LeftyBassist.com

Hi all,

I did buy a lefty Telecaster bass 1971 with a neck stamp date of 1968 in an excellent condition. I suspect that the back of the neck has been redone with a new finish but I'm not sure. The electronics appears to be all original with original soldering also. The bass smells terrible. It was kept in a smoker room for a long time I guess.

But the single-coil PU is noisy a bit for the work I do and wouldn't mind putting a new Fralin single coil or double-coil in it for a more even balanced sound.

I start to like the sound of that bass a lot for tv, it cuts well in the mix.

I paid a lot of $$ for that bass but if it becomes one of my main axe for a while, I wouldn't care too much if it looses some value on the vintage market because I changed PU and I don't have the original soldering in it.

What do you think?

I did post this on TB also but I would love to hear what my fellows southpaws think about that,

Thanks a lot,

Sly

Is the pickup functioning normally and your problem is just with the typical single coil 60 cycle hum? Musicians have been playing single coil instruments for 60 years, so there are obvious workarounds to that. Position yourself such that buzz isn't as audible, get a noise surpressor, etc. If the PUP's not functioning normally, I'd consider sending it out to someone like Fralin for a rewind. There are also some very good replacement Tele bass PUPs out there - Fender and Duncan make them. As long as you've got the original PUP I don't think there's significant loss in value if you did either. I definitely wouldn't do anything along the lines of routing the body for a humbucker though, and besides, the charm of the SCTB IS that biting single coil.

For the smell, I used the Duesenberg "The Cleaner" (the blue one), worked perfect on my 70 jazzbass, which was smelling so horrible when I purchased it.

Other products should work fine also.

I don't know that product. What is it exactly so I can find something similar here?

Thanks,

Sly,

What was your decision in the end? Are you happy? Cheers.

Taking out the pup for repair or replacement with the same style pup will not significantly affect the value of the bass. If you sell it just make sure the original is in it with a simple explanation to prospective buyers.

A while ago in Bassplayer mag there was a review of the 51' telecaster Lindy Frailin replacement . It is a noiseless pickup but I would consider that.

And somewhere buried in a thread are Rodent's recommendations for removing/reducing the smell. Don't ask me where tho, it was posted a long time ago.

Hey guys, thanks for replies.

At first I wasn't so sure about the bass, but I did work on the E string and not going thru the body which helped a bit the sound of that. The PU is really noisy but I did use that bass on a few tv gigs and the results were really good on air if I was careful about my placement with the lights. I'm still thinking about 3 possible PU change. 1) is the LF single coil, 2) LF double coil and 3) the Lollar replacement pu.

As for the smell, it does smell awful, like a smoker's room. I don't like it very much but I'll check it out here. Thanks,

Sylvain