Anyway while I was away, I’ve sold my Buttercream Fender Player Jazz Bass with CS 60’s pickups. Even tho it was awesome bass, I never really connected to it. Once you try 70’s Jazz I guess you never go back.
So I’ve been looking into getting 70’s Jazz Basses, and my perfect one would be 3 tone sunburst with rosewood fretboard with binding and pearl block inlays.
As far as I can tell only option I have right now is Vintera line, and I dont like it cause of Pau Ferro. There’s also MIJ Traditional 70’s Jazz Bass but those are mostly natural and when I listen to them there’s something wrong with the sound to my ears.
So I’ve decided I’ll build my own. As you may know I owned black Squier CV 70’s Jazz Bass which after selling I regretted as it was best Jazz bass I’ve played, and I’ve played many.
So using my logic I’ve ordered new CV 70’s Jazz bass, but this time in 3TS finish.
Build-wise it’s better finished than my last one, however electronics are not as good.
But it’s not important as only thing that will remain from this Squier is body cause of pickup spacing, probably pickguard and control plate metal.
Squier set me back around 443$.
So I’ve ordered next things (Schematics I followed. I used some modern and vintage findings mix. so not everything is 100% from this scheme):
So total would be around 865$, I’ve been rounding everything to a higher numbers for easier calculation, and prices are bit different from my retailers than on Fenders site.
Vintera would cost me around 1400$ so it seems like a much better deal to get what I want.
But you can see I’m missing few things and that’s where I’d like your input as there are some things I couldnt figure out.
So questions:
What wire should I get for electronics?
Recommendations on some lighter tuners, that arent very expensive and fit standard ~18mm holes on headstock?
Also you could see I ordered 2 different capacitors, as I got confused by reading stuff so ordered both. Anyone has idea which one should work better for my case?
Really interesting that you prefer the Squiers to the Player. I agree that the CV’s are really nice (though I honestly preferred the Buttercream Player to the '70s CV I tried - highly likely we’re seeing individual model variation here).
Fender really needs to sort out the high end Squier/Player gray area. The CV’s are a great line.
My take on your questions:
Honestly the wire matters very little. I personally dislike the cloth insulator but YMMV. I’d go with any insulated braided wire. Cloth will have a very slight coolness advantage on resale though. One thing I would recommend: a coherent color scheme for the wires so you don’t go insane.
Gotoh makes some relatively inexpensive and very high quality lighter tuners. Hipshot would be the canonical answer though, but less cheap.
Those caps will sound nearly identical. All that really matters is the capacitance and they are pretty much equivalent.
Forget pickups, seriously, they almost sound identical. Most people can’t tell the difference blindfolded back to back. When I upgraded my Marcus Miller I could have gone with the Aguilar 70’s but I chose the split coils instead, simply because it’s a much easier pickups to live with, lol. From the Fender camp I like the modern take of the Yosemite.
To me I like 2 from the era. ‘62 reissued with stacked vol/tone, vol/tone, it offers a very unique way of shaping your tone. Next is the ‘75 reissued usually 3 bolt neckplate and the bridge pickup is positioned closer to the bridge. You get a Jaco special tone, bright articulation and tone. These are pretty much the 2 I like beside the Ultra, Elite, and Deluxe, each offers something special.
Unless you are obsessed with a particular type of neck shape there’s not much to separate the 2 decades
Honestly they are much better built than Player series. Neck pocket is perfect, frets are better dressed and leveled. I couldnt get action this low on Player cause some higher frets buzzed.
And neck pocket had so much space on Player that you could keep 2 picks there. And Ive looked at multiple ones from my buddies, all had same issues. And believe it or not Player uses pretty much same hardware as high end Squiers and price difference atm is pretty big.
Yeah regarding wire, does width also matter?
Eh gotoh support wasnt very helpful, I found some lightweights, asked if they would fit, and if they dont if they could recommend ones which would. I pretty much just got, no they wont fit.
Aight thanks good to know!
Me too!
Yeah I already have it for like a month or two.
I dont mind paying this amount from my retailer cause Im long time customer and they make sure they get me good stuff. And this price is even cheapest for my region.
Yeah I get you regarding the pups, even tho these in Squier are very good they lack some undercarriage, and they sound a bit different than my last Squier.
And yeah I started this project cause I prefer 70s spacing of pickups and dont wanna overpay and get anemic looking Pau Ferro.
And yeah regarding neck shape, late 70s had that U shape while earlier had C shape. One I ordered is C shape. So biggest deal to me between decades is pickup spacing.
The capacitor and the resistor together affect the cutoff of the filter. Since you can vary the strength of the resistance with the knob down to 0 (wide open), basically the fixed capacitor value you choose is going to change the “strength” of the filter effect - basically how fast it rolls off. The larger the capacitor the deeper and darker the filter will sound.
Are you going for the looks, feel or performance or better yet price, lol.
Best performance would be the Graphtech Ratio tuners. It’s a welcome surprise to be able to do up to a quarter turn on a B string instead of the usual micro tap. You have your choice of a traditional or light tuners. Sperzel locking tuners feels awesome and the locking feature make string changing easy but it’s not for everyone, great color options but the installation is different.
If you are going for a mid price I highly recommend Gotoh.
Well idea is less weight, solid tuning and looks wont hurt. But price is one of more important things. I don’t feel like giving 200$ for 4 pieces of metal
Yeah, I’m no more into Made in Germany, Made in USA, Made in Zimbabwe stuff.
You can get shitty and good products from all of these production countries, only difference you can see upfront is price. And for 31$ for 4 tuners I might be willing to risk getting shitty product.
It’s big difference when you pay 30-40$ for a single tuner and the same price for all four of them.
If they are at least decent it’s great money save, and they surely are a step up from Squier tuners
When they are new most (same ratio) would be similar. It’s when you have them on for a few years the better ones usually perform like it was on day one.
