JAZZ BASS ELECTRONICS UPGRADE

[mst]

Hey guys!

kinda need your help here.... I am also a bassa player by recent interest and failrly new to the instrument.

I love my flea jazz bass, It has those Vintage ’64 Jazz Bass single-coil pickups that have a nice tone!!

electronics is a dual concentric control VOL/TONE for each pickup and thats it!

I HAVE 2 Problems

1) volume: wont be bad to have a little more;
2) pickup mix- they are wired so that technically you are blending them wth the volume pot. But honestly the in-between tones are far from usable. One pickup is always too hot or too weak to influence the overall sound. And the tone as well, is either on or off, teh inbetween really is weak.

Any solution to this? I am not against changing pickups as well, i just like the dual VOL/Tone thing, and I would love to maintain that! Maybe just an upgraded electronics is the thing?

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: JAZZ BASS ELECTRONICS UPGRADE

Lots of people retired the old stack knob bases. Two tone controls are redundant since they are not independent. The volume issue is due to some resistors in the circuit to try and isolate the controls. But it also reduces the output.

So the fix it to wire it up like a standard Jazz with two volumes and a master tone.

The pickups should blend better as well.

You can never get much variation on blending pickups due to the impedance loading. I use blend pots on my basses, but there’s just a tiny range where you can slightly accentuate one pickup or the other.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mincer]

Re: JAZZ BASS ELECTRONICS UPGRADE

Lots of people retired the old stack knob bases. Two tone controls are redundant since they are not independent. The volume issue is due to some resistors in the circuit to try and isolate the controls. But it also reduces the output.

So the fix it to wire it up like a standard Jazz with two volumes and a master tone.

The pickups should blend better as well.

You can never get much variation on blending pickups due to the impedance loading. I use blend pots on my basses, but there’s just a tiny range where you can slightly accentuate one pickup or the other.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is what I do. I find the pickups blend better, and you have a more usable tone range. You might also get a little more volume out of the bass. I'd try this first before I start looking at pickup replacement.

[dg27]

Re: JAZZ BASS ELECTRONICS UPGRADE

I have a few my basses (and both my Jazz basses) wired with a series-parallel DPDT switch on the tone. That gives some great options.

[ItsaBass]

Re: JAZZ BASS ELECTRONICS UPGRADE

I would wire it with a simple V/T stack setup for each pickup, and add a pickup selector switch. Basically, you will be doing 2-pickup Gibson wiring, but using two stacked pots instead of four single pots. You can use a Gibson toggle, which gives you the option of both pickups on in parallel, or you can just get a two way toggle switch, so you can pick one pickup or the other.

For a less on/off feel to the tone controls, try using a lower value cap: 1/2 or 1/4 the stock value. Pot taper would be a better way to attack that issue, but choices are somewhat limited with stacked pots, so I'm not sure if they are available with a linear taper on the tone portion of the stack.

Convert to a later style, four hole Jazz Bass control plate in order to fit everything you need (two stack pots, switch, jack). Or keep the stock three hole control plate, and rout a cavity somewhere for the switch (lower horn, maybe), and a channel for its wires.