Project Gold Foil FUnder - Building a Better Fender Gold Foil Jazz Bass! - LowEndLobster Builds 

Isn't it funny how one dude from YT can come up with a better bass concept and execution than the whole product team at the world's biggest guitar company? I find it kind of funny. :) GJ Mr.Lobster Sir!

Really cool that those gold foils drop right in without any routing.

Your barely-restrained joy about this whole project kept me smiling throughout. Looks like you got yourself another subscriber!

The look on your face 😮 says it all when you’re playing the fender. It’s not even a fair comparison at this point. That upgraded HB is a sound monster. Awesome!!!

When she was a young lady, my mom worked for Rowe Industries in Toledo, Ohio, which made the classic DeArmond pickups used in Harmony guitars. I had the honor of meeting Harry DeArmond and getting a tour of his basement workshop in 1969. Mr. DeArmond had two Supro electric guitars that he played simultaneously -- one in his lap while seated and one held in the conventional manner. He hammered on both of them, playing the two hands of the piano! I remember he was playing from a Burt Bacharach songbook. Great memory. When Mr. DeArmond died, I contacted Fender (which had acquired the DeArmond brand), and Fender kindly sent some guitars and basses to Harry's church. Harry was a big band guitarist in Toledo around the WWII era and had a regular gig at a downtown Chinese restaurant called Kin Wah Lo's.

Probably the best sounding bridge pickup I've heard

I am here for it! the excitement in your pettiness is heartwarming hahahahaha well done buddy!

The FUnder brings the thunder! ⚡️

Those pickups sound great! Adjustability would be a big plus, though.

That sounds amazing! and i am so happy you went to the Ampeg for your reviews!

Hahaha! You’re SO happy about the pickups, so funny man. Nice one!

This was very impressive. I'm not a Jazz bass fan (tried 3 times but never kept them) and don't prefer offset bodies. I do own the RB HB bass even though I normally only own and play short scale instruments now. I always wondered "what's the big deal with the gold foil pickups?" The ones used in this modification blow Fender's out of the water. If I was into 34" scale, I'd get those pickups for my bass (tuners too if they were needed). This was entertaining because you had such joy in 'outing' the flaws on the Fender bass then upgrading the HB to kick it's ass sonically.

Fun to watch video! "Was the project worth it? No" cracked me up. Fender''s gold foil work is an embarrassment and not worth fixing either.

I have a novak 22 in the bridge of my cv jag bass paired up with his pb90 in the neck. Absolute thunder. The h22 is my favorite pickup of all time.

Wow those are really nice sounding pickups!

Holy, the tone out of those O_O Great video as usual!

I think if you paid a luthier to fix the frets on the HB you'd still be under the Fender price! Great video. Thanks.

The tort guard on the HB makes all the difference....... ;-) But seriously, great mods. Versatility and looks.

Another great project bass lobster! Sounds and looks fantastic!

Sticking it to Fender for their audacity and/or their BS institutional inertia is always, always, always a great thing to observe. Popcorn grabbed. Watching.

Love it! Those are killer pickups! Well worth the money and you've definitely made that bass look very pretty

The MIM just has the knobs going for it. Great knobs. Curtis is amazing.

Nice pickups. They sound like cross between P and J pickups.

Thanks for this one! I wondered what these pickups sounded like. 😎

I love the final outcome of that Harley Benton!! Amazing massive tone! If I didn’t already have all the jazz bass tones I have in my collection, I’d be rushing out and doing those upgrades to one of my own. Great job!! 👍🏼

Hello my Friend ! Je suis vraiment heureux de voir que tu as choisi le hb jb62cc pour cet upgrade fabuleux. Ce qui prouve que la jb62 est vraiment cool. Je suis sur que tu as rattrapé le déséquilibre avec les tuner gotoh et les pièces plus lourdes sur le corps, la voilà équilibré maintenant. Le son de folie des pickups ok mais aussi le ton naturel de la lutherie de cette basse qui pour moi est super. C'est clair, limpide chantant, bon avec les Curtis tu as une PB, JB et mm incroyable une vraie stingray avec que le micro chevalet. Sur la mienne j'ai changé le bridge, le sillet en os, l'électronique en 500k cts, le pickguard 4 plis, reste les micros et mécaniques à changer. Je mettrais des tonrider plus, pour les mécaniques, des immigration gotoh. Thanks a lot for everything.

Hell hath no fury like a Lobster scorned

I laughed every time you laughed and rubbed your claw/hands together.

Thanks for the vid. That bridge pickup sounds great. Really can hear the wood of the bass.

