Rig Rundown
A full rundown of the '75 Jazz Bass, mods, setup specs, and pedalboard I use to cover the tonal range worship and CCM sets demand, from hushed ambient passages to full-band anthemic choruses.
A full rundown of the '75 Jazz Bass, mods, setup specs, and pedalboard I use to cover the tonal range worship and CCM sets demand, from hushed ambient passages to full-band anthemic choruses.
This is the full rundown of the rig I bring to worship and CCM sets (and the occasional secular gig)—covering the Bass Guitar itself, the Modifications that shape its voice, my Setup specs, and the Pedalboard that carries the signal to front-of-house. Bass Guitar covers my main '75 Jazz Bass and the Fender Custom Shop PJ I'm fundraising for. Modifications trades noise and inconsistency for quiet, hum-cancelling pickups, higher-fidelity wiring, a mass-loaded bridge for sustain, and a flatwound/roundwound string swap I use to shift between warmer and brighter voicings depending on the song. Setup dials in the neck relief, action, pickup heights, and intonation that keep that tone consistent and comfortable to play across a full set. Pedalboard rounds it out with compression and EQ shaping—plus a touch of overdrive—that takes the bass from clean and controlled in ambient moments to full and driven in anthemic choruses. Together, it's a rig built less around one fixed tone and more around a range: quiet enough to disappear into an in-ear mix during a hushed bridge, and present enough to cut through a full band at the height of a chorus.
Neck Relief Adjustments
With a capo on the first fret and while fretting the 15th fret (the joining point between the neck and the body), I adjust the neck relief via the truss rod so that a business card can slip in with just enough clearance—roughly 0.010" to 0.012". This very slight forward bow (nearly straight) gives each string just enough room to swing through its widest arc without rattling against the upper frets. Too little relief and notes choke out in buzz; too much and the action creeps up everywhere else. That narrow window is what lets the rest of the setup—low action, low pickup heights—work without introducing fret buzz.
Neck Micro-Tilt Adjustment
The 3-bolt neck plate's Micro-Tilt screw lets me fine-tune the neck angle without pulling the neck and shimming it by hand. Dialing in the angle here is what actually unlocks the low action downstream: it sets the string's overall trajectory off the nut so the Hipshot MassKicker's saddles can sit low without bottoming out or fighting the neck angle for clearance. Get this wrong and you're chasing action problems at the bridge that were never a bridge problem to begin with.
Bridge Saddle Adjustments for Low Action
Rather than an aggressive finger plucking attack on my strings, I typically have a softer touch. Because my strings won't require a ton of room to oscillate, I can set my action to be low—the strings sit close enough to the fingerboard that fretting takes less effort and fast passages, hammer-ons, and pull-offs all feel quicker under the hand. Paired with the flatwounds, that low clearance keeps the attack smooth and quiet rather than clacky, which matters when the bass is sitting close in an in-ear mix. My target string to 17th fret clearance heights are:
- Low E: 5/64"
- A: ~5.5/64"
- D: ~5.5/64"
- High G: 5/64"
Pickup Heights
While fretting the 20th (last) fret, the following pickup heights were set for the Lindy Fralin Split Jazz pickups. Setting the bridge pickup equal to the neck balances their naturally uneven output, so blending or switching between them sounds cohesive rather than one side jumping out. The bass-side/treble-side split on each pickup also follows the strings' own output curve—thicker strings move more air and need a touch more clearance to avoid pulling on the string magnetically, thinner strings sit closer to stay present in the mix. Getting this close, rather than backing pickups off for headroom, is what keeps the tone full and detailed without needing to compensate for it later at the amp.
- Neck Bass: 10/64"
- Neck Treble: 8/64"
- Bridge Bass: 10/64"
- Bridge Treble: 8/64"
Bridge Intonation Adjustments
I set intonation last, after pickup heights, since pickups sitting too close to the strings pull on them magnetically and can throw off pitch—doing this out of order would mean chasing intonation that drifts again once the pickups are adjusted. With the bass freshly tuned, I compare the open string's 12th-fret harmonic against the fretted 12th-fret note on each string. If the fretted note rings sharp, the saddle moves back (lengthening the string); if it rings flat, the saddle moves forward—on the MassKicker's individually adjustable saddles, a quick turn of the intonation screw at the back of the bridge. Because the neck relief, low action, and pickup heights are already dialed in, string tension and pull stay consistent while I adjust, so intonation doesn't drift out again once it's set. This is what keeps the bass sounding genuinely in tune with itself up and down the neck, not just at the open string—octaves stack cleanly, and notes fretted higher up the board land true against keys and vocals in the mix, rather than creeping sharp the further up you play.