Hey, folks!
I introduced you this bass in some older thread yet, where we talked about the beat basses.
This is one of those cheapest jazz bass copies made in China, finished in sunburst, and thought for beginners with a tad budget:
It has enough things to realize oneself at first sight that ´s not a good bass. It´s built poorly and with cheaper materials (nut, tuners, pickpups, knobs, cavities, pickguard, fret job…, all it sucks!) So as you may have guessed this bass it has a tight decent sound. Regardless I liked the neck, the sense of feel of the back side, the shape and the size.
This bass it came from factory with an awful set up. It had one of the highest string action that I´ve seen in my life, so the bolt on job was not very good either. The thing is that the neck pocket it was a bit broader and too deep for the neck heel. So much than even lowering the bridge saddless to maximum it was impossible to get a normal string action, even when it was fretted. This fact it made me shim the neck with a maple wood´s piece. Honestly I might have made it more polished in this work, but I focused all my attention for the defretting process.
As you can expect the woods are of low quality too. Just take a look to the neck´s grain:
I´m not sure what kind of woods have this neck bass. Although they look like maple and rosewood of low quality, these woods they aren´t worth a hassle to think making a replacement of the entire hardware and electronics.
As I said before, that the lonely thing that I liked of this bass it was his neck. His size it´s closest of a PB (type B) instead a JB, and surprisingly the condition was really straight with no twist. This was the main reason wich I purchased it used, though really in great condition in the past and with a priced of laughter, ´cause I had in mind to defret it. So it was a good chance to learn playing fretless too. Sorry, but I haven´t pictures of all the defretting process, so I keep on mind show you the next time.
One time defretted I removed the awful logo in the headstock. I removed the plastic nut into one of bone, the volume and tone knobs and the capacitor. I strung it with flatwounds, ´cause I didn´t wanna do scratches in the fingerboard, and it become in my main bass for practice in home.
After spending some months playing with it I tried removing this fretless neck into a PB body. It´s a matter of taste but I prefer better the shapes of PB basses instead the JB shapes. Though I must to solve the issue of the length. This JB neck it has 21 “frets” and the neck pocket of the PBass it was thought for a 20 frets´ neck. So I copied the heel´s size and shape of this traditional neck of 20 frets of my PBass. It was necessary removing a little of wood in the JB neck heel, under the 21th “fret”, for keeping the same 34 inches between nut and bridge line, when I was putting this JB neck in this PB body. Of that way the last fret it stayed floating on the neck pocket of the JB body, and resting on the pickguard of the PB body. Sorry but I haven’t picture of the last one:
And I had to do new holes in the neck to bolt on this fretless neck into the PB body. I must say that the neck it fitted into the PB body easily and with no issues.
Once done I played it for a while and it worked fine. But I realized that I missed the sound of the bridge pickup. I did not want routing a new bridge pickup cavity in this old PB body, so I ended up removing again this neck into his jazz bass body. I thought that surely I should fill this hollow under the 21 “fret”, but as this bass it´s so cheaper I didn´t mind it. And I kept practicing and playing so.
After this, a closer friend of mine asked me if I could lend him this bass. He wanted to try learning fretless without buying a new bass. Despite being a poor instrument this bass was a challenge for this purpose. He realized the difficult to play fretless and the effort envolved to entonate properly and working the vibrato for giving sustain while he played. After eight months roughly playing with it, my friend returned my bass with some several war signs: chips and scratches in body, neck, even the fingerboard. The appearance is like a natural soft relic:
The body wood it´s so soft that if you press a tad high it´s possible leaving some marks. Even in the fingerboard. The picture shows how the E string made a mark on the fingerboard on the 3th, 4th and 5th “frets” in the E string. (Also you can see the bone nut):
My friend told me too that the neck it tends bugging towards the G string side. And he was right! If we compare the E and G strings we realize that the G string was closer to the edge of the fingerboard.
This picture it shows fairly how it affects to the margin string in the upper frets of the G string side:
This bad alignment of the strings with the neck this resulted a misalignment with the pickups piece poles too. Check how the E string it was passing through mostly on the top of one of the pickups´ pole piece, while the G string it was passing through between both poles pieces:
This is the evidence of a mediocre neck pocket work from factory. Just take a look to the gap between neck and body. (You can check part of the defretting job and how I filled the slots with maple wood too):
I introduced you this bass in some older thread yet, where we talked about the beat basses.
