Squier Affinity Jaguar H

[0175westwood29]

Squier Affinity Jaguar H Bass | Upgrades part 2

new pickup in this bass plus a bridge upgrade 

 

these basses are solid for the money, and really do play way above there pay grade 

 

Squier Affinity Jaguar Bass | Upgrade time!!!! 2022
https://youtu.be/HBr0rhjP5Vc

[Obrienp]

On 29/10/2022 at 23:35, 0175westwood29 said:

Squier Affinity Jaguar H Bass | Upgrades part 2

new pickup in this bass plus a bridge upgrade 

 

these basses are solid for the money, and really do play way above there pay grade 

 

Squier Affinity Jaguar Bass | Upgrade time!!!! 2022
https://youtu.be/HBr0rhjP5Vc

Hi. Interesting mods and the bass sounds great. Just a couple of questions, if you don’t mind:

 

1. Which model Bartolini pickup is it? I couldn’t quite spot it when you held the box up to the camera. It seems there are 3 options: MMC 4, MM4CBC & MM42CBJD3;

2. How is the Bart volume wise compared to the original (which is pretty hot IMO)?

 

Thanks.

[0175westwood29]

23 hours ago, Obrienp said:

Hi. Interesting mods and the bass sounds great. Just a couple of questions, if you don’t mind:

 

1. Which model Bartolini pickup is it? I couldn’t quite spot it when you held the box up to the camera. It seems there are 3 options: MMC 4, MM4CBC & MM42CBJD3;

2. How is the Bart volume wise compared to the original (which is pretty hot IMO)?

 

Thanks.

Hi yeh it’s the mmc 4, and tbh honest not really noticed a volume difference, the standard pickup is quite hot yeh. 

[Obrienp]

1 hour ago, 0175westwood29 said:

Hi yeh it’s the mmc 4, and tbh honest not really noticed a volume difference, the standard pickup is quite hot yeh. 

Brilliant! Thanks very much. Very tempted to go for it just to be able to use those extra conductors to do single coil/parallel/series switching but it’s about half the cost of the bass. Decisions, decisions!

[0175westwood29]

4 hours ago, Obrienp said:

Brilliant! Thanks very much. Very tempted to go for it just to be able to use those extra conductors to do single coil/parallel/series switching but it’s about half the cost of the bass. Decisions, decisions!

Have opened up your bass? As the pickup in my orange had two unused cores didn’t test them or anything as I was replacing it but it might be able to be tapped? With some etc wiring, however my black one didn’t have these spare cores 

[Obrienp]

11 hours ago, 0175westwood29 said:

Have opened up your bass? As the pickup in my orange had two unused cores didn’t test them or anything as I was replacing it but it might be able to be tapped? With some etc wiring, however my black one didn’t have these spare cores 

Yes, I opened it up yesterday to shield the cavities as it was really noisy. Mine is a black one and it only has the two conductor pickup, in fact just a white one and the braiding shield, which they are using as the ground. The pickup hasn’t been potted completely. There is a mess of resin at either end, which I guess is hiding the start and end of each coil. I thought about trying to chip it off to get at the other conductors but the chance of damaging them in the process would be too great.

 

I have a no-name 4 conductor Ray pickup that I took out of another bass. I might try using that for the extra switching options to start off with, before I decide to take the plunge on a Bart (if I can work out which conductor is which). The thing is I like the tone of the stock pickup in series and I don’t think I am going to get that from an exposed pole piece cheapo. 

[Obrienp]

OK, so I started doing the re-wiring to accommodate my 4 conductor pickup. I decided to push the boat out and use CTS pots, Sprague cap, a decent 3 way DPDT switch and a Trutone jack socket. For some reason, I really can’t think why, I had a spare Jaguar control plate, so I didn’t even have to drill the original (to accommodate the switch). That is where the good luck ended: I hadn’t bothered measuring the size of the control cavity. It turns out it is too narrow and too short to accommodate full size pots. I don’t really want to enlarge it, as I don’t have a proper router and using chisels isn’t that easy in cheaper woods: very hard to get a decent finish (with my woodworking skills anyway). I now have some Alpha mini pots on order: tricky to solder ground wires on the back of them without damaging them, in my experience: they overheat quickly.

 

While I was on fleaBay I spotted a Warman MM pickup for £25. It has a four conductor lead and is hot at 12.5 k ohms, so I took the plunge.

[Obrienp]

Not wishing to hijack the thread but I fitted the Warman with the 3 way switch and Alpha pots. It all worked well and is a really good, fairly cheap mod. I am sure it is not up to Bartolini standards though but it certainly gave the Jaguar a few more tone variations.

 

In the meantime I had given the original Squier pickup to my local luthier to see if he could convert it to four leads, as I liked the tone. It turned out to be quite a task because the manufacturer had used a lot of resin haphazardly, without actually potting it, which probably explains why it was so noisy. Anyway, he managed to do it and then potted it with wax, which has made it very quiet. Unfortunately, he lost the piece of paper he had written the colour assignment on, so I had to do quite a lot of experimenting to wire up the three way switch. It turned out to require a completely different wiring to the Warman, including which pins on the switch to connect with a shunt. Anyway, I finally succeeded and it sounds pretty good. It is massive in serial mode (Squier standard) but the single neck coil sounds really good, like a hot Jazz with that single coil clarity. Parallel mode gives a good mid-scoop with a fair amount of punch.

 

This is what the control plate looks like with the mod:

[MarkusParkus]

Another way to get some extra top end - change the pot value to 1 meg.  I've done it to a few instruments,  and it really works.

Also  physically small pots don't sound any different to big pots, as long as they're reasonable quality.   They're just trickier to solder on the back without damaging 

[Obrienp]

7 hours ago, MarkusParkus said:

Another way to get some extra top end - change the pot value to 1 meg.  I've done it to a few instruments,  and it really works.

Also  physically small pots don't sound any different to big pots, as long as they're reasonable quality.   They're just trickier to solder on the back without damaging 

Parallel mode gave plenty of top end but the stock pickup doesn’t lack top end as it is. Typical Stingray ceramic pickup  I guess. 
 

I agree about small pots, if they are Alpha/CTS. I am beginning to think I prefer the feel of Alphas to CTS. I have had some very loose feeling CTS pots recently. The vol actually starts to roll off on one when I am playing. I have to constantly tweak it. I have not had this with Alpha. I was shooting the breeze with my local luthier about this and other things recently, and he said his experience was exactly the opposite, so the jury is still out.

 

I have moved the Jaguar on now. Great bass but I decided a P is more the vibe I am looking for in a single pickup bass. I have just finished putting together a medium scale P bitsa but that will be the subject of another thread. I was on the point of stripping the Jaguar just for the neck, as there aren’t any medium scale necks available in the UK for reasonable money. However, that would have made it a pretty expensive neck! I took a risk and went for a neck direct from China that turned out OK.