Your 2 cents

[dj_techa]

Konichiwa,
My name is Vincent and I just joined the site after reading it for several weeks.  Very impressed with the info i've found here.  I play psychedlic folk-electronic music and heres my situation:  I am a huge jazzmaster enthusiest and I have one that I built from warmoth guitar parts in high school, and am in the planning stage of building a new Jazz and a Bass VI. 

Part One
-My current jazz has a bigsby B5 trem with a TOM bridge, and 2 seymour duncan humbucking P90s.  I also play sitar and am constantly having people from school ask me to do a sample lick for their project, but dont understand that to change keys on  a sitar, you often have to completely re-string the frets, which is a pain.  So in stead of buying a danelectro, and getting the electric sitar bridge, would it work to put that bridge on my jazzmaster?

Part Two
-The jazz im planning to build is from warmoth parts; flame maple strat neck, roswood board, spectra blue body with matching headstock, a mint pickguard, dual mono outputs with one mutable output, standard jzm hardware, and the only thing im un-sure of is the Pickups.  I love the 72 fender deluxes, but like Jzm std ones too, and ive read alot about novak pickups as well.  If you want to know what type of tone im looking for listen to "All We Have Is Now" by The Flaming Lips, or "The Neutral" by Sonic Youth.  What suggestions do you have?  Im a big pedal guy too so if you know another way to get closer to that tone im all ears.

Part Two and a Half
-If one of you guys can trace a pickguard i have and make an identical one out of gold anodized material (like the 57s.  57s right?????), i will kiss your ring.

Part Three
-The bass VI is gonna be from USACG parts, standard Bass VI.  What Pickups do you recommend for a light and bright tone with no noise?

Any help i could get would be great, thanks!

-Vincent

[bulrich]

Vincent,
Sounds like some interesting projects there. As for the VI, I've had luck with a few pickups, the Seymour Duncan 1/4 lb Jag pups are quite nice and recently I put a SD Livewire active pup in the Bridge. (put the batteries under the tremolo), which sounds wonderful, much more versatile than any other pup combination that i've tried.

[dj_techa]

So you have one active pickup and 3 passive pickups? 

[dain]

Konichiwa,

Part One
getting the electric sitar bridge, would it work to put that bridge on my jazzmaster?

-Vincent

i'm also building an electric sitar, but in tele form.  i've been working with the "buzz bridge" for a couple months now and here's some info:

1: the bridge likes to stay put.  they are very finiiky to set up and get all the strings buzzing.  if you were to use the jazz tremolo (without having it locked) you would always be tinkering with intonation everytime you used it.  i saw a video of nels cline using a trem on his electric sitar but you then realize, not all of his strings are buzzing.  if all the strings aren't buzzing you will be having intonation issues and there will be parts of the neck you can't use.  its a bear, but if you have everything locked down you'll only have to set it up ONCE!

2:  you'll also have to drill some holes in the jazz that wouldn't be covered by anything else if you ever removed it.  there is no way to have the bridge just sitting on the guitar like an archtop... you've got to nail it down.

anyway, take pics when you get started!  we can't wait...

[bulrich]

So you have one active pickup and 3 passive pickups? 

No Active is in the Bridge (single coil sized) with the Jag 1/4 lb in the middle and a SD Custom staggered neck.

[dj_techa]

Does it eat up batteries quickly?  Any noise??

[bulrich]

So far so good. Super quiet. I tried quite a few pups in this bass, including a few single coil sized humbuckers (JB Jr., Hot Rails, etc) and the Livewire really makes the instrument come alive. The whole instrument resonates through the pups. Pretty exciting sound, esp. through an SVT!

[dj_techa]

Yeah i've been curious if you guys have been using bass or guitar amps, i supose that would play a major part in the tone.