The Jazz Fretless partscaster started as a Squire Jazz with a fake Fender Fretless neck. I traded an old amp for it, thinking I would probably not be able to play fretless well enough to warrant investing into a proper instrument. Soon I discovered this bass was practically unplayable due to a defective truss rod, but that didn’t deter me from exploring other possibilities of customizing it into a proper instrument.
- Original neck replacement with a custom-made Precision maple/rosewood neck (from China). Decently priced, massive and straight.
- Bridge replacement with a heavy chrome badass-type.
- Pickups replacement with Fender Noiseless
- Controls and plate/knobs replacement, with an Artec preamp with split frequency controls. Fitting the battery inside the body cavity was a challenge. The holes needed to have screw inserts placed in to hold the whole rig solidly with hex screws.
- Pickguard (the ugliest tortoise) replacement with a transparent one, the positioning is overlapping a bit with the controls plate but that’s minor.
In the end it’s a rich sounding custom Fretless Jazz, I like the wider P-bass style neck more than the Jazz thin standard. The neck is a bit thick and heavily lacquered but the playability is great, the action is super low and almost no friction. The bass is heavy enough to knock down walls.