Bass help

T89Rex

Senior Member
Messages
277
Hi forum.

I'm starting to think about Warmoth number two and bass number one, which is slightly problematic since almost everything I know about guitars relates to the six-string breed. The plan at the moment is:

BODY: Olympic white jazz bass - everything in the showcase seems to be swamp ash which is fine with me
NECK: Either black ebony or pau ferro on roasted maple
PICKUPS: ? ? ?
BRIDGE: I've heard a lot of good things about the Babicz FCH-4
TUNERS: ? ? ?

As you can see there's a lot of unknowns in there. I've done the P vs J agonising and I think I'm fairly settled on going down the J route but as this is likely to be the only bass I buy I'd like it to cover as much ground as possible. My main concern is going down a route that makes things too bright. I like the Jazz bass sound but between the swamp ash, ebony, maple and Jazz pickups I'm wondering if I'm pushing things too far. I still want to be able to get big warm swells out of the thing. So my laundry list of questions is:

  • Am I likely to notice a big difference between swamp ash and alder bodies?
  • Do I want graphite stiffening rods in the neck? I loathe neck dive so it seems like a good option, along with the possibility of rolling off some of the brightness of the ebony or pau ferro.
  • On the issue of neck dive, what are my best options for light tuners? I've read a lot of good comments about Hipshot Ultralites.
  • Can anyone recommend some pickups at the warmer end of the Jazz Bass spectrum? At the moment I like the sound of the Nordstrand Big J-Blades.

Thanks!
 
I'm not a bass player either, but I know several people who are.  Here's their comments:

Tuners:  Hipshot ultralite.  Specifically these ones:

20675C_1800x.jpg


Pickups: Lollar.  These guys right here:
https://www.lollarguitars.com/lollar-j-bass-pickups
 
You're not going to have any issue with neck dive if the neck is not unreasonably heavy.  My advice would be to get a roasted maple neck with whatever type of fretboard you want (probably rosewood if you don't want to be too bright) and whatever tuners you want.  You're not going to have an issue with neck dive, even with Schaller tuners and steel stiffening rods.  The roasted maple neck simply isn't heavy enough to cause neck dive on a normal jazz body using a normal strap.


Definitely go for the Jazz.  There are a lot of bass players who swear by Precision basses, but if you want flexibility, the P is not for you.  Between alder and swamp ash, I'd go with alder, but it's really just a preference more than a recommendation.


By the way, don't worry about things being too bright.  You can always dial down the brightness with the tone control on the bass or at the amp, but you can't get more brightness out of a bass that doesn't have it to give.


The Babicz is a great bridge.  Nordstrands are great pickups, but I'd really recommend going with a set of the NJ4SE hum-cancelling pickups.  Again, you can add all the dirt you want later, but you can't make an inherently dirty sound any cleaner.
 
I recently built 2 Standard 5-string jazz basses. One has a swamp ash body and one has an alder body. The swamp ash has a maple/maple neck with SST frets definitely has a brighter, punchier sound which I'm trying to maximize with Rotosounds. The alder body has a maple/rosewood neck with nickel frets and has a deeper, warmer sound that I've maximized by using GHS precision flat-wound strings. They both sound great, but have different feel and sound. You can hear the difference acoustically and plugged in.
The jazz bass definitely sounds like the right fit because it is more versatile. BlueTalon is right. You can tone down the brightness with tone controls, picking technique and strings.

Michael
 
Thanks guys. That puts my mind at ease about the neck. I think I've now settled on everything except the pickups.

I feel like there are fewer resources out there to compare bass pickups than guitar pickups. There were dozens of YouTube videos for every search when I was making decisions about my last guitar but this time I'm getting two or three tops.

I'm now leaning towards Lollar for the pickups and struggling to choose between the standard (60s?) set and the 70s set. I've also liked the sound of Fralin's jazz bass set, and I still quite like the Nordstrands.

Is there any bass-specific reason to go for noiseless pickups? Are jazz basses famously noisy? This bass is unlikely to ever leave my spare room studio and I don't have any trouble with noise with my guitars. Seems like going noiseless would nudge me up into a new price category.
 
You should contact the people at bestbassgear.com. They should be able to help you with your pickup choices. Both my basses are outfitted with humbucking jazz pickups. I don't remember there being any big difference in price.

Michael
 
T89Rex said:
I think I've now settled on everything except the pickups.

Is there any bass-specific reason to go for noiseless pickups? Are jazz basses famously noisy? This bass is unlikely to ever leave my spare room studio and I don't have any trouble with noise with my guitars. Seems like going noiseless would nudge me up into a new price category.
There are two basic schools of thought.  One is that good tone is good tone, and extraneous noise is sometimes the price you gotta pay for good tone.  The other is that good tone plus extraneous noise equals crappy tone.  I'm in that second group, and that biases my decision making. 

Jazz basses were designed before hum-canceling bass pickups were a thing.  The design uses two oppositely wound opposite polarity single-coil pickups to work together to cancel hum, which is fine when you have both pickups set at equal volume.  But if you solo either pickup, you're susceptible to hum. 

Advances in pickup technology have allowed the introduction of a few different types of hum canceling J pickups.  There are...
Stacked coils, where one coil is on top of the other coil and they share the magnets and poles;
Split-coil, or dual-inline-coil, where two coils are end-to-end inside the pickup housing, and each coil has its own magnet and poles and externally looks identical to single coil pickups;
Parallel coils, where the coils are side by side and each coil has its own magnet, and are typically identifiable by two parallel blades; 
Sidewinders, where two full length coils are oriented sideways rather than vertically. 

