Godin Shifter bass?

[Dave W]

I have no problem with P/J basses per se. (I own one!)  But somehow it bothers me when a company that has long been associated with an iconic pickup design of their own goes that route.

What next? A Gibson P/J? A Rickenbacker P/J???

I doubt it. Gibson and Rickenbacker sales seem to be fine, but Musicman may be in decline, sorry to say. Gone are the days when most of their sales were basses.  Now their sales are about 70% guitars (according to Sterling Ball), and they're trying various changes to increase sales. In the past few years they've added a neck-through Stingray and "classic" Rays and Sterlings (strung through body and with 7 1/4" FB radius), among others. I see the Caprice and the Cutlass (single P pickup - nothing like the original Cutlass) as another long shot.

[Chris P.]

I have to agree with SlinkP. Nothing wrong with PJ, but I dislike the PJ Jaguar Basses (Fender did a better job with the Starcaster and Coronado Basses) and the fugly new Mustang. But yes... Too many brands use the PJs.

BTW: I used to have a non rev Epiphone Thunderbird... PJ...

[Granny Gremlin]

It's no secret that I have little love or use for a bridge pickup to begin with, but a J in bridge is the least useful thing to me.  I don't mind a P - some good sounds there if not anything very unique.

The problem I have is when somebody (re)designs a new model, and just cops out of the thinking process after figuring the body shape and drops P/J in there instead of exploring the numerous other options.  Agree about the Jag bass with Chris; just a damn shame, nice affordable bass, sounds OK I guess but looks so wrong.

I get it, they think it will increase sales because it's what people know (and like a Honda Civic, there's the most alt drop in replacement options of any other bass pup).  And with a certain segment of the market, this is true, not sure on the numbers there, but even from the (not entirely unrandom) sample here, it is apparent that people do want some diversity - especially those that already have a few basses, including a few P/Js.

I am actually surprised that more makers don't offer various pup options like stock P/J for the vanilla/no weird shit types, and whatever else they find to really compliment the bass as another.  I get that they assume it means different tooling for different routing patterns, but it's not too hard to imagine a scheme where a single routing pattern would work - e.g. if you square out a P route, there ain't a bass pup available short of a mudbucker that won't fit in there.  That slight loss of extra wood won't really affect anything, and it's all under the pickguard.  It would really be the Honda Civic of basses; people love 'mod platforms' - if you price it right (top end of affordable ish). There's a number of places that this sort of idea could be extrapolated to but become a bit more risky propositions in terms of major makers worrying about their brand integrity as offering more bare bones models means there's no consistency in result because you don't know what a dude will do with it.  I do think that there is a place in the market for some up-market (higher quality, and accordingly price) competition with those cheap Chinese DIY kits (something partially complete, like finished but pup/hardware-less bass that can be priced more affordably than their turn key equivalent), but that ain't likely.

[Thornton Davis]

Gibson and Rickenbacker sales seem to be fine, but Musicman may be in decline, sorry to say. Gone are the days when most of their sales were basses.  Now their sales are about 70% guitars (according to Sterling Ball), and they're trying various changes to increase sales. In the past few years they've added a neck-through Stingray and "classic" Rays and Sterlings (strung through body and with 7 1/4" FB radius), among others. I see the Caprice and the Cutlass (single P pickup - nothing like the original Cutlass) as another long shot.

I was a longtime owner of EBMM Stingray 5 and Sterling 5 basses and loved them but over time I sold mine off for various reasons. I'd love to own another one but the prices are through the roof and I won't pay that kind of money for one. So unless I happen upon a good used one in the configuration I want (HH & Rosewood) or they drop their prices (which I know they won't do) I'll continue on using my Schecter and Ibanez 5-string basses as my go to instruments. I believe that I've bought my last 4 string bass. Photos to come on this very unusual bass.

TD

[Alanko]

How about a PPJ Rickenbacker bass? 

