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Post subject: Jazz bass construction questions for expert support please
Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 5:30 am
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Hi all

Hoping to tap into the hive knowledge here on a couple of specific Jazz bass points. Can anybody help with the following please:

In what year was the white perloid pickguard introduced?

Did anything change in the pickup construction when the 60s position became the 70s position.

Thanking you in advance!


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Post subject: Re: Jazz bass construction questions for expert support plea
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 2:10 pm
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ead wrote:
Hi all

Hoping to tap into the hive knowledge here on a couple of specific Jazz bass points. Can anybody help with the following please:

In what year was the white perloid pickguard introduced?

Did anything change in the pickup construction when the 60s position became the 70s position.

Thanking you in advance!


You need to buy some books!
White Pearliod? I've never known white pearliod to be a stock pickguard material. White? Yes. White Parchment? Yes. But not white pearloid.
1970's pickups were of very poor and increasingly inferior quality. They didn't sound as good as pre-CBS pickups. Hence the rise of custom rewinders such as Lindy Fralin, and total custom designs such as Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio. Stock CBS/Fender 1970's Fender pickups failed so often these folks made a fortune!

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One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


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Post subject: Re: Jazz bass construction questions for expert support plea
Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:39 am
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Thanks for that.

I've since heard that whilst the white pearloid was being used on Tele basses, due to QA issues the material found its way onto the backs of white pickguards.


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Post subject: Re: Jazz bass construction questions for expert support plea
Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:03 am
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ead wrote:
Thanks for that.

I've since heard that whilst the white pearloid was being used on Tele basses, due to QA issues the material found its way onto the backs of white pickguards.


I've never heard or read of that, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

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2012 Lefty American Standard Jazz
2017 Lefty American Professional Precision
2018 Rumble Studio 40 Combo
2016 Rumble 200 Combo
One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


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Post subject: Re: Jazz bass construction questions for expert support plea
Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 3:43 pm
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ead wrote:
Hi all

Hoping to tap into the hive knowledge here on a couple of specific Jazz bass points. Can anybody help with the following please:

In what year was the white perloid pickguard introduced?

Did anything change in the pickup construction when the 60s position became the 70s position.

Thanking you in advance!



This is an enthusiast forum. Seldom will anyone at Fender chime in with true expert support. Usually that only happens when someone says something totally stupid in reply to a genuine question. You can get good expert information here, you can get myth, you can get opinion that can not be either proven or debunked, or you can get totally off the wall nonsense.

White pearloid or white pearl to the best of my recollection was first an option on a Jazz Bass in 2016 in the MOD SHOP offerings online. I do not think it was a pickguard option before. Yes some older white guards have white pearloid on the back side. It had nothing to do with QA though. The contractor simply ran out of white so the white pearloid material was flipped over and used since the base ply on some pearloid material they had was the same material and white color as Fender had ordered.

In 1972 the Jazz Bass bridge pickup position moved closer to the bridge by one-quarter of one inch and remained there till 1982. This changed the voicing of the bridge pickup more than one might expect such a minor change to cause. The voicing change was not the result of any pickup redesign, however Fender has always fiddled with the number of turns of the pickup windings each year for just about every pickup in the line. Usually each successive model year saw an increase in the number of turns. This caused the pickups to get progressively louder each model year. It was primarily a sales tool to sell new instruments. It also caused a loss of upper frequencies hardly anyone noticed at the time because of the limited range of bass cabinets back then.

Other than the number of windings 70's pickups were made using the same materials and same basic designs as in the 60's. They were made by the same people in many cases, such as Abigail Ybarra. She spent 57 years winding Fender pickups. While she has retired from the production line in 2013 she still does some special projects for the Custom Shop and has been to visit Seymour Duncan.

If there is a documented higher failure rate on 70's Fender pickups as opposed to 60's Fender pickups then I never saw the data in spite of what was posted in this thread. The vast majority of pickups that get replaced are working fine when removed regardless of year.

Fralin's shop has been winding pickups since 1992, not since the 1970's. The reason he and a few other custom winders caught on is not because of bad stock pickup quality or failures, but rather because people were looking for certain era correct tones or totally different tones which these custom shops all claim they can give them. That would include lots of Jazz Bass players looking for the 72 through 82 tones. But without moving the pickup position they are not going to get that honking nasal quality.


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