How Much Would You Care...

[thegummy]

I have a J style bass and am considering expanding the middle pickup's cavity with a chisel in order to install a P pickup.

 

It is a Schecter, made in Korea (so a good quality instrument but maybe not with the same "prestige" value as a Fender).

 

I'm not a wood worker so I'm not caring too much about how professional it looks under the pickguard, but with the pickguard on (and original pickup back in) it would be completely hidden anyway.

 

My question is - if you were theoretically going to buy it, would that put you off buying it or affect how much you would spend on it?

 

Personally I couldn't care less what it looked like under the pickguard but I want to know if other people would just so I know whether to consider potential resale value when deciding to go ahead with this.

 

Cheers!

[Machines]

A well modified instrument will probably lose value on the original. A badly hacked one even worse so.

 

If it's under the pickguard - it might be OK - just ensure it is declared up front to avoid any comeback later on.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

When I had a jazz bass I changed the pickguard from white to tort to black, and for some time I played it without a pickguard. I would probably do the same again if I ever got another one as changing the pickguard is so easy on a jazz.

 

If I buy a secondhand one and a previous owner had hacked up the pickup cavity, it would pee me off a lot, and if this was disclosed before the sale (as it should be) I wouldn't buy it.

[Lozz196]

It wouldn’t bother me if:

 

1 - the bass played and sounded great

 

2 - more importantly I knew about it before the purchase. I’d be a bit miffed to find out about it months down the line.

[fretmeister]

Be aware that the neck J pickup is not in the same place as a P pickup would be.

[GuyR]

I wouldn’t buy a hacked about bass. 
However, you might find the cost of a professional installation of the new pickup costs more than the loss in resale value due to a hack-job on a relatively inexpensive bass.

[tegs07]

Doing this sort of thing on cheaper instruments to get some skills and learn some techniques (as well as a bit of a hobby) is fine. Personally I wouldn’t do it on a decent instrument. Just sell/trade it for a PJ. 

 

Or at least experiment for a while on some cheap wood then a £30 ebay purchase before doing it on your Schecter.

 

In terms of resale. No I would not buy a bodge job, unless it was very cheap.

Edited May 25 by tegs07

[neepheid]

It would put me off - I don't like irreversible mods generally. I would only do this to a bass if I was pretty certain I was going to keep it.

[police squad]

I did this with my number 1 strat. It was a semi custom build, one piece body and I put a Warmouth telecaster neck on it.

I had an old seymour duncan PAF that I wanted to put in the bridge position, so in the true spirit of Eddie Van Halen, I used a screwdriver to route the body out and a soldering iron to enlarge the scratchplate pickup hole.

It worked, its one of my favourite guitars, sounds ace and I quite like the homemade thing on it

[itu]

If your Schecter is worth something like £300, and you want to experiment with it, I would say go, just like @tegs07 said. You probably learn a lot, and the body can be changed to a, say, Warmoth later on. You have a good chance to play with electronics, too. Your will-be-bass may become your most valuable baby, or you use your findings to buy something you really like and need.

(...and how do I know this?)

[kodiakblair]

13 hours ago, thegummy said:

My question is - if you were theoretically going to buy it, would that put you off buying it or affect how much you would spend on it?

I would say go ahead with the surgery, just expect problems if you decide to sell.

 

Last I looked there was no shortage of unaltered bass guitars for sale so little reason for folks to buy one with hidden wood butchery.

[PaulThePlug]

A Chisel ya say?.. Luxury.

Whats the scratch plate like?

 

Edited May 26 by PaulThePlug

[thegummy]

Appreciate all the replies - thanks.

 

Seems like a significant number of people would at least see it as a significant downside, if not be put off by it completely.

Incidentally, I actually have it without a pickguard at the moment as a Jaco thing - obviously anyone looking to do the same would avoid it if I did the mod.

 

Think the decision now is whether I do it and pretty much decide on keeping it forever (quite possible) or leaving it as is in case I ever want to sell so this has been very helpful.

 

Cheers!

 

P.S. just for interest's sake - I doubt I'll consider a professional job - tends to cost a fortune.

