Here’s a thread where I genuinely don’t know yet:

I am also extremely guilty of serial modding. However, I will offer some benefits as well as the obvious negatives. As background, it is my view that there are 3 things that make up the majority of a particular instruments’ sound, *for a bolt on instrument with a maple neck*. (Note I did not say they make up *all* of the sound, but the majority of it.) Firstly, the fretboard material. Secondly, the pickups used, and their placement. Thirdly, the preamp. (I will add a fourth, the thickness/amount material in the neck itself, but find it harder to quantify this in comparison to the others). In my view, this means if you like the neck, the sound of the fretboard material, and the shape of the bass, then you can mod to your heart’s content, as essentially tuners/bridge are largely functional/aesthetic changes, and the body material makes only a very modest difference. This can be a lot of fun, as long as you recognise that mods add zero value and big modifications actively reduce the value of an instrument. Changing cheap pickups for better ones generally does make a difference in my view. Changing pickup types (J to P or MM) and placement is huge. Changing preamp, or adding one, also adds colour, though I would rank pickups themselves and their design as more important. It depends a little. Strings are a huge difference as well. You can do very well trying out different string types. Stainless steels have been a revelation to me over nickels. Modding is a lot of fun. I have found I am considerably more committed to the instrument after adapting it to my tastes, at least when it works out. When it doesn’t, I take all the mods off, and sell it and the parts. But I do remember all the time you spend tinkering is time you could be playing. And turning an instrument into something else it is not meant to be is quite difficult/expensive. You’re often better off buying another instrument in that case.

I dropped a J-Tone into my Squier CV Jazz a while back. Well worth it.

Scratch that, the Cort had a locked truss rod, was a very nice bass in all other respects, but back it has gone. Ah well.

Managed to get hold of a secondhand Cort GB74JJ to use as a second test subject. Cort secondhand prices are pretty affordable. I’m minded to wait and see how things go with the first test bass before doing too much with a second. If it turns out that the Cort is not necessary, then I’ll simply sell it on here.

You legend! I'll update the original 'measurements' post with this info.

Wow @Andyjr1515 that thread was one heck of a read. Amazing work. I know who someone else who can help me make the multi-laminate neck now if/when I get to that stage!

A lot of my assumptions about necks and fretboard and how they affect tone rests on two things. One, I really have no idea of neck through builds differ to bolt on in terms of impact on sound. I just have not played enough neck throughs to form a judgement. Roger Sadowsky says of neck throughs that the tone comes less from the neck and more from the body in that case when compared to bolt ons. I assume he’s right. @Kiwi Two, I really have no experience that I can decently recall of using basses without maple necks. So using wenge as the main neck wood, or mahogany, I honestly am not sure how that influences the tone over using maple, or how those neck woods interact with different fretboard woods. I don’t have enough experience to comment on it that well. I assume it’s pretty important, but just do not know. @TrevorRI agree that generalisations about body and facing wood are difficult given the differences between cuts, where they come from on the tree, etc. I also agree that when Ian and Pete built basses, using a largely consistent formula would allow them to hear the likely modest differences between builds easily, because the main change they would make between builds was the facings. I stand by my original assumption about the overall relative importance of body woods and facings, though. My main logic remains that there is a recognisable ‘Wal sound’ even when the body is made of what should be really quite different sounding woods (ash vs. mahogany, never even mind the facings) and when there is only a single pickup used even with no EQ installed. The ‘Wal sound’ must therefore largely come from the pickups.

I bought a Squier CV Jazz in Olympic White in 2009 for £250 new. I still have it. I very much doubt it would fetch more than £250 now. Which is fine, I’ve modded it incessantly and I have spent probably a thousand hours on it when I was at music school. It has served its need well. IMO there are better ways to speculate with your money. I don’t think the CV’s will appreciate the way the JV’s did. The supply of CV’s is considerably higher.

I agree @owen. But we must be clear, this is effectively saying that electronics make up the majority of the sound of an instrument. Which I think is true, though neck/fretboard construction and woods would be right up there with pickups/preamp for me. Not everyone will agree though. We must be careful, I don’t want this thread to descend into the classic debates of ‘does neck/fretboard wood matter’ and ‘does body wood matter’. As I’ve said before, for the purposes of this thread, my answers for both of those questions are: 1. Yes, quite a bit (particularly in the high end as @Kiwihas pointed out) 2. Only a very small amount (which I know e.g. @Kiwi would disagree with) Assuming I am right, which I recognise is a large assumption, if both basses have maple necks and maple fretboards, and the same pickups, but differ in the body wood and preamp, I would hope to still have some kind of meaningful comparison. But I know the ideal comparison is still to use the same test bed bass for both preamps.

