How Far Can One Modify An Electric Bass?

Try this one - one I did many years back...

This is an Ibanez copy of a Fender Jazz Bass that I heavily modified - I re-sculpted and refinished the body neck of the instrument (handmade, burgundy oil finish on the body), replaced the cheapo Ibanez bridge with a heavy Badass brand bridge, and completely overhauled the electronics.

The original instrument had two pickups, two tone knobs and a volume knob. I wanted to see how far I could go with it, so I replaced the bass pickups with panning ones, added two hum bucking guitar pickups (typically used in jazz guitars), and swapped the electronics so each pair of pickups had it's own set of volume and tone knobs.

I also added phase shifting switches for each pair of pickups, and configured the entire electronics package to run in either mono or stereo. That modification meant that, in the studio or with two amplifiers, two strings would play on the left, while the others would play on the right... all with the flick of a switch. Very cool with the slapping/popping style I used.

I ended up adjusting the bridge for use with piccolo strings (one octave higher than on a standard bass). The tone of that instrument is so close to that of a semi-hollow body jazz guitar it's scary. And, just for fun, I crafted the instrument's pick guard out of an old road sign that blew down outside of the shop after a storm...