[chris_b]

You admit you have no skill in this area and want to take a chisel to your bass.  I wouldn't touch a hacked about bass like that in a million years. Even if the hacking is under the pickguard.

 

You want a Precision bass? Just buy a Precision bass.

[bassbiscuits]

I’d be tempted to either pay to get it done properly or leave it alone and look for a bass that better suits what I want. 

[JottoSW1]

10 hours ago, chris_b said:

You admit you have no skill in this area and want to take a chisel to your bass.  I wouldn't touch a hacked about bass like that in a million years. Even if the hacking is under the pickguard.

 

You want a Precision bass? Just buy a Precision bass.

This.

Take a look at the Sire P Bass selection at Andertons.

[Jonesy]

I don't know how much these go for, but if it was £300-£400ish for an unbutchered one second hand then I'd be happy to buy it as long as the pickguard hid your handywork. I'd look to pay less than an unmolested one though, how much under would depend on how many times your hand slipped with that chisel 😃

 

As others have said though, if you fancy having a go at this sort of thing then I'd suggest picking up something for around £100 and having a go on that before attempting to mod a bass you really like. 

[thegummy]

12 hours ago, chris_b said:

You admit you have no skill in this area and want to take a chisel to your bass.  I wouldn't touch a hacked about bass like that in a million years. Even if the hacking is under the pickguard.

 

You want a Precision bass? Just buy a Precision bass.

 

lol I didn't say I "have no skill", I said I'm not a wood worker.

 

Not interested in your buying advice; funnily enough not everyone has the money sitting around to buy a new bass...

 

Thanks again to everyone who just answered my question without any snark.

[Jonesy]

Just thought - if you're looking for a bigger sound from your J and don't want a permanent mod made, have you thought about a series/parallel switch? I bought a (really lovely and well made) loom from ki0gon and really love it. It doesn't make your J sound like a P, but definitely helps beef things up a bit. It's a really great mod. 

[thegummy]

1 minute ago, Jonesy said:

Just thought - if you're looking for a bigger sound from your J and don't want a permanent mod made, have you thought about a series/parallel switch? I bought a (really lovely and well made) loom from ki0gon and really love it. It doesn't make your J sound like a P, but definitely helps beef things up a bit. It's a really great mod. 

 

I've actually done that before and it's pretty cool - thanks for the tip.

 

It's really because I want to do a bit of comparison between flats and rounds using a P. I find that I can only get a true feel of comparing 2 instruments by going between them over a decent amount of time; always given me more realistic comparisons than comparing recordings or just comparing in a shop and if I just switch strings on the same bass I need to do a setup which takes a bit of time, especially since my P has the old school truss rod adjustment at the bottom of the neck.

 

If I had the money I'd buy like a Squier or something to do it but I don't have the money for even that at the moment so thinking about modding the J. Just need to think whether it's worth losing potential sell on value now.

[Jonesy]

5 minutes ago, thegummy said:

 

I've actually done that before and it's pretty cool - thanks for the tip.

 

It's really because I want to do a bit of comparison between flats and rounds using a P. I find that I can only get a true feel of comparing 2 instruments by going between them over a decent amount of time; always given me more realistic comparisons than comparing recordings or just comparing in a shop and if I just switch strings on the same bass I need to do a setup which takes a bit of time, especially since my P has the old school truss rod adjustment at the bottom of the neck.

 

If I had the money I'd buy like a Squier or something to do it but I don't have the money for even that at the moment so thinking about modding the J. Just need to think whether it's worth losing potential sell on value now.

 

Ah OK, in which case I can save you a lot of time, damage and injuries from a chisel.........put flats on the P and keep em there 😂. I put flats on a P after using rounds for most of my playing life and I'm a convert. They sound brill. Depends on what music you play I guess, but I use them for a blues band and they're ideal. 

 

I know this won't fit your decent amount of time criteria, but there might be other members near you that already have flats on a P and would be more than willing to let you come over and play around for a while. You'd at least get an idea of if it was worth then modding your J. Even then, by the time you buy the P pickup, flats and consider the drop in resale on your Schecter, looking out for a cheap P sold with flats on it might be the cheaper option.

