Personalizing Your Bass?

What’s everyone like to do to make your bass your own? As soon as I got my new Jazz Bass I started thinking of what find of new custom pickguard I wanted to put on it. I already replaced the black pickup covers with white and I’ve got new knobs on the way.

What’s everyone else like to do? Stickers? Write a message to stick it the the man? Or just keep it all stock? Because after all, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

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I installed a Fender chrome bridge cover on mine . . . :slight_smile: . . . Show Us Your Basses - #353 by Jazzbass19

Cheers, Joe

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I personally despise stickers on instruments and writing this out I’m not sure why I feel so strongly about it. One should not argue about taste so if it’s your thing go for it.

If I would try to customize my bass it would either be a paint job or a custom body plate with custom knobs. Or a not purely aesthetic customization with custom pickups.

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I often refinish my instruments, at least the most “important” ones. my two main instruments (guitar and bass) has been repainted in custom colors. Also I very often change the pickups and other electronic parts, depending on what sound I want with this particular instrument. Again my two main instruments have a completly different electronic from the stock instruments (I must say I don’t like much Fender pickups, in general).

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I haven’t done anything yet to my Ibanez fretless, but when I got my Yamaha BB235 it came with a white pick guard, which I thought made it look tacky, so I switched it to a black pick guard. Sara (who makes things out of vinyl) made me a vinyl applique of my trademark rose (My middle name).
I named her Rosie.


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That’s exactly the customization I was talking about that I could go for.
It would be a different theme for me, but for you it seems perfect. Those colors really fit in there nicely. The different red on the rose also works really well I think.

A bit jealous here, but I already got enough things to work on so no hardware customization projects for me. Especially since they usually involve at least some amount of budget. I’ll just work on my playing until I think I deserve to have a custom instrument :wink:

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@juli0r
I’m with you-
I ended up painting my pick guard since I am not a fan of the white on white look.

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Very nice job, @lee_editorial . . . :slight_smile:

Cheers, Joe

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As I am not huge on the black on black look either, I did this as a temp fix to a permenant quest.
On e day, one way, I will get a real, custom pick guard. But this will do for now.

It’s just sticky back vinyl sheet

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Yep, can’t imagine white on white looking better than what you came up with. Nice work.

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@T_dub that’s perfection. I think what you have done is very practical, doing a mock up gives you the confirmation that your idea is right before doing the real thing.
:guitar: :heart_eyes: :guitar:

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And because I am too impatient to wait to get a real one :wink:

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I think with enough stickers you can tip the balance from tacky back to tasteful. :slight_smile:

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Well that’s just a theme which has to have stickers in it.
I’ll admit that even for stickers there are tasteful examples.

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My new ESP bass doesn’t have a pick guard, so Sara wasn’t able to make a custom one for me with my trademark rose like she had done for my Yammie BB235 and BB735 (in foreground of photo). So… she made a couple of vinyl roses and applied them on areas of the bass where my arm wouldn’t wear on them.


Here’s Tina with my roses on her. Sara did a good job matching the color to the accent color of the bass.

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Please excuse me as I wipe the saliva off my keyboard, @PamPurrs. That’s just spectacularly yummy.

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That’s a lovely personal touch @PamPurrs
Sara certainly has a gift

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Yes she does. She was cheated out of the gift of hearing when she was born, but instead received an exceptional eye for artistic beauty.

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She did at that. Now Tina is all dressed up to go to the prom.

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It looks super good. I’m impressed.

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