Your modified bass !!!

[nilorius]

Tell us if You have, let's say, a Fender player jazz bass - defretted and refinished. Did You ask Your luthier to do it, or bought allready modified, may be did it Yourself? Are You satisfied with the modification. Tell more about it and somes pics would be great, too ! Mine is - Fender Jaco tribute jazz bass - fretted and refinished to black. It was hard for me to play it fretless, but the instrument was so great, it sounded superb unplugged and i didn't have any fretted bass, so i asked my luthier to fret it and he did it perfectly. Another guy who was a specialist in refinishing, made it black. I love how it sounds and looks.

 

[PaulThePlug]

Looks Familiar!.. My Aria PJ Jazz with Entwistle PBX

Edited January 30 by PaulThePlug

[PaulThePlug]

Ibby SR300 - P Tonerider...

Ibby SR300 - Maida Vale Stacked Jazz

Ibby SR400 - DiMarzio DP123 J's

Edited January 30 by PaulThePlug

[Maude]

Where to start, I've got so many that I've modified in one way or another. 

Apparently the beginning is a very good place so this is the first bass that got some serious work. 

It started life as a black Line6 Variax 700. This isn't mine but this is how it looked. 

 

Changes to headstock shape, tuners, fret markers, colour, binding, f hole, pickguard shape and bridge cover. 

 

Ended up like this, 

 

 

 

 

Build diary here  if interested but unfortunately most of the pictures went missing when Photobucket decided they wanted paying. 

 

[jazzyvee]

Fine looking modification!

Does it still have all the variax gubbings inside or have you changed those too?

[Maude]

3 minutes ago, jazzyvee said:

Fine looking modification!

Does it still have all the variax gubbings inside or have you changed those too?

Thanks. 😊

Only cosmetic mods, all the workings are still Variax. 

[jazzyvee]

I had my bass refinished from it's all see through purple finish to a clear finish to show the Quilted Maple top. I had a refret done, new chrome knobs and new pickups which are cream but i don't have a picture of those on this computer.

I had the refinish and refret done by Toby Diggins at Jaydee Custom Guitars...... and this is the first bass i have kept flats on.  They have been on for about 6 months now and i have to say i have taken a liking to how they sound on this bass. That said I doubt if my other basses will get flats.

 

 

Edited January 30 by jazzyvee
Adding another photo

[NHM]

Here's my Junior Jet, heavily sanded on the back to take about 1cm off the thickness so it now weighs about a feather, and I've finished the wood with a black water-based stain that gives it a plum colouring. Fitted with a TV Jones Thunderblade and a Schaller bridge, a coil-split switch and with my custom

tort plates, it looks and sounds great. I use it as a back up, but really it should be a front line bass as it plays so well; occasionally I take pity on it and give it a front line gig.

 

[nilorius]

13 minutes ago, NHM said:

Here's my Junior Jet, heavily sanded on the back to take about 1cm off the thickness so it now weighs about a feather, and I've finished the wood with a black water-based stain that gives it a plum colouring. Fitted with a TV Jones Thunderblade and a Schaller bridge, a coil-split switch and with my custom

tort plates, it looks and sounds great. I use it as a back up, but really it should be a front line bass as it plays so well; occasionally I take pity on it and give it a front line gig.

 

Wow....this is real great! 🤘

[BassTractor]

.
 

Edited January 30 by BassTractor

[OliverBlackman]

3 hours ago, jazzyvee said:

I had my bass refinished from it's all see through purple finish to a clear finish to show the Quilted Maple top. I had a refret done, new chrome knobs and new pickups which are cream but i don't have a picture of those on this computer.

I had the refinish and refret done by Toby Diggins at Jaydee Custom Guitars...... and this is the first bass i have kept flats on.  They have been on for about 6 months now and i have to say i have taken a liking to how they sound on this bass. That said I doubt if my other basses will get flats.

