Kicking It Old School

Yesterday my bass underwent a little face lift. Tired of the traditional black or white pick guards like in the first picture here, I decided to go with a tortoise shell (because Jeremy said it would look nice. And by nice I mean bad-ass and old school. As in it reflects how I approach the instrument).

Another reason for doing it is because Fender has these dumb lines of guitars and basses out such as the Road Worn Series, where they try to make guitars look beat up and old, but instead look new and crappy. Now they have the new Pawn Shop Series, where they just combine two guitars together and pretend that every guitar in a pawn shop is a mutilated half breed monstrosity and charge money for it. Honestly, when I read the presser, I instantly thought of that South Park episode where the kids breed a pig with an elephant.

The picture below is showing the progress of my new look bass. I figured it was just better to order the parts from companies like Fender and others, making the appropriate changes myself instead of waiting for them to combine new school technology with an old school look.

I started with having a brass nut installed to replace the regular nut that comes with it. An incredible luthier of basses who will remain nameless did this for me. It's nice to have a friend who is an incredible talent live 5 minutes from me.

An amazing repair tech now operating out of Oslo Norway named Allen Hunter replaced the regular output jack with a Neutrik jack, most commonly found on Ibanez basses. That involved routing out the jack end of the body and some rewiring so I left that to the experts. Hey Metallica, if your guitar breaks on your tour stop in Oslo, call AVH Guitar Repair.

Gold Schaller strap locks were next, followed by the tortoise shell pick guard with gold screws. There will be more upgrades and modifications as I progress.

I think I'll call it Randall's Pocket Signature Jazz Bass.