Thunderbass VI
Hey folks! Wanted to share a project that I finished up last week.
Recently, I've seen some posts on r/offset where people have put Epiphone Thunderbird pickups into Jazzmasters. I thought it would be fun to try putting a pair in my Bass VI to see how they sounded. In addition to swapping out the pickups, I made a few other changes:
- Got rid of the stock trem and put in a Herad hardtail plate. I never used the trem all that much, but I held off on changing it out because I wasn't sure I wanted to invest the money into changing it. I've actually found it to be a worthwhile change. The Bass VI felt kind of "rattly" before, which going to a hardtail resolved. I was hoping that the hardtail would let me use strings with a shorter taper (specifically the EB 9-string set), but no dice. Seems like the taper length is still about 32.5 inches vs the EB's 31.
- Installed a 3-way Telecaster switch and (neck-only) strangle switch using a Herad control plate. Telecaster switch is pretty self explanatory; I like it better than the individual slide switches. I used to have a 10-position Freeway switch in my Bass VI, but I found I kept forgetting which position did what. Three positions is good, partially because it's hard to forget. The strangle switch has three positions (off, on, and half-way-ish). I stole the idea from this post. Having it be neck only works really really well with this pickups, as I'll get into.
- Routed new pickups cavities, shielded them, and routed a new pickguard. I made some templates using Blender and 3D printed them. You can kind of see from the pictures, but I designed the templates so that they could attach to the body/pickguard using the existing pickguard screw layout. This made it pretty easy to keep it in place. It took a decent amount of trial and error to get the size right; the Epiphone pickups are a smidge bigger than the dimensions I found online for Thunderbird pickups. I got the pickguard blank off of Ebay and only had to route for the pickups. The fit of the screw holes is ok, not great, but it looks fine after you get it attached.
- Installed a TBX pot for the tone knob. I did this on another guitar a while back and loved it. If you're not familiar, it's worth looking into. It gives you the ability to cut highend or lowend instead of just highend. I've previously used PTB circuits, but this is sort of the same thing in one knob. It lets you go from bass territory to baritone guitar quickly.
- Installed what I'm going to call a "Dustin Kensrue" mod. If you're not familiar, Dustin's signature Music Man has a stereo jack with a switch that lets you route the individual pickups straight to different parts of the jack so that you can route the signals individually. EG you could send the neck pickup to a clean amp and the bridge to a driven amp. I did the same thing with a stereo jack and a (250k) S1 switch; neck goes to ring and bridge goes to tip. I've only gotten to mess with this a little bit (just got the stereo cable in). I've mainly been sending the neck pickup to a bass amp and the bridge to a guitar amp. I'm looking forward to dialing in some sounds with it; it seems like it'll be pretty cool.
I'm pretty stoked with the end results. Beyond the stuff mentioned above, the pickups sound great in a Bass VI. The neck pickup makes the instrument feel like a proper bass guitar, but the bridge is thin enough to do low-tuned baritone guitar stuff. I think the real magic (as other people have observed with these pickups) is the middle position. In particular with the neck strangle switch engaged, it sounds massive without being muddy. I'm very pleased with how it came out.