[Paolo85]

27 minutes ago, thegummy said:

 

 

It's really because I want to do a bit of comparison between flats and rounds using a P. I find that I can only get a true feel of comparing 2 instruments by going between them over a decent amount of time; always given me more realistic comparisons than comparing recordings or just comparing in a shop and if I just switch strings on the same bass I need to do a setup which takes a bit of time, especially since my P has the old school truss rod adjustment at the bottom of the neck.

 

 

Well, as others have said, the neck pickup on a J is not in the same place as in a P. This would have a big impact on the sound and therefore, unfortunately, would not give you a helpful tool to compare flats and rounds

[thegummy]

53 minutes ago, Jonesy said:

 

Ah OK, in which case I can save you a lot of time, damage and injuries from a chisel.........put flats on the P and keep em there 😂. I put flats on a P after using rounds for most of my playing life and I'm a convert. They sound brill. Depends on what music you play I guess, but I use them for a blues band and they're ideal. 

 

I know this won't fit your decent amount of time criteria, but there might be other members near you that already have flats on a P and would be more than willing to let you come over and play around for a while. You'd at least get an idea of if it was worth then modding your J. Even then, by the time you buy the P pickup, flats and consider the drop in resale on your Schecter, looking out for a cheap P sold with flats on it might be the cheaper option.

 

I've always went back and forth between flats and rounds so I already have a few different sets of flats (from when I wasn't so skint lol). When it comes to feel there's no contest - I love the feel of flats so much and, in comparison, rounds don't come close to as nice for feel. But for sound I'm undecided - they do both sound good but I really want to spend time going directly between the two over plenty of different songs to see if I want to settle on either or if I really feel the need for both in the long term.

 

As you say, it big time depends on the genre - some genres like the blues you mention sound perfect with flats but I find that the fuller the rhythm guitars get, the more difference the sound is between rounds and flats.

 

Definitely undecided about the mod at the moment thanks to this thread allowing me to gauge the resale effect. Might hold off a while and maybe I'll be in a financial position to get a second P. Saying that, the last time I was browsing for basses to buy was only a couple of years ago and the price of them has gone up an insane amount! Was quite interested in the Yamaha BB but the models are all now pretty much the price the model up was just 2 years ago. Pretty much doubled in price!

[thegummy]

47 minutes ago, Paolo85 said:

Well, as others have said, the neck pickup on a J is not in the same place as in a P. This would have a big impact on the sound and therefore, unfortunately, would not give you a helpful tool to compare flats and rounds

 

Well that's why I would have to chisel it out, hence this thread

 

The non-bridge pickup on a J is actually in the same position as one of the coils of a P pickup though, I'd just have to chisel it a bit wider then chisel out a bit for the other coil.

[Jonesy]

5 minutes ago, thegummy said:

 

I've always went back and forth between flats and rounds so I already have a few different sets of flats (from when I wasn't so skint lol). When it comes to feel there's no contest - I love the feel of flats so much and, in comparison, rounds don't come close to as nice for feel. But for sound I'm undecided - they do both sound good but I really want to spend time going directly between the two over plenty of different songs to see if I want to settle on either or if I really feel the need for both in the long term.

 

As you say, it big time depends on the genre - some genres like the blues you mention sound perfect with flats but I find that the fuller the rhythm guitars get, the more difference the sound is between rounds and flats.

 

Definitely undecided about the mod at the moment thanks to this thread allowing me to gauge the resale effect. Might hold off a while and maybe I'll be in a financial position to get a second P. Saying that, the last time I was browsing for basses to buy was only a couple of years ago and the price of them has gone up an insane amount! Was quite interested in the Yamaha BB but the models are all now pretty much the price the model up was just 2 years ago. Pretty much doubled in price!

 

I think everyone on the forum would say 2 P basses were essential, for your exact dilemma - one for rounds and one for flats. 

 

Prices have gone insane over the past few years, but there's still plenty of good basses you can get at the lower end. You'd be able to get a cheap 2nd hand Harley Benton (or even a new one, depending on the model) for not much more than the price of a P pickup.