New Bass Modification Day

[thegummy]

Hi all, just a post now I've finished modding my Schecter Diamond J bass.

Here is how it started off:



Then I decided to take off the black all-in-one pickguard and go for a bit of a Jaco look:



Was a nice novelty for a bit but then I wanted to add a (possibly tort) pickguard. In order to see if a standard Fender Jazz pickguard would fit I printed off the template and cut it out and it fit in. Turns out to line up with the control plate properly, I had to drill some of the control cavity away so it could sit at the correct angle:



After seeing how nice the white paper looked I decided to go for a white scratchplate:



Very happy with the look now! I have also modded the electronics - I installed a selector switch in the extra hole (because the jack on this bass is on the side) that selects between full hot output and a coil-tap to provide a nice vintage tone. There is also a push-pull on the tone knob that switches between series and parallel.

Something I've found with the switch since I installed it, compared to push-pulls it seems to have a psychological difference for me. With a push-pull, when it's pulled it seems as if it's set different but when pushed it's "standard" so that kind of sits at the back of my mind. With the switch it's just choosing between 2 settings with neither being seen as a "default".

[thegummy]

Gutted no one seemed to find my mod interesting lol

Made a demo video of all the 4 switching positions, maybe this will be more interesting?

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMFN4kExtVk[/media]

For the video it's recorded DI with a little compression and with the knobs set: neck:75%/bridge:100%/tone:100%

Edited November 3, 2017 by thegummy

[alyctes]

Interesting how little visual change there is in the waveform on the different settings.

Also the psychological difference. That's worth remembering, IMO, because I think it comes up all over the place - notably in the media (and advertising, whether it calls itself that or not).

It definitely looks best with the white 'plate.

Edited November 4, 2017 by alyctes

[thegummy]

[quote name='alyctes' timestamp='1509802589' post='3401754']
Interesting how little visual change there is in the waveform on the different settings.

Also the psychological difference. That's worth remembering, IMO, because I think it comes up all over the place - notably in the media (and advertising, whether it calls itself that or not).

It definitely looks best with the white 'plate.
[/quote]

To be honest I've never found those analyzers useful at all, just a nice backdrop!

Very good point you make about the psychological thing. It's amazing what we hear when we're expecting it.

Forgot to mention that I adjusted the volume of each setting to be similar, they vary quite a lot.