Jaguar Bass Improvement!

[MARICOPAA]

I got my sunburst Jaguar Bass very early in their release. I ordered from one of the stores in Japan and it arrived very quickly. I was excited at first but as I began to get her set up and dialed in I found that no matter what I did...the E & G strings were louder and more robust than the A & D strings. No matter how flat I set my relative string heights to keep them as even as possible to flush pole pieces of the stock Japanese Fender Jazz pickups...the E & G were had one sonic characteristic and the A & D strings shared a different and lesser output and sonic characteristic...very frustrating and not fun to play with some notes popping way out loud and then others sinking back in so far as to be unheard. Justnot even and solid!

I went looking for Jazz Bass pickups with raised A & D pole pieces so I could improve the proximity of the A & D strings and have a tad of radius to my relative string heights. Fralin makes some nice versions but they are very expensive. One of my students has a nice sunburst Mexi Jazz bass with raised A & D pole pieces...his bass has an S1 switch installed and it sounds great! So I found a set of MIM Jazz Bass pickups on eBay and won the auction for $31. I didn't know if they would fit or solve the problem but went for it anyway.

They arrived and I installed them...covers and all...went in perfectly with zero problems. Low and behold the bass sounds absolutely amazing...what an improvement. More solid and more even than I could have hoped for. Actuall an entirely different and improved character for the whole bass...the active circuit sounds huge without sounding too electric/bright. Most importantly though the relative string levels are all super close and the bass feels alive and solid!!!

I recommend it to anyone experiencing the same problem with discrepancies in relative of the outer strings vs the two inner strings.

[Dave W]

Hi Chris. Glad you solved it, but I wonder if it's a common problem. And if so, why it wasn't dealt with in the design stage.

[MARICOPAA]

Thanks dave...glad to be apart of thsi crew ;-)))

I have played a half a dozen Jaguar basses hoping that one or more would not be suffering from the problem I described...alsa...ALL had the same problem. Good question as to why Fender Japan didn't figure that one out...simple fix really.

[Dave W]

Interesting. I don't know if any of the other Fender Japan models have raised A & D poles, but on a model that's being exported to the US, you'd think they'd at least notice the problem. Guess not.

[Muzikman7]

That was an intresting post, I've had much experience with them (The wiring aspect). I like your experiment, good idea.

[MARICOPAA]

I would love to find a Fender Japan Jagaur Bass active circuit board (the little board under the pickguard between the neck and the first pickup).

I would like to install it in a project bass. I didn't much like it with the old (stock) pickups) but I am enamoured with the new MIM J-Bass pickups in place.

If anyone comes across one that's available...please let me know ;-)