I have Thomastik-Infeld flatwounds on mine, and it’s the dream pairing. Plays so smoothly and suits any genre of music, surely one of the best basses Fender have ever built, and I keep finding new sounds with so much variety with two tones and volumes. Absolutely beautiful bass that has me forgetting my Les Paul, Martin and Tele some nights!
The Custom Shop doesn't copy the circuitry of the original stack knob bass. The originals had a resistor in series with the output of each pickup. The hot side of the output connected to the end of each resistor. Leo Fender implemented this circuit to try and decouple the two tone controls, so that you could roll down one and only hear it affect the relevant pickup. Fender has never copied this circuitry because the general consensus is that you always need the full output of each pickup to modify downstream.
+Alan Donnet I was always curious about this issue on a stacked knob jazz. Like if you had both pickups full volume, and only rolled the tone off on one of them, what would it sound like?
I've read up a bit more. Apparently the stackers only had those resistors to stop the volume controls acting, each, like a master volume. Leo Fender hadn't figured out how to wire two pickups to two volumes, so he used the resistors to block each volume control out of the path of the other.
As a person who has played bass for 7 years, I personally love the brightness that rounds give, and jazz basses lend so much more to the brightness that rounds give, but I have to say that those strings on that bass would sound fantastic in a mix. It does still have that growl through the more 'thumpier' sound of flats. However, I think that if you were to solo the instrument, or give the bass a more prominent role (Slap, plectrum), then rounds would be best for it, as jazz basses are richer and far more brighter than its single split-pickup counterpart. Just my two cents, considering the mixed opinions in the comments.
1:58 The circuit change came from the need to isolate the volume controls since the circuit doesn't have a pickuo switch. To fix this, the solution at the time was adding a couple of 220k resistors to the circuit. This pretty much kills the bass output so Jaco, which at the time was young and wanted to have an "in your face" sound never liked the dual stack configuration. You can fix this by adding two 15k resistors instead of the original 220k but for some reason this was not investigated at the time. IMHO Leo changed the design to three knobs to have a less expensive design, easier to manufacture.
This was actually a controversial debate why Fender replaced the Stacked Knobs with the standard three knobs we all know and love today, there was two reasons: One: It was too expensive to make because the Stacked Knobs were made from anodized aluminum and other expensive parts were put into it and the second debate was because that it was too complicated To use and they replaced them with the standard three knobs because it was more simple to use than the stacked knobs. Personally for me I like both but if I had to pick one the Stacked Knobs win, there’s just a variety of tone and so much you can make it sound.
Maybe a couple of concentric knob control plates escaped the factory in '62 in order to "use 'em up and get 'em out." That being said, FENDERBASSPLAYER is largely correct. By August '61, the "three-knob" assembly was in full-swing and by one year later, in AUG 62, our beloved, beautifully figured slab boards went the way of the buffalo...GONE. Breaks my heart. :(
Thank you, for the review! What I am curious about is the (subjective/objective) difference between the 'C' shape neck and this bass guitar's 'U' shaped neck?
I could only describe it as a U shaped neck would be a little bit deeper and thicker from front to back. A C shaped neck is a bit thinner and more shallow. If you would look at them in cross section, the shape would look a U or a C, respectively.
Thank goodness...!..finally a comprehensive review of a Custom Shop Bass...it seems all Fender does is make vids for their guitars..smh..but great review, Grooms..is like to see you get a hold of a CS P or the Postmodern next...
Check out Ernie Ball slinky cobalt flatwounds. The smooth feel and thump of a flat, with the clarity and presence of a round. They are a perfect mix of a flatwound and roundwound string, best of both worlds. I’d recommend them to anyone
i agree, when i started play bass i bought a set of flats and i took them off them after a few days ... straight to the bin. not for me ... dead tone, no chances to work with the tone like with a good set of round wounds, the only good thing i like ab flat is that they don't eat the frets, but who cares. tone first ! ^_^
It’s a common thing why Roundwound users say that flatwounds sound dead or dull, the reason is that those that played roundwounds are used to the growl and attack sound of roundwounds instead of the mellow vintage sound of the flats. It’s about the tone you’re after for.
I just built a parts J bass with the old config. But next week I'm changing to the 3 knob config. I like less knobs plus thats the way the jazz bass I had in the late sixties was.Thought I would like the stacked knobs but no.
The CTS Concentric Stacked Pots only come in 250k/500k there is no 250k/250k CTS Stacked Pot, so the tone pot is 500k in these, thats likely the only reason why 1960 stacked pots are brighter. Theres so much Illusion illusion with vintage guitars but the brightness is just potentiometer numbers.. Standard Jazz Bass V/V/T uses 250k on the tone pot. If you went V/V/T and put a 500k pot on the tone it would likely be exactly the same sound no reason for it to not be.
If you want to get a bit closer to the vintage tone of a 60's jazz, try a set of Fender Custom Shop 60's pickups or Seymour Duncan Antiquity II jazz bass pickups.
