My main gigging and recording bass is an old Frankenstein, Fender P with a 1971 body, a 1968 telecaster neck and an actual 1959 precision pick up. It is the best sounding precision bass I’ve ever played and I’ve never found anything that comes close to it in any music store sonically. I’ve been getting a little wary of taking it out to bars and gigs lately and I’ve been thinking I should probably have some kind of a back up that does a decent job. So… build something with different components that could get as close to the sound as possible and keep it around 1000 bucks if possible! Just as a solid back up that is tonally in the same ballpark as my number one.
What we have here is a bass that I am starting to really like - and surprisingly is decently close sonically to my old precision. This all started with a 2019 squire late 50s precision bass that I found at music-go-round. I happen to have a spare Lakeland bridge that I just think looks really cool. So I replaced the vintage fender bridge, but I replaced the saddles with fender threaded saddles for string spacing adjustment. But I went one step further- I used Fender vintage bridge saddles for the E and A strings and then Squier vintage bridge saddles for the D and G strings, which are threaded finer than the fender saddles, so you can adjust the strings a little more accurately. Next, I replaced the squire neck with a 50s vintera precision neck from stratosphere. The squier neck, while being a really really nice neck that played very well and had excellent fretwork, was just too narrow at the nut for me. The Vintera neck is classic 1 3/4” nut which just feels better and closer to the 68 Tele neck I’m used to. Next I replaced the Squier electronics with CTS pots and .033 µF capacitor. And of course I had to replace the knobs with oversized, G & L vintage knobs
Then, though the stock squier Pickup was ok, it wasn’t close to sounding anything like the 1959 pick up in my main instrument. that old pick up has an immediacy and warmth that is palpable. Every time I play it live the bandleader just freaks out on the sound because all of the notes are there and It lays such a solid foundation for the band… weirdly, I settled on the dimarzio relentless P pick up with ceramic magnets and adjustable pole pieces(more on this later). And the final touch is the neck plate from Icon Plates. I must say I took my time to put all these components together, and the last detail was the dimarzio pick up. It, by far, made the biggest difference toward moving this instrument into the tonal realm I was looking for. The bass is very upfront and present and articulate with solid low mids and great high mids with a nice amount of top end. Perfect back up bass and hopefully decent for recording. One last note, I love the white blonde finish over the pine body. You can really see a lot of the grain figuring. Comes in right at 9 pounds and is a proper players instrument. Total cost somewhere around $950. I just love the white blonde finish with gold pickguard and all that Chrome. Pretty happy with this one.
One other note to mention. I did a lot of pick up research before settling on the dimarzio relentless P. I first chose the Klein epic 59 precision pick up. It was the closest sounding pick up on the different demo videos (and sound clips on Klines site) that I could find - to match my vintage P. However, once it was installed, it was a little too scooped sounding. It did have really nice highs and good low mid’s but it just didn’t have the presence of my original 1959 pick up. After watching a bunch more videos and honing in on lowendlobster’s videos that feature the different Dimarzio pick ups: relentless and 60s P pickups, I took a chance and went with the ceramic relentless P. ( thanks lobster!!) And that made a huge difference! That pick up really brings the bass to the fore and fills a nice warm sonic space, similar to my old 1959. I did have to change the volume part to 500 K to bring out a little more top end. But, I think I’m close enough to be satisfied with this back up instrument finally!
What we have here is a bass that I am starting to really like - and surprisingly is decently close sonically to my old precision. This all started with a 2019 squire late 50s precision bass that I found at music-go-round. I happen to have a spare Lakeland bridge that I just think looks really cool. So I replaced the vintage fender bridge, but I replaced the saddles with fender threaded saddles for string spacing adjustment. But I went one step further- I used Fender vintage bridge saddles for the E and A strings and then Squier vintage bridge saddles for the D and G strings, which are threaded finer than the fender saddles, so you can adjust the strings a little more accurately. Next, I replaced the squire neck with a 50s vintera precision neck from stratosphere. The squier neck, while being a really really nice neck that played very well and had excellent fretwork, was just too narrow at the nut for me. The Vintera neck is classic 1 3/4” nut which just feels better and closer to the 68 Tele neck I’m used to. Next I replaced the Squier electronics with CTS pots and .033 µF capacitor. And of course I had to replace the knobs with oversized, G & L vintage knobs
Then, though the stock squier Pickup was ok, it wasn’t close to sounding anything like the 1959 pick up in my main instrument. that old pick up has an immediacy and warmth that is palpable. Every time I play it live the bandleader just freaks out on the sound because all of the notes are there and It lays such a solid foundation for the band… weirdly, I settled on the dimarzio relentless P pick up with ceramic magnets and adjustable pole pieces(more on this later). And the final touch is the neck plate from Icon Plates. I must say I took my time to put all these components together, and the last detail was the dimarzio pick up. It, by far, made the biggest difference toward moving this instrument into the tonal realm I was looking for. The bass is very upfront and present and articulate with solid low mids and great high mids with a nice amount of top end. Perfect back up bass and hopefully decent for recording. One last note, I love the white blonde finish over the pine body. You can really see a lot of the grain figuring. Comes in right at 9 pounds and is a proper players instrument. Total cost somewhere around $950. I just love the white blonde finish with gold pickguard and all that Chrome. Pretty happy with this one.One other note to mention. I did a lot of pick up research before settling on the dimarzio relentless P. I first chose the Klein epic 59 precision pick up. It was the closest sounding pick up on the different demo videos (and sound clips on Klines site) that I could find - to match my vintage P. However, once it was installed, it was a little too scooped sounding. It did have really nice highs and good low mid’s but it just didn’t have the presence of my original 1959 pick up. After watching a bunch more videos and honing in on lowendlobster’s videos that feature the different Dimarzio pick ups: relentless and 60s P pickups, I took a chance and went with the ceramic relentless P. ( thanks lobster!!) And that made a huge difference! That pick up really brings the bass to the fore and fills a nice warm sonic space, similar to my old 1959. I did have to change the volume part to 500 K to bring out a little more top end. But, I think I’m close enough to be satisfied with this back up instrument finally!
Last edited:
