{"id":3917,"date":"2013-05-06T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=3917"},"modified":"2014-02-05T16:58:28","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T21:58:28","slug":"how-to-avoid-over-modding-a-bass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/repair\/how-to-avoid-over-modding-a-bass.html","title":{"rendered":"How to avoid “over-modding” a bass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most bass players new to building a bass don’t actually scratch-build the instrument but rather modify an existing one, and that’s fine. However, when the modding starts, sometimes it can end up in disaster where the bass becomes ruined and unplayable from modifying too much stuff. That’s also fine<\/em> because sometimes the best way to learn is from your mistakes.<\/p>\n

Most luthiers have many stories of basses (as well as other stringed instruments) that were over-modded, where the customer brought in the instrument and you could tell from first glance that it was a modding project gone horribly wrong. And in fact, for some luthiers, repair jobs of that sort are the #1 thing they do.<\/p>\n

How does one avoid an over-modded bass disaster?<\/h3>\n

Preventing the disaster from happening doesn’t necessarily involve skill but rather just good old planning.<\/p>\n

1. Do you have a plan?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you don’t, you should.<\/p>\n

Get a piece of paper and a pen, and write down<\/em> every single thing you want to modify on your bass. The act of writing something down physically makes you think about it more, and that’s a good thing.<\/p>\n

If you find yourself overthinking the modding process in written form, you know up front that it’s going to be twice as difficult when you actually get around to doing the real thing. Keep it simple on paper, and that will (usually) translate to an easier time when doing the real modding.<\/p>\n

2. Don’t do everything all at once<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are intending to change out the bridge, pickups and tuners, should you do that all at once? Probably not. This isn’t to say you couldn’t<\/em>, but more often than not it’s better to spread out your mods. <\/p>\n

Basically we’re talking about the difference between spending an hour or two working on your bass or the whole day<\/em>. Sure, you could dedicate a whole day to modding your bass, but that can wear on the nerves and you can lose concentration.<\/p>\n

In other words, pace yourself. No rush.<\/p>\n

3. Don’t do more than you’re capable of or feel comfortable doing<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is absolutely no shame whatsoever in saying “This is beyond what I can do” when planning your mods. <\/p>\n

For example, if you’re not comfortable cutting your own routes, don’t do it. If you’re not comfortable adjusting hole sizes so that your replacement tuners fit, don’t do it. If the wiring scheme for a new preamp you bought looks like a foreign language that you can’t figure out, don’t attempt to install it.<\/p>\n

All the above stuff is what you can hire a luthier for. And yeah, you’ll pay more, but it’s worth the cost to get all your stuff installed correctly.<\/p>\n

There are some players who find modding easy and others who find it frighteningly difficult. If you feel any, and I mean any<\/em> fear when it comes to a particular mod, hire a luthier and don’t take the risk of damaging or destroying your bass.<\/p>\n

Again, there is no shame whatsoever<\/em> in admitting there are certain mods you can’t do. Chances are you’re a player first and a modder second. That’s fine<\/em>. Understanding your own limitations ultimately saves you a lot of hassle, aggravation and money.<\/p>\n

Modder beginners should always start with a throwaway bass<\/h3>\n

As has been said here before, the best way of diving into modding is to start off with a cheap bass, such as a used Squier Precision. And the more FUBAR<\/a> it is when you first receive it, the better. Why? Because you don’t mind destroying it just to learn how to do your mods. Clip some wires, hack it up, experiment with filing frets (or convert to fretless if you screw up real bad), etc.<\/p>\n

Once you learn the ropes with a cheap bass, you’ll be able to more comfortably move on to modding more expensive models.<\/p>\n

“But I don’t want to put any money into a cheap bass…”<\/p>\n

True, but the money you put into mods for a cheap bass is actually an investment in yourself; you can consider it “paying for home classes” on how to learn modding. When you approach it from that point of view, grabbing a cheap bass for $50 and then putting $150 worth of mods into it is an inexpensive way of learning how to do stuff. If you were to take actual classes on luthiery, you know it would cost a whole lot more. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most bass players new to building a bass don’t actually scratch-build the instrument but rather modify an existing one, and that’s fine. However, when the modding starts, sometimes it can end up in disaster where the bass becomes ruined and unplayable from modifying too much stuff. That’s also fine because sometimes the best way to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}