Oh, with a pick!! Thank you LEB! I would never turn down a set of Novak's but it might be worth mentioning Allparts sells a set for about 1/4 of the maestro's MSRP And being in lower 48 I might start with a new Tagima or an open box Squier CV from ProAudioStar

Sounds really good! This video was so fun to watch and really makes me want to mod lol. Haha the FUnder!!

I love it when your happy! Fender has become "The Man" and you put it to the "The Man! I only buy top of the line P-basses from them anymore. I still love my '78 Jazz bass, that was different time, I would not buy it today with all the great affordable J-basses that don't weigh a ton.

hey lobster did you get any of 25th Anniversary offerings from Harley Benton?

Man, those Nokaks killed! Loved the video, thx Mr. Crustacean!

It so good when your angry at bass makers. I love that someone has the balls to tell them what’s what

I'm a huge Fender head (2 Precisions, 1 Jazz, 2 Jazzmaster, 1 Jaguar) and for the longest time I figured buying new from Fender was not a good idea anymore. You just convinced me to outright never do it again.

its because when you manufacture in asia they dont pay employees living wages healthcare or abide by any envirnmental regulations but you can have a huge selection of basses and other crap

Looks wicked, sounds even better! Love that nasty J tone....whew!

Bruh. If you ever decide to unload this bass please let me be first in line! Greetings from New Orleans and great work

Should have done it to a cheap fender to show them how to do it 😂 love the vids keep them coming 😍

Man..... what a great idea. And I love those curtis pickups! What a beasts!!!

I love this one. The Novak pickups are totally over the top! 🤣

Oh man... you are Great...and what incredible great sounding pickups 💯💯💯💯💯💯...Gracias Lobster 🤗

Absolutely fantastic jab and poke mod video! I'll leave it at that because I could really start going off on Fender's QC among other things. Way to show them a good, MORE AFFORDABLE gold foil jazz bass.

Looks and sounds greatly.

Vast improvement brother!! Sure knocked the Fender down a few pegs & then some!! 😂👍

Just bought a Novak gold foil to put on a Sire D5, can't wait to see how it works out.

I'm watching this in May the 4th. And I sense the dark side of the force in Mr Lobster 😮

I’ve got a set of Novak pickups in my Warmoth J bass. Great pickups!!!

One of the few J-Basses that I liked what I've heard.

For at least 20 years people have been advising to mod a bass for this very reason. The prices of production guitars are bananas and modding will literally save you so much money vs buying new.

😂 I love the G string reset on the string retainer (13:48)

Fender should take note and hire you for design.

Thanks for sharing Lobster 🦞

Thank you Lobster! I enjoyed every second of this vid - just great work! And the HB looks and sounds absolutely delicious. Impressive!

SEND FENDER TO BASS "SLIP AND FALL SCHOOL "

Wow, no routing. They sound rich and sparkling clean.

I'm trying to decide on my first bass as I come from a few months of guitar practice and I just play bass lines on my classical guitar 90% of the time anyways. I might just have decided on getting a Harley Benton (I'm from Germany, so it's super cheap with shipping) and upgrade it as I go along after seeing this project.

Seems like you could do a cutout in the pickguard to get the neck pickup a bit lower by mounting it underneath. It'd be a bit hinky with the pickup screw resting on the pickguard rather than the pickup but could cool down the heat a bit.

Now slap that Novak neck pickup on the Fender :)

I like to see you use them pick ups with a dark glass omga pedal or a drak glass dark glass circuit pit in.

Now hot damn this IS SO MUCH BETTER!

The E string on that Fender is woeful. I've got to admit, I've had a Fender USA bass that suffered from the same thing. Not good, but the HB Custom shop is a monster!

Neat idea for a mod project. The Fender is a dud. And 1 GF pickup sucks (not to mention the bad worksmanship). The CN pups have a thick and clear midrange with deep bass and a tame high end. VERY NICE. Those pups are nice enough for a permanent mount in a slightly better J bass (not necessarily a Fender). I bet a Volume/Blend/Tone would work nicely. Pups are worth the $$$. Nice project.

That is one insane j-bass growl!

Those pickups sound awesome

Love your honesty! Keep it up!!

I like the sound of the fender better. I know this Novax were hot and if you adjusted your interface it would have sounded better. I just like the smooth tone from the fender. As for pickup height just take a razor blade and go around the neck pickup and then remove it and finish cutting it out. This will drop it down and help a lot. Should only take a few minutes to get done. It came out nice though and love the look of gold foils.

