MusicMan pickup placement?

[Thegrandwazoo]

Hi all! I've never posted here before, but have at various times owned various Warmoth bodies/necks and one complete Tele that I should never have sold. Anyway, I have a question regarding, as the title suggests, the default placement of a MusicMan bass pickup on a Warmoth Jazz body. Background info: for helping a friend pack up his house and gourmet mushroom cultivation business and driving the UHaul towing a car to Colorado, I was given a 1988 Fender Japanese 'Jazz Bass Special' (a P body with a J neck, P/J pickups, 3-way selector switch, and TBX tone pot), which I defretted as I had no need for another fretted electric bass. That neck is AWESOME, but the pickups are pretty noisy (though with a good Geezer Butler roar about them) and it's headstock-heavy, not to mention P-basses just aren't my thing because 'my' sound is that of the Ernie Ball MusicMan Sterling.

I've decided to re-body the bass, maybe sell the Fender loaded body or put a neck on it to sell as a whole instrument. I'm a sucker for a Jazz, so I've decided on a Jazz bass body, flame maple over alder with a MusicMan pickup and some kind of a preamp, I'm thinking maybe get the electronics from a Sterling By MusicMan sb14, maybe. Finished in black dye and tung oil, I think it'll look pretty damn good with the factory Fender black headstock and the clean-looking maple fretlines I inlaid.

When I set it up in the body builder on the website, there's a no neck pickup option, and I can choose a MM-style bridge humbucker, but does that mean normal Fender Jazz bridge position, or will they know to put the pickup rout in the MusicMan 'sweet spot'? I bet someone here has had a single-mm pickup bass body made, I'd appreciate feedback. I suppose it wouldn't be totally out of the question to get a router and make my own pickup cavity since I'll be doing the finish, but it'd be cool not to have to.

 

[TBurst Std]

First welcome

Second , yes the W does the sweet spot MM placement. If the builder doesn’t offer it , just call them for the order.

Third, why order electronics from a psuedo MM?  Visit bestbassgear

If it was I , I’d look at an Audere unit/configuration that met your desires.

 

[Fat Pete]

If you choose the rear-routed option with no neck pickup the sweet spot MM becomes available - presumably it would clash with the pickguard. If you wanted to go Jaco-style with a control plate but no 'guard, as TBS says, give W a call.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

If you choose the rear-routed option with no neck pickup the sweet spot MM becomes available - presumably it would clash with the pickguard. If you wanted to go Jaco-style with a control plate but no 'guard, as TBS says, give W a call.

That's exactly what I'd like to do, but I assume I'll need to go rear-routed to fit the preamp and selector switch, so it'll probably wind up sans both pickguard and plate. Which would be okay, too.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

First welcome

Thanks!

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Second , yes the W does the sweet spot MM placement. If the builder doesn’t offer it , just call them for the order

Fair. That's about what I figured, but since I'm not ordering the body right this minute I didn't want to call and waste their time, plus I figured someone here would likely know.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Third, why order electronics from a psuedo MM?  Visit bestbassgear

If it was I , I’d look at an Audere unit/configuration that met your desires.

Well, I figure the stock electronics from the import MusicMan can be gotten super cheap, because I assume quite a few folks have bought the basses because they could afford them, and then 'upgraded' the electronics. Well, it's my understanding that the factory pickups and preamps are to US MusicMan specs, in which case my ears probably can't differentiate them from the real American stuff, which is unobtainium anyway. Also, the vast majority of folks who build MM-style basses go with the Duncan Basslines pickup and either the Aguilar or Audere preamp. Not only are those all (in my opinion) inferior to the factory MusicMan stuff (which it's my understanding the SBMM stuff replicates, just made offshore), but as far as I know they're all Stingray-type pieces. The single/series/parallel switching and ceramic-magnet pickup are key components of the Sterling/SB14 tone palette that I love so very well.