 

 

Mama Mia

[Paul S]

This is fairly heavily modified.  An unholy marriage of an Encore short scale double cutaway body, a Hondo II H1015 32" scale neck (Yum!), set back a bit, Wilkinson bridge, Entwistle PBXN pickup, Roswell MM syle pickup, 3 way selector and jack moved to the side.  It's a bit of a monster!  One day, if I feel frivolous, I'll stick some black Hipshot Ultralites on the headstock.

 

[Woodwind]

1 hour ago, Paul S said:

This is fairly heavily modified.  An unholy marriage of an Encore short scale double cutaway body, a Hondo II H1015 32" scale neck (Yum!), set back a bit, Wilkinson bridge, Entwistle PBXN pickup, Roswell MM syle pickup, 3 way selector and jack moved to the side.  It's a bit of a monster!  One day, if I feel frivolous, I'll stick some black Hipshot Ultralites on the headstock.

 

 

Need some videos or sound clips of this amazing bass!

[Paul S]

9 minutes ago, Woodwind said:

 

Need some videos or sound clips of this amazing bass!

 

I don't have any, sadly.  I'll try to remember to record somethiing at some point.  

[Woodwind]

Just now, Paul S said:

 

I don't have any, sadly.  I'll try to remember to record somethiing at some point.  

 

It looks so great and I can only imagine how brilliant it sounds.

 

What sort of bands are you/have you used it in?

 

 

[Paul S]

A blues rock trio on the rockier side, fits in nicely.  

[Agent 00Soul]

This Frankenbass began life as a 1993 Fender Custom Shop Jazz.  What a lemon!  By 2005, the neck needed replacing - the truss rod couldn't get more maxxed out - and one by one the elctronics went: individual pots and then a pickup I think.  Talk about a Friday afternoon guitar!  The neck replacement is a Warmoth that we put a Fender sticker on.  Since the original electronics were shot too, it was turned into a P/J configuration, which I always wanted, with some re-routing and having a new pickguard made.  We also replaced one of the volume controls wth a pickup selector.  I believe the new pickups were Duncan vintage models.  Years later the P-pickup was replaced with a Bruce Thomas model from Bass Centre.  I think only the body and hardware are left from the original bass.  

 

Skilled techs did all the work.  I'm hopeless at DIY.

 

 

Edited May 28 by Agent 00Soul

[E sharp]

Finally getting my Japanese Sadowsky Modern fitted with the three pickups- sort of Dingwall-esq now I suppose. 
Got the impression over on Talkbass that this was heresy, but there you go. 
 

It’s moving the front pickup slightly forward a few mm’s to get the middle one in. So will give me pretty much the positions of a rear jazz, MM and P. 
Geting a 5 way rotary strat type selector, rather than one of the Dingwall 5 ways- with don’t give the option of the middle on it’s own. 
So will be - rear, rear+middle, middle, middle+front, front - ala strat. 
 

Looking forward to getting it back, as really missed gigging it. 
 

Paul

Edited May 28 by E sharp
Predictive text

[rushbo]

Most of my basses have been "creatively damaged" in some way.

 

This is the main offender. It started off as a purple Indonesian Squier PJ, which I stripped and repainted pillar box red. I swapped out the neck for a left-handed Mexi Jazz model and added some stick on blocks, which looked much less silver in the picture on eBay listing...

 

The BBOT bridge was replaced by a lovely Schaller 3D and I added a three way toggle switch. I changed the pups to Entwistle's because they're ace. 

 

I think the tuners are Gotoh's, from the eighties. 

 

I came across this "end of line" neck plate on eBay, I have no idea why someone would think this was a viable product, but i had to have it:

Edited May 29 by rushbo

[neepheid]

Oh boy, hold my beer.  In 2009 I bought an Epiphone Les Paul Standard bass.

 

 

Nice, right?  Except I couldn't leave it alone.  My first mod was to replace the pickups with EMG-HB actives.  In the beginning it was simple passive tone controls and I put some abalone topped knobs on it because I was feeling fancy (got no clear photos of that though).  Then I shoehorned in an EMG-BQC 3 band EQ and changed the knobs to be black John East ones.

 

 

Then, I addressed the thing which was bugging me all along - the lack of selector switch in the usual Les Paul place.  I found out that all the channelling and routing is there, they just don't bother drilling and fitting the switch on the basses.  So I sorted that.

