Hi,
New guy with a question about an Old bass, a JS II fretless.
In '74 or '75, I was really digging the idea of a fretless bass. The reality of no frets and a 34" scale, like on a Fender fretless, seemed rather daunting, so I found a Guild JS II fretless bass, short scale version. It was a fun bass, but the amplified sound was pretty non-descript.
It was an age of experiment, and I hung out at a guitar repair shop in NYC. The guys built me an ebony bridge in place of the Hagstrom Clamshell bridge (we borrowed the idea from D'Aquisto). It was just a big, flat slug of ebony and was held by string pressure, directly to the top.
As soon as we did the bridge mod, the JS II came alive, but only when it was unamplified!!
You could hear this cool fretless sound, plus those low bass notes would just come springing out of the body.
In fact, there was so much energy that I used to open the door of the stove in my small NYC apartment and then touch the body of the bass to the side of the stove. The bass notes would resonate through the stove and big fat sounds would come out! If I could only have taken the stove to the Gig, too!
Here's the bad part. With either bridge set-up, I could never, ever get the bass to sound good through an amp. I can't even remember what I used for amps, probably the usual '70's suspects; Peaveys, Fenders, everything except Ampeg and Acoustic amps (too big for NYC).
The way it worked, whatever amp I was using would sound fine with a Fender bass and non-descript with the Guild.
Eventually, I decided it was the Guild Humbucking Pickup. I moved on from fretless at the same time, since I had a hard time cutting through a five-piece band without the clarity of frets.
Anyway, a mere 32 years later, I want a JS II fretless again. I know a little more about sound and pickups than I did then, but I wanna know if anybody has any suggestions about what a good amp would be for the JS II, or a good pickup replacement, or a different capacitor for the harness, the right strings to work with the pickup, etc.
Anybody got any ideas? I sure would appreciate it!
New guy with a question about an Old bass, a JS II fretless.
In '74 or '75, I was really digging the idea of a fretless bass. The reality of no frets and a 34" scale, like on a Fender fretless, seemed rather daunting, so I found a Guild JS II fretless bass, short scale version. It was a fun bass, but the amplified sound was pretty non-descript.
It was an age of experiment, and I hung out at a guitar repair shop in NYC. The guys built me an ebony bridge in place of the Hagstrom Clamshell bridge (we borrowed the idea from D'Aquisto). It was just a big, flat slug of ebony and was held by string pressure, directly to the top.
As soon as we did the bridge mod, the JS II came alive, but only when it was unamplified!!
You could hear this cool fretless sound, plus those low bass notes would just come springing out of the body.
In fact, there was so much energy that I used to open the door of the stove in my small NYC apartment and then touch the body of the bass to the side of the stove. The bass notes would resonate through the stove and big fat sounds would come out! If I could only have taken the stove to the Gig, too!
Here's the bad part. With either bridge set-up, I could never, ever get the bass to sound good through an amp. I can't even remember what I used for amps, probably the usual '70's suspects; Peaveys, Fenders, everything except Ampeg and Acoustic amps (too big for NYC).
The way it worked, whatever amp I was using would sound fine with a Fender bass and non-descript with the Guild.
Eventually, I decided it was the Guild Humbucking Pickup. I moved on from fretless at the same time, since I had a hard time cutting through a five-piece band without the clarity of frets.
Anyway, a mere 32 years later, I want a JS II fretless again. I know a little more about sound and pickups than I did then, but I wanna know if anybody has any suggestions about what a good amp would be for the JS II, or a good pickup replacement, or a different capacitor for the harness, the right strings to work with the pickup, etc.
Anybody got any ideas? I sure would appreciate it!