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Well, of course, everybody's first impression of fretless tone is Jaco Pastorius. '60's Jazz Bass pickups. But also remember that he epoxied his fingerboard to make it harder than rosewood, more like a double bass ebony fingerboard. So it's not just pickups. That said, the standard is still a good pair of Jazz Bass pickups. Personal take: I can't stand hum or noise of any kind. So instead of vintage Fender or Fender-style single coil pickups, I would check into something like a Bartolini, Lindy Fralin, or Aguilar end-to-end humbuckers that are not overwound so that the mids are tamed to keep the tone from getting too thick and losing the mwah, while still getting rid of the noise.

Enjoy the patina!

Is part of the problem that it has neck dive? Changing out to ultralight tuners might be an idea to consider.

[quote name='Fat Rich' timestamp='1366100362' post='2048197']In my experience the lighter the Fender, the more resonant it sounds and the better it fits in the mix. [/quote] +1! Caveat: if the body is too light, you might have to change out the traditional tuners for ultralights in order to cure neck dive. But if the bass has already been "devalued" with the addition of a bridge pickup, then it's already a "player" bass and will benefit.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1366065361' post='2048066'] 'Optimum' capacitor value is going to depend on personal preference. An easy way to experiment is to use a substitution box (which is pretty much what Ou7shined built) and have a play until it all sounds good to your own ears. Something like this: [url="http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-K38-Capacitor-Substitution-Box/dp/B0002BBQMI"]http://www.amazon.co...x/dp/B0002BBQMI[/url] [/quote] Indeed. A person preferring a dub tone may want a .047, or even a .068 or .100. Someone who really likes the pop-and-slap may want to go the other way with a .022, the "standard" for most electric guitars. For me, I've never personally cared for the completely rolled off dub tone; I like a little more mids in the mix, but not so much that it sounds like an electric guitar instead of a bass, even on the bridge pickup position. That looks like a great box, but is it worth it, when most folks have just a couple of instruments? The other application that some folks may find interesting would be to figure out what in-line value is good for a bridge pickup to eliminate inductance loading and promote "jangle" or "chime". Rickenbacker have used a .0047 for decades; I use a .01 for a Jazz Bass bridge pickup; Leo Fender used a .0068 for the bridge pickup of a Jaguar, etc.

Short answer: if it has been wired like a Jazz bass, i.e., V-V-T, yes. Just turn down the bridge pickup all the way.

I agree. When you want tubes, you just gotta have tubes. The only reasons I don't use tube amps for bass are cost, durability and weight. I have a Carvin PB300 solid state that has suffered Yeoman's duty continuously since 1993, and still going strong. Before that I had a venerable Ampeg SVT amp, and when after a couple of years I looked into the cost of re-tubing the entire head, it was going to cost almost as much as I paid for it used, and it always took another person to help me cart it and set it up.

I wish they would also use a 60 instead of a 65 in order to balance out the tension. When I used Rotosounds, I custom ordered through the Rotosound customer rep 45-60-80-105 for my fanned fret P-style bass.

[sub][size=5]Part of the '70's "scooped" tone was due to the heavy ash wood used, as well as the inconsistency of CBS. There is one person who will know, who has rewound more pickups than most of the new guys make: Mr. Seymour Duncan. He can tell you exactly what really happened, as opposed to what is on the pdf's of the spec sheets that are easily available on line.[/size][/sub]

Indeed! Great experiment! Years ago, I didn't do that extensive a matrix, but that is essentially how I came up with my personal preference for a .033: the value sets the "hinge" frequency, and if wired to a potentiometer, the pot sets how sharp the slope is. Great pix of a great project.

Ah, the minutiae of slang and perjoritive as lost in translation!

