shoulderpet

The alnico Wilkinson is a great pickup, imo easily as good as the more expensive vintage voiced pickups out there,I use a Duncan SPB-2 nowadays because I like the midrange bark it gives but the Wilkinson is very good also Yeah I had a lightbulb moment regarding PJ basses, a lot of the more inexpensive ones have J pickups in the 4-5k range which means that as soon as you add in the J pickup your tone really thins out, your tone will get thinner anyway with the j pickup added in due to phase cancellation so if the bridge pickup is underpowered then it will be they noticeably thinner sounding.

If it is the Alnico Wilkinson that is a really good pickup that way exceeds what you would expect from such an inexpensive pickup. Good call on replacing the J pickup, if it is anything like most stock j pickups on PJ basses then it is probably only wound to 4 or 5k which usually means the tone really thins out when the j pickup is on.

Gig.ink is good

Warman is another one I've been curious about, seeing how cheap they are I will have to get some and see how I like them

Thanks, the more I look into this the more I am wondering if I should just buy a Fender neck and body rather than piece together components from different manufacturers and praying that they fit

Thanks, I think I will get someone else to do that part for me then, fortunately one of the best luthiers/repairmen in the country is about a mile from where I live

Always been curious about Bart's, one day I will get some

Thanks for the replies all, am hoping someone with expy can chime in, I have seen this p bass body Gear4music p bass from Gear4music and the price is good and it seems to be finished already but the neck pocket is only 61mm wide, the neck I am looking at fitting is 63.4mm so I think realistically to get the neck to fit I am probably looking at widening the neck pocket 3-4mm, is it going to be difficult to widen the pocket this much, am I letting myself in for a major ball ache if I purchase this p bass body and have to widen the neck pocket that much ?

Thanks for the replies, very helpful Another thing I have noticed that is odd is that most of the aftermarket p bass bodies have 61 or 62mn neck pockets but most p bass necks have a heel width of 63 or 64mm, what gives?

Am thinking of putting together a parts p bass and have seen unfinished p bass bodies with no finish at all applied to the wood for dirt cheap. I know with bass necks they need to be finished to keep out moisture etc, what about bass bodies? Can you get away with not finishing them? I was thinking of getting an unfinished body and just applying some wax or similar to prevent it from getting grubby I live in a very small studio flat and don't have a garage, shed or workshop to do finishes That being said I suppose I could finish in a clear varnish and do one side of the body at a time

I love metal but don't know a lot of Doom metal but I would say this song is essential listening [YouTube]

Honestly I would invest the money in a refret, maybe stainless steel frets, might not be worth it on a cheap bass but on an American Standard I think it is worth it

I've gone the opposite way, I used to love flats and I would use them and very occasionally tapewounds but I find that most bass amps are eq'd to be very bass heavy with much less emphasis on mids and treble even with flat eq and the flats made this even more apparent, add to this that I enjoy the occasional open mic/jam night where you are pretty much stuck with however the host has there amp eq'd

+1 to this, I use stainless rounds and change them once a month

Very interesting thread, have never played a P/P setup but would love to, have just recently wired my p bass in parallel and quite liking the tone, the p pickup is a Duncan SPB-2 which sounds good in parallel as it's DC resistance is around 22k so it still sounds pretty meaty in parallel

Tone when detuning is such a strange thing, I tried a 105 Roto bass also and it was ok but there was a definite degradation in the tone compared to my 95-40 Rotos tuned to E, even more oddly the 95 gauge E sounded better in D than the 105 E, the 105 E sounded great in E standard btw.

Yes ...imo

You don't need enough low end to make people s!!t themselves, the amount of bands I have seen where the bass is just a subsonic rumble with no definition. Guitarists who boost there low end should be beaten with the item guitars, the amount of times I have played music with guitar players who seem to think the guitar should have as much low end as the bass. Satin necks are awful, dreadful things and even worse when they are that awful deathly pale shade A £500 bass is essentially a £250 bass with very marginally better quality control Fender player series basses are pretty much £250 Squiers with a Fender logo

I like Duran Duran too

Tuning down to D is roughly the same as going down about 2 gauges (and about 3 gauges for the D) so I would recommend 110-50 or a 115 D if you can find it unless you particularly like very low tension strings

Would that work? I thought that would just wear away the finish

Doesn't seem to help Hofner 😂 (Thats not a dig I actually quite like Hofner's but they were never known for there intonation

What are they like? Not a lot of reviews about for them, I like a bright aggressive tone with p basses and always wondered if these would be the magic bullet

You got lucky there, with mine I have to remove the neck, tried removing the scratch plate but it needs just a fraction of a mm more space to adjust the truss rod, the only bass feature on an otherwise incredible bass. Edit: that being said I have only tried adjusting with one of the truss rod keys designed for a body access truss rod, I wonder if a screwdriver would allow me to adjust it

Yeah the necks on the Vintera's are lovely, you would think such a wide neck would be really slow but they are hands down the nicest necks on a production bass that I have played and that lovely amber tinted gloss. I also appreciate the high ratio tuners on the Vintera, I know a lot of people are fine with cheaper tuners but I much prefer these, they are rock solid.