By far, the most common of those is the split-coil, and for good reason.  They are essentially two single coil pickups laid end-to-end.  They are effective at eliminating hum, and they retain the sound of the single coil pickups.  And the majority of bass pickup manufacturers make a version of split-coil.

To answer your question about if jazz basses are famously noisy, the answer is they can be, but it seems to be inconsistent.  Perhaps you would be one of the lucky ones and never have an issue.  But if you do have an issue, using your new bass will be far more frustrating, especially if you plan to do any recording with it.

Are hum-cancelling J pickups more expensive than single coils?  Sure, a bit.  But not prohibitively more expensive.  If you're spending the money to get a Warmoth body instead of a less expensive body from another source, and you're spending the money to get a Babicz bridge instead of a cheaper bent-metal bridge, then you're already philosophically in favor of spending more money for a better product.  Pickups are not the place to start getting cheap.
 
BlueTalon said:
If you're spending the money to get a Warmoth body instead of a less expensive body from another source, and you're spending the money to get a Babicz bridge instead of a cheaper bent-metal bridge, then you're already philosophically in favor of spending more money for a better product.  Pickups are not the place to start getting cheap.

This is a very good point. Thank you.

From what I've been able to find of hum-cancelling options I think I like the Fralin split coils (https://youtu.be/QxPeFel7XB4?t=206) the best but there are precious few sound samples out there. Does anybody have any experience with them?
 
No experience here, but Fralin pickups have a great reputation.  I think that if you like the sound on the audio clip and you have a good feeling about them, go with your gut.  I have done that with several different pickups -- I learned what I could about them, and if they seemed like they were a quality product, I bought them without having any direct experience with them or talking with anyone who did.  I have never regretted it.
 
I can recommend the Nordy NJ4SE pickups.  I've got a set, coupled with an Audere preamp.  IMO they are on the warmer side.  I also have a set of Fralins.  Between the two I recommend the Fralins.

I've tried the hipshot ultralights, they are good tuners, however my favorites are the Fender f-stamp tuners.  The pilot holes are a bit tricky to work out, but I find them to be very solid and extremely attractive.  I do not know how their weight compares to the ultralights.  I don't see a neck dive issue with roasted maple in the mix.

BassTunersThree.jpg


I like my Babicz bridges, I've got several.  However, I like the Omega more.  Longer throw for intonation on the Omega.  And much cheaper.  Depends on what you're looking for visually, I think. Both are fantastic.  I prefer the Omega with grooved saddles.

uph6rgss30ivn3vufgzf.jpg
 
You can also look at the Hipshot Kicka$$ bridge. It is similar to the Omega and Bada$$ bridge. I've found the best prices for this bridge at Stratosphere.
https://stratosphereparts.com/

Michael
 
Thanks so much for your help everyone. I think things are finally starting to come together.

ghotiphry, the Omega / Badass bridge isn't really my style but hot damn are those tuners pretty. The neck I'm looking at is drilled for BML (17.5 mm). Is that the right size? And do you have a supplier? I can't track them down on the Fender site.
 
Aye sir.  Those are the correct sized holes for these tuners.  I've bought these from reverb before, just plug in "fender f stamp bass tuners" and there are several sets available.

I've also bought them from darrenriley.com.  Looks like they've all gone to the beach and closed up shop for a couple days.  Here's a direct link https://darrenriley.com/store/fender-deluxe-f-stamp-bass-tuning-machines-0097335049/.  I've never communicated directly with them, but they always seem to have them at a good price.  (Darren also has good prices on Emerson CTS Pro pots!)

Be aware, these tuners don't use screws on the back of the head stock.  They have pins for which you need to drill shallow holes.  If you take a look at the short scale bass necks with warhead inline 4 tuners you will see these holes predrilled.  I don't know if W will predrill these holes on anything but the short scale warhead necks, I've never asked.

Also, the Fenders only come in chrome.  If you're after a set of black, I've use the BMLs from Warmoth, which have the same bushing and pin configuration.  I'll say this, I've used many different sets of tuners.  The Fenders are head and shoulders above my second choice.
 
ghotiphry said:
Aye sir. 

Be aware, these tuners don't use screws on the back of the head stock.  They have pins for which you need to drill shallow holes.  If you take a look at the short scale bass necks with warhead inline 4 tuners you will see these holes predrilled.  I don't know if W will predrill these holes on anything but the short scale warhead necks, I've never asked.

I have asked Warmoth in the past about pre-drilling screw holes for tuners in their Jazz necks.  Apparently they are constrained by the licensing agreement they have with Fender from doing anything other than reaming the tuner holes on their Fender style necks.

Navy?
 
I've had good service and decent pricing at Guitar Parts Resource/Factory:


https://guitarpartsresource.com/middle_bass.htm


For any given part, they may not be the best price, but in the aggregate you may get a better deal on the whole package (bridge, tuners, pots, etc.) when you figure in shipping from diverse suppliers.
 
Thanks for that.

What are people's thoughts on the standard Vol-Vol-Tone setup versus a blend pot plus master volume and tone? The latter seems like a simpler system to use but do you lose anything by going down that road?
 
I built one with vol/blend/tone once.  Once.  I quickly replaced it with vol/vol/tone. It seemed to me that with the blend in the center I was only getting 50% of each pickup, as opposed to 100% of each, and then having the blend roll back each pickup as it moved from center. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it seemed like the output was greatly reduced.  I always liked that concept, but it seems the only way I could get it was with an active system. Maybe it was just my choice of blend pots?
 
+1. I wired one of my bass player's J-basses like this because she didn't like the hum when the vol knobs were off by a bit.

she didn't like it. i put it back.
 
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