Fender didn't have what I wanted

For most of my music career I have gotten used to the feel of my beatuful, ergonomic Fender Jazz bass. I've used it for nearly every single gig since about 1998. While I really do love that bass, when I listened to certain songs or certain styles I know that they'll have used a Precision bass and, like many before me, I always yearned for that specific rich, warm, full, well-rounded sound of the Precision.

One of my absolute favourite types of music is that 60s, Motown Records sound; usually featuring James Jamerson or Carol Kaye on bass. Both players would, more often than not, default to the P-Bass - usually with the use of a mute at the bridge end to give it that boom and (in Jamerson's case at least) to try to replicate the sound of the double basses he was used to.

But the Precision still has universal appeal and it's a sound that so many artists and producers alike have gotten so used to.

I can of course do the old J-Bass trick of rolling off the bridge pick-up, using the neck pick-up alone to sounds closer to the P-Bass, and I often I do. But there's just something about the Precision that's hard to replicate properly.

So I decided one day that the time had come for me to finally take the plunge.

However, being as I was much more comfortable with the thinner neck of the Jazz Bass I was a little reticent to just buy a standard P-Bass. I know that Fender do offer a J/P Bass, but their model features the additional Jazz style pick-up which I wasn't so interested in, partly because I wanted to more closely replicate the Precision body shape and partly for the original's elegant simplicity. Additionally, none of the Fender J/P models on the market came in the colour I had in mind. So the future was clear: I'll just build my own.

With the tireless assistance of my defacto luthier, Steve Hawker (details below), I started putting together a list of all the parts I would need...

They started by sending me a choice of 3 blocks of wood from which the body would be cut. I opted for the block with the nicest grain as I wanted ultimately to be able to see it through the finish.

Then that all important Jazz style neck. It's a 70's style official Fender Jazz neck to match the neck on my current bass. Purchased on eBay.

The first thing was the 60s Precision shape body.

It's a single piece of American swamp ash (as opposed to the composites that you often find) I purchased this from Guitarbuild, who were great.

As for the machine heads...

Naturally, one of the main events is the choice of pick-up. After some research I opted for Aguilar AG 4P-60s. These were a natural choice given the sound I was after. They're designed after the pre-CBS Precision style bass, for that 60s sound.

First sound test

It's getting there...

The company that Steve found for the body colouration was Wutone. This type of finish does not hermetically seal the wood. This way the wood can breath and age quicker, so it will lose its moisture and get to that older, woody tone we love so much.

Full discretion - when I first got this back from the workshop it had more of a metalic tone than I was expecting, partly down to the brand new strings of course - and something was happening with the harmonics which almost seemed to add a subtle upper octave to the notes.

But that seemed to fix itself after a very short time after the wood and strings had time to settle.

I now use this on the vast majority of my song productions.

Added to this was the bridge. Steve insisted on 'bell metal' - for the tone.

Schaller seemed like the obvious choice.

Steve Hawker is an excellent luthier working out of Bristol, England, without whose expertise I would not have been able to get this done.

Steve offers general setups and maintenance on all acoustic and electric guitars and basses.