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Budget super jazz?


Mikeg
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im looking for a new bass and i have a budget of around £700
i love the sound of this bass:
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTk71CjdbkE&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTk71CjdbkE&feature=related[/url] But i cant afford the 2000+ price tag
ive considered doing a bitsa with high quality parts but i have no experience or skill in building guitars.
Any suggestions?

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You can get yourself a reasonable JB copy along with a pre-amp and some decent pickups for that money. The preamp I got on my Jazz from AC Guitars was sold as a loaded control plate so all I had to do was hook up the pickups to it (4 wires, one more than a mains plug!) and screw the new plate on so really simple to do. But don't forget that a lot of the sound may be to do with the amp (and the player) too...

Someone asked me at a gig a while ago how I got 'that sound', I let him have a play through my rig and it sounded nothing like my bass, and he agreed. I can get 'my sound' from pretty much any bass/amp set up with a few basic adjustments, I spent years (and lots of money) looking for 'someone elses sound' before I realised its largely down to the way you play it!

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Thanks for the advise guys. im not looking to get the guys exact tone, ive just always liked active jazz tones, Marcus miller and such
i think im cleared up on what electronics i should be looking at, but what about the actual bass?
i love the look of the vintage modified squiers, or should i look for a good mexican jazz?

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[quote name='Darkstrike' timestamp='1320081239' post='1422073']
Sadowsky sells his onboard pre-amps, I'd imagine them and some good J pickups(Dimarzio Area J's maybe?) would nail that sound.
[/quote]

I believe that Sadowsky pickups used to be (still are?) very slightly modified DiMarzio Ultra Jazz.

Anyway,the Ultra Jazz pickups running through a Sadowsky outboard pre amp sound killer-I run my main 4 string Jazz Bass
like this.

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I know little of jazz basses but this moon fits your budget...

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/155726-moon-jazz-bass/"]http://basschat.co.u...moon-jazz-bass/[/url]

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/155726-moon-jazz-bass/page__hl__moon__fromsearch__1"][/url]

Edited by topo morto
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Possibly not the best mix in the world (I lack a pair of reference monitors) but here's my Overwater Contemporary J in action: [url="http://soundcloud.com/mornats/in-a-small-and-smokey-club"]http://soundcloud.com/mornats/in-a-small-and-smokey-club[/url]. The bum note or two that you might hear is my clumsy fingers and not the bass. It sounds pretty damn awesome and plays like a £1500 bass.

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A second hand Lakland JO and either an on-board preamp (Sadowsky or Aguilar) or floor based pre. Might push your budget a little but worth the stretch in my opinion. I've only played one jazz bass that compared to my JO for me and it was a Celinder (the Scarbee Celinder that Flanker and CrazyKiwi used to own - used to be pictured at the top of the old Basschat forum page), and one of the finest basses I've ever touched...

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[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1320236793' post='1424059']
A second hand Lakland JO and either an on-board preamp (Sadowsky or Aguilar) or floor based pre.
[/quote]

I've played that Bigwan's Lakland JO and it is one sweeeeeeeeeeeeet bass. And if it was in Olympic White....well, lordy knows we all have limits to our restraint :)

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IIRC, that is a pretty clean and defined sound so you might want to start with how the bass all fits together because if you can't get that to work..no amount of add-ons will be able to rescue the sound.
All they can do is enhance what is there...so a good strong resonance is the start-off.

This can be why cheaper basses can be so hit and miss..and you are paying..on the better basses, for someone to be very good at putting this thing together.

That is not to say that you have no chance but I'll pile money into quality parts and decent wood.

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