What else do you want to share about your gear? 1978 Fender Musicmaster Bass Photo Gallery: It can be a bit cranky at times and somewhat unforgiving, but the effort is always worth it. I own a wide range of basses, but there’s something about my Musicmaster Bass that keeps me coming back for more. Yes, I use it every gig for at least a third of the set. The only downside was that Fender installed a six-pole Stratocaster pickup, which won’t give the correct string-to-string balance as a four-pole bass pickup. The Musicmaster was originally introduced as a student model, but it is a very capable bass.
Fender musicmaster bass how to#
The previous owner who dismantled it wasn’t able to figure out how to put it all back together again!!Īny notable bassists (other than yourself, of course) play the same instrument/use the same gear?Ĭolin Moulding of XTC, Jim O’Rourke and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Dee Dee Ramone of The Ramones, Alan Lancaster of Status Quo.Īny special history or story behind this instrument or the company who made it? What’s your favorite story about the gear? The replacement pickup by Wizard Pickups is made specifically for these basses, and it makes this bass sound absolutely amazing. I obtained a new pickguard from a seller on eBay, the pickup is a custom handmade replacement made by Wizard Pickups in the UK, and the all-new electronics are two CTS 250k pots, a Switchcraft jack, vintage style cloth wire and a Sprague orange drop capacitor. Stock or customized? Give us all the specs!Īll stock, with the exception of the pickguard and electronics. The bass came to me as a box of parts which had to be reassembled. It was given to me by a friend who ran a studio in Orlando, Florida. Guitar technician and custom instrument builder Graham Drew shares his 1978 Fender Musicmaster Bass in this installment of Old School, and the story that goes with it. Squier reintroduced the Musicmaster briefly in 1997, replacing it a year later with the Bronco bass. Fender later offered many of the finishes offered on their other instruments as well.įender’s line of budget instruments was discontinued in 1981, when the company introduced the Squier brand. The bass was introduced with three finishes: black, white and red, with a few early issues painted in daphne blue and sporting pearl pickguards. This was also a 30″ short-scale bass, the shortest production scale of any Fender bass. All of the electronics were mounted on a single piece of plastic. The bodies were from the Mustang production line, and 6-pole guitar pickups were used instead of the standard 4-pole pickups used in basses. But if you want a player and not a showroom piece, you're going to love these mods.The Musicmaster was Fender’s budget-priced bass at the time, made from surplus parts from other Fender models.
Fender musicmaster bass mods#
Just hang on to all the old parts and reverse the mods in that case. I don't like hacking up vintage Fender amps, but in this case, we're not doing anything non-reversible, should you ever want to put it back to stock for collect-ability's sake. I don't gig with one, but I sure do a lot of practicing with one. But the MMBass is good enough to hold its own with the best of them, it just does it in its own way, and at a lot lower volume, which is a good thing at times. Though that's tough to say, as my favorite amp seems to change with each one I play as I'm playing it, it becomes my favorite. Out of a small collection of silver face Fender amps the Musicmaster Bass may be my favorite. There are a couple of mods you can do to these amps to really wake them up. Ditch the POS speaker and replace it with something decent for guitar and the amp comes alive. But as a lot of folks now know, there's a great guitar amp hiding inside. Too little power, the tone really wasn't right for bass, and the speaker was too cheap and didn't deliver the goods. This was just an inexpensive student model bass amp, it was not intended to be much, and it really wasn't much of a bass amp.
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