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Sexay bass. Love it.

Recorded a quick clip of the sound on my phone.
[youtube][/youtube]

Lovely. Super jealous. I've been wanting a mustang bass for a while now but don't have the extra cash. That's the color I would of went with.

I just tried lowering the pickup as low as it will go and the problem seems to have gone away. Oddly enough, lowering them that low seemed to clean up the thickness a bit. I'll do an demo after lunch for y'all.

the "muddy" sound you decribed was pobly just the fact that its a beefy pup and perhaps you are used to "thinnner" pups.
so lowering may have given you a sound you are more used to.
the more i look at it. the more i don't like it. im not digging the comp stripe, the mop guard. the thumbrest. the.... anything.
i think im the odd man out here.

I love the look but I keep wondering if I'd prefer it without the stripe. I know a lot of people here would love the stripe, though, so in a way I don't really mind that it is there. This is definitely one of the cooler things Fender has done recently.

I normally really really hate comp stripes, but it actually works on that guitar.

The tone before i lowered was great. It was different than im used to but i liked it. The part that drove me nuts was the sound the low E was making. It was a really nasty clipping/pop/shit sound. It sounded exactly like a drum mic clipping the input on a board. Just disgusting. Lowering the pup though made it go away. It just seems odd that the pup is now almost 1/2 inch away from the string to make that go away... A lot of it too i suppose has to do with i play with a pick and mostly rock/heavy rock.. I'm sure if i was playing some jazzy stuff with my fingers or thumb it would actually benefit from the hotness and thickness of the pickups.

I love it.

When I first saw it it reminded me of The Beach Boys! I think because of the pics I've seen of Brians white on white P-Bass and the blue/white striped stuff they used to wear. Just had that surfin feeling:

You might be able to wire the pickup in parallel.

honeyiscool wrote:You might be able to wire the pickup in parallel.

go on....

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f38/squie ... er-555919/


this?

Lovely bass!

Maybe a string change might help? Something like flat wounds or a thinner gauge could tame the beast?

I can't really tell from the pics, but does the body have contours? None of the other reissue mustang basses have contoured bodies which saddens me. Also, what is the nut width? My Japanese 66 RI mustang bass has a skinny neck with a 1.5 inch nut like a jazz bass, but my 1978 USA mustang bass has a wide nut like a p-bass and a thick baseball bat of a neck. They feel completely different to play.

Not that it matters, but out of curiosity is this a Japanese or Mexican made instrument?

Okay so check this out.....

After reading the above link i decided to do it.

Gut shot:



So what is says to do is take the red and white wire that is seen here taped together:



And solder the White to the Green and then solder the Red to the pot with the Black, like this:


I put everything back together and tested it out. Sounds 1000% better. It kills all the mud. It sounds like a super beffy really hot P Bass now. It's perfect. And literally took me about 10 minutes to do start to finish. I know there are diagrams on that link from above that show how to set it up with a switch, and i may do that eventually. But for now I'm completely stoked on the sound. I was able to raise the pup back up again and all is well. I'd consider this a must-do mod.

One last thing i noticed when i was inside. The back of the pickup is labeled "TEB101-NI" and labeled as "Neck"... which leads me to believe it's the same pup thats in the Modern Player Tele Bass


Thanks to honeyiscool for the idea!

astro wrote:Lovely bass!

Maybe a string change might help? Something like flat wounds or a thinner gauge could tame the beast?

I can't really tell from the pics, but does the body have contours? None of the other reissue mustang basses have contoured bodies which saddens me. Also, what is the nut width? My Japanese 66 RI mustang bass has a skinny neck with a 1.5 inch nut like a jazz bass, but my 1978 USA mustang bass has a wide nut like a p-bass and a thick baseball bat of a neck. They feel completely different to play.

Not that it matters, but out of curiosity is this a Japanese or Mexican made instrument?

No it doesn't have a contour body. That is definitely something id like to see though i agree. The nut width is 1.5". It feels like a smaller jazz neck. Made in Mexico.

Mattsican wrote: No it doesn't have a contour body. That is definitely something id like to see though i agree. The nut width is 1.5". It feels like a smaller jazz neck. Made in Mexico.

Cool, thanks for the info.

I'm glad it has the smaller jazz bass neck width/thickness. The neck on my vintage mustang bass is so wide and thick that it's uncomfortable to play at times, despite my Neanderthal sized hands. I'm also happy to see that the neck has a 9.5" radius, which I prefer. And the truss nut adjustment at the headstock which is the only logical place for it to be (in my opinion). It's such a hassle having to unbolt the neck when I want to tweak the truss rod. Both my RI and vintage have the truss nut at the neck heel which is a nuisance. Looks like I'm going to wait patiently until someone parts out one of these pawnshop models on eBay so that I can get a neck to put on my vintage mustang bass so that I'll actually play it more often.

Well, now I want one. Super cool you were able to get it sounding awesome! Do an demo!

It looks so much better live, the Fender pics were good but it looks so much better live. that thing is hot, not a comp stripe guy either. As a whole it all works
really well.

Don't forget to screw the polepiece below the E down into the pickup, too. They are adjustable so you can balance the strings' output.

MatthewK wrote:Don't forget to screw the polepiece below the E down into the pickup, too. They are adjustable so you can balance the strings' output.

See i tried that. But it wouldn't move... I tried pretty hard too. There was some wax residue that came out of the screw slot that i cleaned out when i tried. The screwdriver slipped out and put a small scratch on the pickup cover and on the guard.. its barely noticeable though.