 

 

Then I sold it.  Then I regretted it.  Then I tracked it down and bought it back.  On its travels, it acquired Schaller straplocks, can't take the credit for that mod.

Eventually, I got a bit bored of the EMG sound.  Then Squier came out with their devastatingly lovely black and gold 40th anniversary models and I got to thinking how good this bass would look if given the black and gold treatment.  So it got gutted, and the following fitted instead:

 

Wilkinson WJB750 gold tuners

DiMarzio X2N-B (DP125) pickups in black bobbins with gold rails

Babicz three point replacement bridge in gold (ONLY BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FIND A GOLD THREE POINTER FOR LOVE NOR MONEY - I TRIED)

New pots (including two push/push knobs for series/parallel on the tone knobs)

Gold bell knobs

Gold knob pointers

Gold jack socket, gold three way switch with black tip, black pickup rings

 

 

And for the final finishing touch, I had a custom "poker chip" made which reads DO / DO NOT, which mirrors general Star Wars related geekery and an inherent dislike of bridge pickups.

 

All mods done by me, except for the final rewire which I bodged and handed it over to a tech to salvage because my confidence took a hit and I couldn't face re-rewiring.

 

I am delighted with how this bass looks and sounds.  It is done now.

 

End of shaggy dog story.

[rushbo]

4 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Oh boy, hold my beer.  In 2009 I bought an Epiphone Les Paul Standard bass.

 

 

Nice, right?  Except I couldn't leave it alone.  My first mod was to replace the pickups with EMG-HB actives.  In the beginning it was simple passive tone controls and I put some abalone topped knobs on it because I was feeling fancy (got no clear photos of that though).  Then I shoehorned in an EMG-BQC 3 band EQ and changed the knobs to be black John East ones.

 

 

Then, I addressed the thing which was bugging me all along - the lack of selector switch in the usual Les Paul place.  I found out that all the channelling and routing is there, they just don't bother drilling and fitting the switch on the basses.  So I sorted that.

 

 

Then I sold it.  Then I regretted it.  Then I tracked it down and bought it back.  On its travels, it acquired Schaller straplocks, can't take the credit for that mod.

Eventually, I got a bit bored of the EMG sound.  Then Squier came out with their devastatingly lovely black and gold 40th anniversary models and I got to thinking how good this bass would look if given the black and gold treatment.  So it got gutted, and the following fitted instead:

 

Wilkinson WJB750 gold tuners

DiMarzio X2N-B (DP125) pickups in black bobbins with gold rails

Babicz three point replacement bridge in gold (ONLY BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FIND A GOLD THREE POINTER FOR LOVE NOR MONEY - I TRIED)

New pots (including two push/push knobs for series/parallel on the tone knobs)

Gold bell knobs

Gold knob pointers

Gold jack socket, gold three way switch with black tip, black pickup rings

 

 

And for the final finishing touch, I had a custom "poker chip" made which reads DO / DO NOT, which mirrors general Star Wars related geekery and an inherent dislike of bridge pickups.

 

All mods done by me, except for the final rewire which I bodged and handed it over to a tech to salvage because my confidence took a hit and I couldn't face re-rewiring.

 

I am delighted with how this bass looks and sounds.  It is done now.

 

End of shaggy dog story.

That's bloody lovely, that is. 

[Agent 00Soul]

2 hours ago, rushbo said:

Most of my basses have been "creatively damaged" in some way.

 

This is the main offender. It started off as a purple Indonesian Squier PJ, which I stripped and repainted pillar box red. I swapped out the neck for a left-handed Mexi Jazz model and added some stick on blocks, which looked much less silver in the picture on the email listing...

 

The BBOT bridge was replaced by a lovely Schaller 3D and I added a three way toggle switch. I changed the pups to Entwistle's because they're ace. 

 

I think the tuners are Gotoh's, from the eighties. 