See what you gone and made Lobster do Fender, the man just made your entire team look like fools, and schooled you all!! Take my money Lobster! I’d definitely buy one of these from ya, FUender 😅

That is awesome and I love these except for one thing. If you want to trade or sell it may work with a friend but no shop will take into account the upgrades. I`m still drooling over my CNZ JB bass. Selling a Fender to get the P-Bass model.

The Curtis Novax (?) pickups sounded great. So FU Fender.

That tone! 🤤

Plus you've got the HB parts for another project.

When evaluating the playability, can you do some Tapping & Hammer Ons so we can better gauge the neck. Thx Lobster.

Nicely done. Did you do anythings about sorting the fretwork on the HB?

My local music store has a gold foil bass and all the bridge saddles are skewed way to the right, looks ridiculous next to the price tag. Your bass looks awesome, reminds me of the thunderbucker Tbird pickups with the chrome covers.

I'd be interested to hear this thing with some fuzzzz. Great experiment!

Great job Lobster. Very cool & lots of fun. My only concern would be just how often would you actually play that FUNDER bass with the pickups being so hot. My own experience with that situation was that the novelty wore off pretty fast and the bass collected dust, in favor of several other more friendly basses. Still have it and still play it. Just not that often. The inability to adjust pickup height would also bug me. To the point where I'd find the pickups a more suitable/adjustable home. Still, I loved how you made a really FUN bass while thumbing (clawing?) your nose at Fender.

Cool project!

Project FUNder brings FUN in... well, it's fun. Yeah.

Fender project engineer : " OK, let's use this high output pickups so we don't even need to cover all the strings !! "

Nice work! I actually really like the looks and concept of the Fender but boy, the QC is sad. Drop that Novak pickup in the Fender and really make it roar! Not clear why those CN pups are so damn pricey though. Modeled on a very inexpensive original design. I happen have a Harmony "batwing" bass and can vouch that, that original gold foil is a beast.

Project Gold Foil FUnder seriously puts the Fender to shame! I bought a Fender Player Standard Jazz last November during a black Friday sale where I got $200 off the normal price. It arrived in a Fender factory sealed box and when I took it out and played around with it I realized that... 1) The action was really high, there was no setup done to it at all. 2) The plastic tone knob was broken, the plastic was really thin and brittle like they didn't pour quite enough plastic into the mold. 3) Rough fret edges. Not the worse that I've encountered (that honor goes to a low end Ibanez I pick up a couple years ago), they don't stick out the sides of the fretboard but the edges could be smoothed out some more. Even with these QC flaws I feel kinda lucky when I see the QC on that $1300 Fender gold foil bass as well as some of the other QC horror stories I've heard from other people that bought Fender and Squier basses. I do have to say though, once I did a full set up the bass sounds and plays really nice! There are no dead spots and I have the action set pretty low with no buzzing anywhere on the fret board. Once again, I feel like I got really lucky!

someone give this guy a TV Show!

Love ya Lobster!

Yeah, man! Stick it to Fender! 🤣🤣🤣

Priceless 😂

P.S. I disagree with you, this project was worth it to me!! It answers a lot of questions that I had!

Lobster Custom Shop Gold Foil Shell Pink Jazz with Hard case and Claw - make it happen, Fender! I would shim the neck so I could raise the strings away from the pickups because they seem way too hot but they sound like a bigger Jazz bass :)

It honestly boggles my mind how Fender released that bass in the first place. It’s a great idea don’t get me wrong, but the execution and construction was horrible. The Harley Benton blows it right out of the water. Great work as always Lobster!

WOW! NICE!!!!!

Is there a five string equivalent to those pickups?

I own the blue Fender and MY BRIDGE was only slightly off center and was easily fixed with a minor adjustment. My question is WHO makes a replacement pickup to replace the Gold Foil provided by Fender?

Even on mobile that E strings fails big time😂

Why you make me do this Fenderrrrrrrrr!!!

would the Gotoh tuners be an upgrade or over the tuners that came stock with the squire paranormal 54 jazz, in your opinion? picked it up used on sale and I'm looking to use it as a excellent mod platform inspired by your videos

For an American Professional Jazz Bass, what size spacer for the bridge pickup?

When i first saw the Fender gold foil bass i thought that it is way overpriced along with most of the newer Mexican line , cost of production cannot be that much more to have the almost double the cost of the standard player series basses. You should put one of those pickups on the Fender

In answer to the question, "Is this project worth it?" I'd probably have said yes, under the right circumstances. If you're a gigging bassist and don't want to haul your vintage Fender to pubs and venues where there's a high possibility it'll get dinged or bumped, then build yourself one of these to gig and it'll eventually pay for itself.

That destroyed the Fender. I'd like to get my claws on some of those pickups now.