Waddycall

Inlays look great. Show us the headstock!

Not really. I changed everything except the bridge ground wire, jack socket and battery clip. It would probably be possible to use the system with the existing preamp but I’ve no idea how it would work out. I can follow a wiring diagram but without one I’m lost! Edit: actually I think not as you’d need to at least add a blend pot or selector switch as well as the active passive switch. It would be easier to change the preamp as well and wire it up as per the Delano diagram. there are probably easier ways of getting what you want though.

I felt the same about my Ray34 although I did want to keep the Ray tone too so I put the Delano hybrid pickups and sonar 2 pre amp in.

Definitely the bass not the amp/lead?

Check this out! https://www.taylorguitars.com/taylorware/string-ground-fuses/universal-string-ground

The ground wire for the cavity shielding is to remove any potential that builds up in the shielding stopping it from preventing noise induced by outside interference. Some bass’s don’t even have that wire. The rest of the bass is still grounded via the pots, bridge ground wire etc. Theres also the theory that the ground connections can electrocute you if you have an amp fault! Some people recommend fusing the ground wire. P.S. I’m on a steep learning curve with guitar electronics myself but would have no safety concerns about leaving that disconnected.

Can’t see how. It’s there to help the shielding prevent hum/noise that’s all.

it’s to ground the shielding in the pickup cavity and probably does go to the back of a pot. If you’re not able to solder it back on I’d leave it as it is unless you get issues with noise. You could cut another ground wire and connect it in with that using a screw connector etc but if some of the solder joints aren’t great you might disturb something else in the process.

An LED and a mini toggle switch to turn it on and off! If you used a double pole switch you could have it as a kill switch with a RED LED as off or green as on!

Did you buy this bass blind?

I’ve been mulling over options for connecting this up permanently and have been considering a change to V/B/T with a push pull for MM/Jazz bridge pickup. I’ve also considered V/B/T with two mini toggle switches to select jazz or MM bridge and to select series or parallel for the MM. I’ve also been pondering the fact that I have a redundant John East MMSR4 preamp in the drawer. 3 band with variable mid. Could I add a blend pot and pickup selector switch to this??? thoughts appreciated.

Thanks a lot for the nice words chaps. I'm really pleased with this. Its made it into a really versatile bass. In my hands it was a bit too limited before but I really like everything about this bass now. Here's some dodgy slap playing for you to sample. It cycles through the following settings and changes every four bars when there's a cymbal crash. I fumbled around in real time to make the changes so was quite limited to what I could fiddle with. The active settings have a slight treble and bass boost and passive has the tone wide open. Its straight through my interface to Cubase with no tweaking. In active the bridge pickup is in MM mode and when passive its in J mode. 1. Active Bridge (MM) 2. Active Centre (Bridge MM and J Neck) 3. Active J Neck (bit harsh!) 4. Passive J Neck 5. Passive Centre (Bridge J and J Neck) 6. Passive bridge (J) Cheers, Pete

That looks awesome!

You’ve got me worried now! You can hear me playing a repetitious cheesy riff on it here-

Ive just fitted a MM pickup (Nordstrand MM4.2) to my fretless Jazz. I’ve put it between the jazz pickups as recommended by a member on here so it’s about 15mm (I think) further from the bridge than it should be. It’s passive. As it’s on a fretless it’s a bit tricky comparing tone to my fretted ray34 but I’d say it sounds a bit fatter but still got a good bit of the stingray tone. I wasn’t sure about fitting it there initially but I experimented by taping the pickup wires onto the end of a guitar cable, connecting it to my amp and holding the pickup in front of the strings whilst randomly plucking. Worked surprisingly well!

How do you make soundcloud appear in the thread???

Cheers! There's no switch at all yet. The jazz bridge pickup is disconnected and the MM pickup connected instead. I believe all I need is a double throw toggle switch to select either the jazz bridge or MM pickup (please correct me if I'm wrong!). I've done a quick recording with some midi drums to give you an idea. The bass is going direct to my Zoom R24 acting as an interface and into Cubase. No processing at all. Hopefully this link should work.... https://soundcloud.com/user-693218768/vm70s-jazz-fretless-neck-and-mm

Interestingly the tone pot doesnt work on the MM pickup unless the volumes reduced a little bit. No doubt due to the values being matched to the jazz pickups. Shouldn’t be a problem. Edit: actually it does, its just very subtle

Well I’ve had a while to play around with this and I’ve decided it’s spot on! The tone from the MM pickup is exactly the tone I have in my head when I think fretless. I also think it’s good to retain the jazz options too so thanks to paul_5 for the idea. I’ve cut and fitted the pick guard to suit and put the bridge pickup back in. Just need to order a switch to select bridge or MM for the second volume pot. Also need to sort out the shielding properly. thanks for the help 👍

Thanks Paul. Took two attempts to make the MDF template. I got impatient and didn’t test it before using it on the body which was a bit silly but glad it came out ok!

Update! i decided to try the between the pickups position. The body is a VM 70s. Ive no idea how that affects pickup position but the ocd made me put it slap bang in the middle. I’m going to keep it like this for a while until I decide whether or not to shift the pickup. Definitely has a bit more punch. Could be good!

If it was between Ashdown and Fender, quality and price etc equal, I’d go for the fender as it may hold a better resale value.

I think they’ve missed a trick. They have a core range of quality products that are well respected. They’re trying to play it safe with a guaranteed market. Bit of a shame. When I saw the thread title I was expecting something more interesting.

That’s actually quite tempting. Not least because it only requires hacking out a hole. I could do that without ordering anything. Hmmmmm

Having recently fitted the Delano hybrid pickups to my Ray I’ve found myself with a spare Nordstrand MM4.2 . I have a bitsa fretless Jazz I’ve been putting together and can’t get the idea of fitting the MM pickup to the jazz out of my head. It seems like a no brainer. The only concern I’ve got is the fact that the rout for the MM pickup won’t fully cover the old rout for the jazz pickup so there will be gaps. Im thinking I would need to fill in the old rout, cut the new rout, and touch up the black paint. the only thing that concerns me is the paint. How hard is it to patch up the paint on a black squier jazz body???