[size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][color=#000000]Sorry, I misunderstood the question![/color] [color=#000000]"Quality" in this context means the same as in any other quality control context: unit-to-unit consistency. In other words, when you purchase a .047, are you getting a .047, or actually just a, say, .40 or as much as a .60? Since the treble roll-off needs to be at least a half-octave difference to be audible, even these extremes are acceptable. I even use a .033 as my tone capacitor because I like more mids in the mix.[/color] [color=#000000]Likewise, "Linearity" means consistency of performance throughout the audible range and throughout its voltage and temperature rated range. For audio reproduction applications, these have more meaning with the entire audio range at issue than it does for bass guitar applications, where the most it will see in a frequency range is only @ 30 Hz (low or 40 Hz (low E) to @ 7500 Hz (highest overtones usually produced), and a few millivolts, maybe as much as one volt for hot actives. And since there are no components to cause heat in an electric bass, then temperature is not a concern, either, as it used to be with large filter capacitors next to large, hot power tubes and transformers.[/color] [color=#000000]In other words, it really doesn't matter. [/color][/font][/size]

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1365756696' post='2043869'] Not necessary.[/quote] Having soldered all kinds of electric guitar, bass, amplifier, audio equipment and other parts to keep gigs going for over thirty-five years, I must disagree. When soldering more than just a simple terminal or wire splice, the rosin core of the solder is insufficient to keep the metal clear. It's not crud; it's the immediate oxidation that occurs as the metal heats up with the oxygen in the air. Yes, on the back of a pot casing, a small bit of flux, as set forth in the post above, is necessary to assure a good, clean, compact solder joint that does not overheat the component. Can you solder the casing without the added flux? Yes, but why run the risk of a cold joint or stressed component?

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1365719361' post='2043615'] What does that actually mean? [/quote] A capacitor is two films of metal, called the "plates," with a thin insulator sandwiched between them, and leads soldered internally to each film of metal. The insulator is also called the "dielectric." What the poster is referring to is on some capacitors the dielectric is a thin film of polyester plastic only a few mils thick, and on some traditional old-style capacitors the dielectric is exactly that: a strip of thin paper actually soaked in an oil. Here's how they work: the thicker the dielectric, the more voltage that the capacitor can handle, but this separates the plates. The farther apart the plates, the less electricity they can interact with, so the lower the capacitance, and therefore the plates have to be larger to have the same capacitance. This is why capacitors with a larger voltage rating are usually also larger in physical size. the plates and dielectric are usually flexible and wound around together so the capacitor can be made more compact, like a Sprague "orange drop" or "bumble bee," two very popular lines of capacitors for electric guitar and bass applications.

FLUX!!! For the pot casings, you not only need to "rough up" the edge of the surface, but in order for the solder to flow, a little bit extra flux needs to be applied to the roughed up spot immediately so that it forms a film to keep oxygen out, to help the iron heat the surface, and to provide the vehicle to melt the solder to make a good, shiny joint, as it is supposed to do. Use (American spelling) rosin flux, NOT ACID FLUX (that's only for water pipes), and apply just a small, thin film with the proper flux brush to the area to be soldered. Something like this would be good: [url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/rosin-flux-dispensing-pen-33850"]http://www.maplin.co.uk/rosin-flux-dispensing-pen-33850[/url]

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1365389640' post='2038919'] As for the set-up, it was definitely necessary and my mate did the set up himself as he is a guitar repair technician and does repairs/set-ups all day. The evening out of the tension hugely affected the way his guitar was set up, as it was not set to accommodate the reduction in tension across the middle strings. Normally, his D and A were around 17lbs tension and his G and low E were about 14lbs. With the BT set, this brought the tension of the low E, A, D and G down below 13lbs and a setup was needed to ensure this reduction didn't affect the playability of the guitar. [/quote]It sounds to me like he bought the wrong set.

[quote name='richardjmorgan' timestamp='1365583657' post='2041253'] Being the main gear/sound nerd (something of a best of a bad bunch scenario) in the band I play guitar (boooooo) in, I was having a play around with our bassist's stuff yesterday in practice to try and get a better sound out of it, and was wondering if those of you a bit more clued up on bass stuff could help explain something to me. He has an Epi bolt-on Thunderbird, with (what I assume, from a bit of informed fiddling) separate volume pots for the bridge and neck (well, middle-ish but it's the nearest of two to the neck) pickups, and a master tone. I found that I seemed to get a sound that came out both louder and punchier by rolling the bridge volume off to a little over half way than with it on full. Now this seems oddly counterintuitive to me, as I'd have thought 1. the two pickups both on max volume would have more output than any other option; 2. the more bridge pickup there was going into the amp, the "tighter" the sound would be. I've only ever used basses with single, p-style pickups in more or less the usual place, so i wondered if there was some sort of explanation for this that I've overlooked, whether my ears are playing tricks on me, or whether there's something strange afoot with this particular bass and I need to get my soldering iron out. [/quote] This is normal. It's a combination of impedance drop with both pickups in parallel, and some comb filtering from the different phasing of the overtones sampled in different positions. I solve the matter on passive J-basses and P/J basses by putting a .01 mfd capacitor inline from the bridge pickup hot lead to the bridge pickup volume control. Since there isn't that much fundamental to the signal in the bridge position, it doesn't affect the tone significantly, and it eliminates the dropout. The tradeoff is that there is the slightest bit less volume to the bridge pickup, kind of like a permanent volume roll-off to about 8 1/2. I first noticed this myself in 1981 on the 1975 J-bass I had then.

[quote name='tedmanzie' timestamp='1365498806' post='2040242']BTW is the cap sensitive to heat when soldering in?[/quote]It can be. After all these years, I am able to tell how long to leave the iron on the leads to get a good joint without a heat sink and without overheating the capacitor. But if you're not sure, getting a small "alligator" clip to attach to each lead at the body of the capacitor while you are soldering it would be a good idea until you also get a feel for how much heat is required.

If you're not experienced at soldering, the best practice is to take the components that are already on the bass and practice on them by unsoldering and resoldering until you get nice, clean, compact joints like the factory. Then work on installing the new components, taking care to make sure everything is cleaned, fluxed and tinned properly and with the properly heated soldering iron at the ready, with all tools and supplies laid out so there is no risk of inadvertent damage to the components, the instrument, or the bench top. A clean, organized, spacious work area is key to safety and a tidy installation. I started rewiring guitars with my first mail order guitar purchased for me by my family in @ 1975. That reminds me -- I just received in the post my .033 orange drop capacitor that I need to install in my 5-string bass before my next gig....

Fender standard are 250 kohm pots; audio taper for the volume control and either audio taper or linear taper for the tone control.

Remember, Leo Fender himself abandoned stacked pots for all the reasons mentioned above. Whatever happened to simply turning down both volume controls, like I still do after over 37 years playing bass?

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1363813675' post='2018192'] Lee Sklar swore by the double splits on his old Charvel mongrel in terms of even pick up response.[/quote]That is because you can set each part of the pickup to the optimum height to compensate for the crown radius of the fingerboard. I've only seen one split pickup that I would put on a bass. I had never seen it before. Most split 5-string pickups are simply 2+3 or 3+2 configuration, and some guys try to use a standard Precision pickup and run the A string down the middle with close string spacing at the bridge. This pickup had two sections of the same geometry, 3+3. But the overlapped portion omitted a pole piece from one of the sections. This might actually have some merit to its performance: Sandberg bass, Delano pickups. But I'm still in favor of a straight EMG style pickup to retain consistent string sampling, with the "neck" or "mid" position pickup in the same place as the D-G segment of a P-bass in order to retain the proper balance of fundamental and overtones, especially so the B string speaks clearly.

For what the OP wants, I don't believe a Fender original will get it for him. Yes, the "original" P pickup is the most versatile, but that's not what the OP wants. I would recommend a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder instead.

Yes, "rails" P-bass pickups are available from DiMarzio and from Barden. But I would recommend a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder instead. It does what the OP describes as his tonal preference.

That's definitely a MIM body with an Am Std neck. Not only because of the simple plate bridge instead of the high-mass top load or body through bridge with milled saddles with optional grooves, but because of the color. This particular shade of blue is very common with MIM instruments, both Strats and basses, and not used on Am Std, or at least not that particular shade.