[Granny Gremlin]

Well, at least they put the correct half of the P pups closer to the neck ;P

[Alanko]

My Godin Shifter arrived yesterday! Definitely a case queen, with very little wear or marks. Quite an idiosyncratic beast; the roundover on the body hasn't been buffed the same as the rest of the body, for example. Quite a chunky neck, like a Jazz bass neck in width but with more meat in the hand. Less of a radius on the neck than I anticipated. It came with rounds fitted, possibly the originals from the factory given the quality and consistency of the wrap on the pegs, but I will fit some Jim Dunlop flatwounds once I've set it all up, cleaned it all up etc.

I'm considering re-wiring the switch. At the moment the switch is configured to give you the bridge, bridge + middle, middle, neck+bridge and neck + middle options. If you pull the tone control then you solo the neck pickup, but only on position 5. I would rewire it like David Gilmour's Stratocaster, with the push/pull activating the neck (or bridge) pickup in all settings. This gives you seven combinations, including all three pickups!

[Granny Gremlin]

That's a little unexpected - all the Godins I have ever held (quite a number - they're Canadian and came out around the time I started being in bands in high school) were very well finished.

[Alanko]

Well it might just be filth.  I've not spent a lot of time with the bass, but I will be taking it apart for a good clean tonight.

[Alanko]

I've started stripping the bass down. The pickups have the Godin logo on the top, but they are in fact manufactured by G&B, who also make pickups for the lesser PRS instruments. The bridge pickup is hotter than the middle, which is hotter than the neck.

[Dave W]

I've never seen any Godin that wasn't fully buffed. If it's not dirt, maybe it was acid perspiration from a previous owner. Or  one could have escaped the QC inspector.

IIRC most Godins have a 12" FB radius.

[Alanko]

I've attached a couple photos to describe the only real issues I've encountered with this bass.



This photo shows the unbuffed area of the body, which is just the roundover on the top of the body in the treble cutaway. The finish is otherwise expertly applied on the body. The white stuff is a reflection of the overhead light.



The second photo shows the ground wire! There are rumours on other forums that these basses don't have ground wires running to the bridge. They do, and they don't! From photos I viewed online I thought that these basses had a substantial 2tek-style bridge that runs through the body. It doesn't! The bridge is simply a Gotoh 201 copy, drilled for both top-loading and through-body stringing. If you opt for through-body stringing then the ball ends are retained by a brass plate, which screws to the body at each end (as per the photo). The ground wire runs to this plate! Godin advertise the fact that you can use both stringing configurations, but if you opt for top-loading then there is no connection between the ground wire at the brass plate and the bridge, and thus the strings are ungrounded.



Wee bit orange-peely.



This is fun! Two neck plates! Apparently Godin formulated this to remove the risk of a ski-jump forming.


I feel like I spend all of my time ripping on basses rather than enjoying them, but I'm simply outlining a few issues I found with an otherwise well manufactured and robust instrument. 

[Granny Gremlin]

Some of that is rather disappointing, I must say.

[Alanko]

The buffing issue is a little surprising. The orange peel on the neck is a little disappointing, but the finish is quite thin on the neck anyway. The ground wire issue is a little surprising. For example, if you used strings with painted ballends then the strings wouldn't be grounded! I'm tempted to run a second ground wire to the bridge itself.

I'm rewiring the bass like a Strat, without any additional switching. The idea of having a push/pull is cool, but I just didn't like the feel of it in the end.

While Godin claim the pickups are "3x Passive single-coil alnico pickups with low-pull x-tra large magnets", I disagree! These pickups have a fair quantity of pull. Listening to the few Youtube videos of these basses, there is some fret buzz. My bass came with a wee bit of roundwound chew on the frets, so I dressed them myself. The frets were pretty perfectly level from the factory, so why the buzz? Those pickups pull a fair bit more than their name implies! Every fret had a consistent peach-fuzz edge to the tone. Turns out it was wolf tones from the pull of the pickups, and once I backed off the pickups these disappeared.

My bass is black with a maple neck, and is the four string version. It looks like the four only really sold in volume in sunburst with a rosewood neck and Mary Kaye blonde with a maple neck. I'm wondering if mine was an early or demo model? There was one like mine at NAMM in 2011.



This one is like mine: https://reverb.com/ca/item/2165846-godin-shifter-4-string-bass-guitar-black

[clankenstein]

Nice. It looks good in black.