Component swap :: 1986 Fender MIJ Stratocaster Contemporary [7.9 lbs]

June 27, 2016

A local player for a funk band picked up this made in Japan Strat years ago and loves how it plays, but not so much on how it sounds. He found the original pickups to be lacking output (all pickups 6.0k) so he brought it by the shop to install new guts under the pickgaurd. The new pickups he supplied are GFS 1963 Strat Texas wound pickups with their outputs reading 6.1k (neck), 6.5k (middle - RW/RP) and 8.6k in the bridge. The middle pickup's "RW/RP" stands for "reverse wound / reverse polarity" which means that it is hum cancelling when combined with the neck or bridge pickup (positions 2 & 4 on the 5-way switch). He also supplied CTS pots, a 0.022 µf Orange Drop tone cap, new 5-way switch and Switchcraft output jack.

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bass setup :: 2016 Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass [9.6 lbs]

June 7, 2016

A brand spanking new Geddy Lee signature Jazz Bass in for some tweaks. This has Fender's "Channel Bound" fingerboard, which is where they inlay the fingerboard into the neck. It's pretty slick! My only issue would be replacing the nut on this one. The nut is also inlaid into the neck with the fingerboard binding capturing the ends and sealed under the finish. I'm not trying to be a pessimist, only analyzing the ease of a common repair requiring a complicated procedure. That being said, this a great J bass!

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Making the best of wonky frets :: Ibanez ATK300 bass [11.0 lbs]

April 11, 2015

Making the best of wonky frets :: Ibanez ATK300 bass [11.0 lbs]

Here's a bass with the common issue of loose and uneven frets that come with many of the low-cost imported instruments. Ideally the neck should be properly refretted (including knocking down the fingerboard rise over the body) - or at the very least have the frets glued in place and then leveled and dressed. But despite not getting the bass to fret as cleanly as I would like, the player was happy and we kept the cost down.

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