Bustin' the Bronco: upgrading the pickup in my Squire Bronco (30" scale) bass

[Plenum n Heather]

I've had this bass for ages, but for some reason have never really played it. In need of a bass for some recording, I pulled it out from its cryogenic rest and gave it a good cleaning and setup. Once that was done, I assessed that the bass is certainly playable, but the pickup is AWFUL.

After doing some research, I learned that it's just a single coil guitar pickup in there! I went to Stew-Mac and ordered their Golden Age P-bass pickup because I figured for $50, it was worth the chance.

After doing some more research online, it became clear that I would need something to enlarge the rout on the bass. I picked up a Dremel tool (coolest thing EVER) and after about 2 hours of work, had both the guitar and scratch plate cut. Unfortunately, the route Fender provides was not only too small in terms of length and width, but too LARGE in terms of depth. A quick crafts project was in order using PVA glue and a mess of craft sticks to build up the cavity.

When all was said and done, the bass now looks like this:



Rough, but it works.

What's more important, of course, is how it sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/bena/bronco-p-bass-test1

[gwEm]

Smooth workmanship there Ben ;)

Not that my work is any better for that stuff!

Edit: sounds pretty good too. Are you pleased?

[Plenum n Heather]

Smooth workmanship there Ben ;)

HA! Yes, I shall not be giving PhilKing, Jonathan, JuanSolo, or Wez a run for their money in this lifetime!

Edit: sounds pretty good too. Are you pleased?

I am, in fact, very pleasantly surprised. It will take some work to get my playing technique down; short scale bass requires a different touch than full-scale necks, as it turns out ... plus, the settings I was using my my Philosopher's Tone were dialed in for another bass, and it didn't work as well with the Bronco. However, I wasn't going to spend gobs of time playing round with compression when I was just after a usable tone. I can tinker later. :)

Being a 30" scale bass, I can comfortably play notes on the 1st fret now. :) As I am very much an arpeggio style bass player, it makes it much closer to playing guitar for arpeggios.

The other thing I've noticed now that I've had some time to play round with the bass in anger is that the P-bass pickup is VERY responsive to where you pick the strings, even using fingers (I don't normally play bass w a pick, but that may change in order to get the consistency of attack I'm looking for).

[PhilKing]

Hi Ben,

Interesting reversal of the usual P-Bass set up there.  I've been travelling a lot this month (I'm sat in the airport in Mumbai, finally on my way back to Hoboken).   I was thinking of getting a short scale bass a while ago (with the fretless that Wez made me), but ended up with a 34" scale.    Have you beefed up the gauges to get the bottom end thump from it?   Interestingly, Roger Glover used a Mustang bass a lot with Deep Purple. 

You'll have to try it through the B-15N one day (when I finally get room to set it up!).

[Plenum n Heather]

Dang, Phil, nothing gets past you! :)

When you are back and rested, we will have a talk -- this is my experiment platform for what I hope will be a Warmoth short scale at the end of the year ...