This is one of those cheapest jazz bass copies made in China, finished in sunburst, and thought for beginners with a tad budget:
It has enough things to realize oneself at first sight that ´s not a good bass. It´s built poorly and with cheaper materials (nut, tuners, pickpups, knobs, cavities, pickguard, fret job…, all it sucks!) So as you may have guessed this bass it has a tight decent sound. Regardless I liked the neck, the sense of feel of the back side, the shape and the size.
This bass it came from factory with an awful set up. It had one of the highest string action that I´ve seen in my life, so the bolt on job was not very good either. The thing is that the neck pocket it was a bit broader and too deep for the neck heel. So much than even lowering the bridge saddless to maximum it was impossible to get a normal string action, even when it was fretted. This fact it made me shim the neck with a maple wood´s piece. Honestly I might have made it more polished in this work, but I focused all my attention for the defretting process.
As you can expect the woods are of low quality too. Just take a look to the neck´s grain:
I´m not sure what kind of woods have this neck bass. Although they look like maple and rosewood of low quality, these woods they aren´t worth a hassle to think making a replacement of the entire hardware and electronics.
As I said before, that the lonely thing that I liked of this bass it was his neck. His size it´s closest of a PB (type B) instead a JB, and surprisingly the condition was really straight with no twist. This was the main reason wich I purchased it used, though really in great condition in the past and with a priced of laughter, ´cause I had in mind to defret it. So it was a good chance to learn playing fretless too. Sorry, but I haven´t pictures of all the defretting process, so I keep on mind show you the next time.
One time defretted I removed the awful logo in the headstock. I removed the plastic nut into one of bone, the volume and tone knobs and the capacitor. I strung it with flatwounds, ´cause I didn´t wanna do scratches in the fingerboard, and it become in my main bass for practice in home.
After spending some months playing with it I tried removing this fretless neck into a PB body. It´s a matter of taste but I prefer better the shapes of PB basses instead the JB shapes. Though I must to solve the issue of the length. This JB neck it has 21 “frets” and the neck pocket of the PBass it was thought for a 20 frets´ neck. So I copied the heel´s size and shape of this traditional neck of 20 frets of my PBass. It was necessary removing a little of wood in the JB neck heel, under the 21th “fret”, for keeping the same 34 inches between nut and bridge line, when I was putting this JB neck in this PB body. Of that way the last fret it stayed floating on the neck pocket of the JB body, and resting on the pickguard of the PB body. Sorry but I haven’t picture of the last one:
And I had to do new holes in the neck to bolt on this fretless neck into the PB body. I must say that the neck it fitted into the PB body easily and with no issues.
Once done I played it for a while and it worked fine. But I realized that I missed the sound of the bridge pickup. I did not want routing a new bridge pickup cavity in this old PB body, so I ended up removing again this neck into his jazz bass body. I thought that surely I should fill this hollow under the 21 “fret”, but as this bass it´s so cheaper I didn´t mind it. And I kept practicing and playing so.
After this, a closer friend of mine asked me if I could lend him this bass. He wanted to try learning fretless without buying a new bass. Despite being a poor instrument this bass was a challenge for this purpose. He realized the difficult to play fretless and the effort envolved to entonate properly and working the vibrato for giving sustain while he played. After eight months roughly playing with it, my friend returned my bass with some several war signs: chips and scratches in body, neck, even the fingerboard. The appearance is like a natural soft relic:
The body wood it´s so soft that if you press a tad high it´s possible leaving some marks. Even in the fingerboard. The picture shows how the E string made a mark on the fingerboard on the 3th, 4th and 5th “frets” in the E string. (Also you can see the bone nut):
My friend told me too that the neck it tends bugging towards the G string side. And he was right! If we compare the E and G strings we realize that the G string was closer to the edge of the fingerboard.
This picture it shows fairly how it affects to the margin string in the upper frets of the G string side:
This bad alignment of the strings with the neck this resulted a misalignment with the pickups piece poles too. Check how the E string it was passing through mostly on the top of one of the pickups´ pole piece, while the G string it was passing through between both poles pieces:
This is the evidence of a mediocre neck pocket work from factory. Just take a look to the gap between neck and body. (You can check part of the defretting job and how I filled the slots with maple wood too):