So I had a really interesting day. Chris McIntyre has already closed up shop for Christmas. So I have to wait a little before I can continue this experiment. However, two things came together very serendipitously. Firstly, the chap making the pickups has a second set of them on the way to me. He felt there was an issue with the base plate (fairly minor, I would have said), but he wanted to sort it, so he wound an entirely new set and sent them out to me, out of his own pocket. This is pretty legendary customer service. Secondly, Nuno at Lusithand reached out to me after he caught this thread, and offered to send me a Double NFP to try out, and send back if I preferred the ACG. I took him up on the offer. The preamps he makes look great and sound good from what I've heard on Youtube; I scored the ACG first and so went with it, but now have the chance to compare both directly. This has all got me thinking I might be able to find a second bass to mod with the second set of the same pickups and use the Double NFP in that. Then I could conveniently compare the two set-ups reasonably directly. How cool would that be? The problem is going to be other variables changing between the builds, if I do decide to do it. I'd be changing more than one thing at a time, so the best I would be able to say is 'this particular build sounds like this'. I think I'm going to do it anyway, though. I think it would be great fun. I have found after further examination that a secondhand Cort would likely fit the bill very well, if I can lay my hands on one. The GB74JJ would be ideal, as it has good hardware, a battery box and control cavity routed already, will be built well, and has decent woods (ash body/maple neck + maple FB). Plus new pickup routes in the correct Wal locations would I think obliterate the existing ones and give a reasonably good cosmetic effect without too much work. If I went the route of getting another Precision body and modding it, I'd probably have to wait a bit before I could collect all the bits I want secondhand (neck, bridge, tuners) to make it as economic as a secondhand Cort. I really do need to have a good think about how to test this all out well for recording purposes.

You’re right @Kiwi - I’m pretty sure Nuno has a set of these.

Ok, the pickups arrived. Finally! Very nice. The packing surprised me as this chap is just starting out, but he has some nicely branded packing already, lol. And here’s what they look like. Pretty cool looking pickups, right? The wiring instructions should come in handy as well. They come with a choice of insert colours. I chose black. Silver, gold, black, bamboo, and others I cannot recall currently, I think. My only concern of not having completely flat/flush pickup covers is getting gunk in the design in the top and finding it difficult to clean them out. Wait and see I guess! So now I need to drop these off with Chris. Not sure if there’s time to do that and get the test bass back before Christmas, sadly. Will go as fast as I can.

Nice. My secondhand one still works, so it’s staying until it dies, lol

Finally. Customs is pretty slow at the moment. I know the pickups hit the UK around Dec 7th.

I tried one of these out in Guitar Gutar in Edinburgh. The PJ version. So much to love about it. It was lightweight. It sounded great. The neck profile was perfect. I realised morado was a superb sounding fretboard wood. It balanced well on the lap. The hardware felt premium. The negatives were noticeable for me though. The headstock logo is reprehensible. That poorly designed set of logos has no business on that headstock, looks like it was drawn by a primary school student. The hum out of the rear pickup was bad in the shop, and would really annoy me in the studio. Live, possibly manageable. I would have to cough up for the bridge humbucker, which should really come standard on a PJ. The lack of the VTC was not a deal breaker, but if it’s a Sadowsky, well, it’s part of the sound of a Sadowsky, so, it was a bit of a miss there. Would not have been a lot extra to add that, and it’s annoying to have to source that and retro fit it. For my purposes it would need a few hundred more of upgrades. And I’d probably avoid it anyway because of the headstock. It’s just awful. I’d maybe think about getting one secondhand, if I could do something about the decal on the headstock, but I would not buy new. It has sparked my interest in the next line up though - the German-made MetroLine fixes the niggles I would have with these instruments. I might look for a PJ MetroLine secondhand.

Sounds about right to me. I’ll DI it for recordings to share here.

I certainly hope so, it’s not a cheap experiment…but it will hopefully help out others. Have been thinking about how to try and do recordings and video of all the resulting configurations without it taking forever or killing the listeners with boredom. Since it’s going to have series/parallel/single row coil switching and have an EQ that I am not terribly familiar with which provides a huge amount of tweakability, it’s going to be a challenge. Then there’s the question of recording through DI or going through a cabinet for a little more of the ‘room feel’. I’ll probably work up some short riffs in various styles and tweak slowly, recording as I go.

Lol. Fair point. Maybe I posted in the wrong place….happy for a mod to move if they think it more appropriate in Build Diaries…

Updated the 'test bed' post. Enjoy! And for info, there is a builder out there making Wal clones, if people want an actual clone. He winds his own pickups, uses the Lusithand preamps, and makes his necks a little bit more conventionally shaped than the 'V' shape. His prices seem to start around $2k and go upwards depending on the options. I guess if you really want something that looks like the real deal, then this would be up your street. It's not for me though. https://www.facebook.com/Octave-basses-115083543684715/

I am, by nature, unwilling to pay top whack for the sound I want. I don’t like the nut width on standard 4 string Stingrays either. So I made my own ‘Classic Stingray’ from an SBMM Ray4, the lowest bass from the range. I’m delighted with it. About £600 all in.

Ha!! I stand corrected. Good to know I’m not the only one. That Noll semi para 3 band was a serious contender for a bit for this build. It’s a really good idea. I thought of it like the East Uni Pre, but a bit easier to access the controls to adjust where each EQ band ‘sits’. And the Lusithand setup undoubtedly looks more user friendly than the ACG setup for live purposes. But I have some thoughts about how to try and approach that issue, once I actually get the test bed built and use it for a while.