0:00 Stock Yamaha neck pickup tone before modification
0:53 Stock Yamaha bridge pickup tone before modification
1:15 Upgrade process
2:09 New Wilkinson neck pickup tone
2:59 New Wilkinson MM bridge pickup tone

So, I really love the P-bass tone of the Fret-King Perception bass that you can see in my other videos. When recording with it, it always sounds right. I just can't get over my discontent with the big P-bass neck. I just got this Yamaha BB434 specifically because I wanted that tone, but with a Jazz bass neck. I looked at what Fender offered with that setup, and have also been seeing lots of boutique basses with a MM pickup in the bridge position, but they weren't passive. Well, all I needed to do was this.

►Replace the Yamaha's V5 pickups that lacked focus.
►Replace the bridge with one with brass saddles - see below
►Rout out a larger pickup cavity for the MM style pickup
►Replace a pot with a Push-pull one for series/parallel (Music Man tone = parallel). Mine came with Alpha pots that seem to be of good quality.

The enlarged pickup cavity is placed so the pole pieces nearest the bridge sit at the 70's Fender Jazz bass pickup location. The new push-pull pot is in the bridge volume location and the parallel tone is with the knob down. You could use a 3-position toggle switch for splitting the coils for a true single-coil Jazz pickup tone, but I chose not to since I already have a Jazz Bass.

You need a small pattern router bit. 1/2" x 1/2" worked for me. I pre-drilled most of the cavity with a forstner bit and left a chunk so I could chisel it out to use afterward in the spot where the jazz pickup removal left a void. While I was at it, I even made little markers on the knobs with a Dremel and some craft paint.

Everything is a breeze if you have some wood-working and soldering skills.
Yamaha's string-through-body bridge isn't a Fender design. The intonation screw holes are spaced 1mm different than a Fender replacement one, so swapping just saddles poses some misalignment, where the screws and saddles aren't perfectly straight. I had a bridge with brass saddles sitting around, and I drilled more holes through it so strings-through-body is available. This bass was on sale, and for less than $550 total it's like having a Yamaha custom shop bass! I don't love the pickguard though, so it's staying off.

The slaps at the end are the MM pickup only, tone at about 75%.

Parts purchased:
Wilkinson Premium WPB Alnico V P-bass pickup
Wilkinson MWM4 MM-style humbucker pickup
A250k ohm Push-pull pot
MM pickup template
shielding paint
Neoprene ($2 mouse pad) for pickup support

Thanks for watching. Please tell me what you think.

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