 

I came across this "end of line" neck plate on eBay, I have no idea why someone would think this was a viable product, but i had to have it:

That is one of the coolest basses I've ever seen.  Fender should issue it as one of the Alternative Dimension series.  (or whatever it's called)

Edited May 28 by Agent 00Soul

[Boodang]

On 30/01/2024 at 03:30, nilorius said:

Tell us if You have, let's say, a Fender player jazz bass - defretted and refinished. Did You ask Your luthier to do it, or bought allready modified, may be did it Yourself? Are You satisfied with the modification. Tell more about it and somes pics would be great, too ! Mine is - Fender Jaco tribute jazz bass - fretted and refinished to black. It was hard for me to play it fretless, but the instrument was so great, it sounded superb unplugged and i didn't have any fretted bass, so i asked my luthier to fret it and he did it perfectly. Another guy who was a specialist in refinishing, made it black. I love how it sounds and looks.

 

I'm still in shock that a Jaco tribute has been fretted!! If you listen really hard you can hear Jaco turning in his grave! I'm sure it plays well though, but it should at that price!

[nilorius]

7 minutes ago, Boodang said:

I'm still in shock that a Jaco tribute has been fretted!! If you listen really hard you can hear Jaco turning in his grave! I'm sure it plays well though, but it should at that price!

Go on, get some flowers and put at Jaco's grave.

[Baloney Balderdash]

I tend to mod all my instruments, if nothing else then at least visually, to personalize them.

 

But my current main instrument of choice, is a just 28.6" scale 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, produced in January 2019 at the Cort factory in Indonesia, according the serial number, which I guess I really use more as a 5 string Bass VI type instrument than a traditional bass, though tuned in G standard tuning, and all fourth tuning, that is as in 3 half steps above the upper 5 strings of a 6 string bass in regular B standard tuning.

 

It features a Poplar body, a Maple neck and a Jatoba fretboard, 16.5mm string spacing, and 2 J pickups, perfectly leveled frets from stock, and an incredible amount of sustain.

 

Now to the mods I've done to it:

 

First thing I did was wire the 2 stock J pickups in series, as it just didn't sound right, like really hollow and ridiculously burby, it helped, but it still sounded odd, until I discovered that there was something wrong with the neck J pickup, which had an extremely weak magnetic field over the lower half of the strings (I suspect a broken bar magnet, as these are ceramic pickups, and might need to look into fixing it at some point), so I ended up disconnecting the neck J pickup and wiring the stock bridge J pickup directly to the output jack socket, and it actually sounds pretty damn amazing now.

 

Surprisingly little noise too, basically non to speak of, despite not having done any additional shielding, and despite running a single single coil pickup, which I credit to the fact that Ibanez used properly shielded wiring for the electronics and pickups, with the ground wire running as a braided shield all along the individually insulated hot wire.

 

Rest of the mods are purely visually: A silver lotus flower with a OM sign in the middle of it decal, a paint splatter figure, made with a mixture of a white marble effect and grey acrylic paint, applied with a tooth stick, on the upper horn, and a strip of red insulating tape (also known as electrical tape) applied to the top of each of the two J pickups, also removed one of the redundant pots, covering the hole with black insulating tape, and replaced the stock dome style chrome pot knobs on the shafts of the two remaining pots with transparent/black PRS lampshade knobs, and finally I covered the brand/model name on the headstock with black insulating tape as well.

 

I also swapped the neck pocket screws out for slightly longer ones with Torx head slots, to ensure being able to screw them in tight without slipping or risk of stripping the slots.

 

 

Here it is, "Mr. Growley - The Noodlemancer", as I named it :

 

I do plan making a few more mods to this instrument:

 

Most certainly will soon replace the stock side mounted barrel type jack output socket, for a regular jack socket, which I will mount in one of the redundant pot holes, the one currently is covered by black tape.

 

I also ponder on maybe at some point replacing the bridge for 5 single black mono rail bridge pieces milled from solid brass. 

 

As well as I might eventual replace the bridge J pickup, which is currently the only one I use, for a Gemini Pickups Mountain Lightning J pickup: https://www.geminipickups.co.uk/bass/jazz-bass/mountain-lightning

 

Edited May 30 by Baloney Balderdash