5 Z-mode preamp for Jazz Style Basses with the Jack on the Body Side

The JZ5D models are an expansion to our popular JZ3 preamps. New Z-mode combinations are offered by replacing the 3 way micro toggle switch with a 5 way rotary switch. The JZ3 preamp allows both pickups to be put in High, Mid, and Low Z-Modes. The JZ5D extends these 3 choices; the 1st new configuration offered is High Z-Mode on the bridge pickup combined with a less bright Low Z-Mode on the neck pickup. The 2nd additional new configuration offers High Z-Mode on the bridge pickup combined with a "standard" mid Z-Mode on the neck. These new combined Z-Mode selections extend the palette of interesting sounds available to the player especially as he pans between the 2 pickups.

The JZ5D preamps come completely outfitted to make installation simple and are designed to replace a standard Jazz Bass style control plate with a side mounted cord jack. The battery connections are soldered together but not insulated as shown in the 2nd picture below. This is to make installation easier for basses with a rear mounted battery box.

To make the JZ5D preamps as affordable as possible, we offer the same control options as the JZ3.

• Volume, Mid/Balance stack, Treble/Bass stack, Z-mode switch & LED meter (shown in photo) or
• Volume, Volume, Treble/Bass stack, Z-mode switch, & LED meter (not shown)

Both versions use the same high quality design and components as our JZ3 and our 3ZB configurable preamps and have the LED battery level indicator. Most important, they both feature our Z-Mode Impedance level control, delivering 5 selectable bass voices with clarity and definition.

Further on you'll find more information about these additional features:

• Low Z gain adjustment with single turn pots and
• High Z Capacitors that are socketed so that you have the option of changing their value, which optimizes the Frequency peak location.

Installation is easy: remove your old plate and side jack, insert the new switched jack into the side of the bass, insert the pickup wires into the green connector and tighten the screws, attach the ground wire to your bridge & cavity ground wires with a crimp connection, insulate the crimp connection, drop the battery and plate into the cavity (take care here to be sure the battery is positioned in the board cut-out and no wires are trapped) then screw in the 3 plate screws. In some installations you will need to solder connections to the batteries in your existing battery box. For more info read the Installation Instructions.

Standard Sized Cavities

The current American Fender Jazz Bass has a cavity that measures approximately: 1.19"wide at the top (some cavity narrow slightly at the jack end), 1.27" deep, and 5.17" long.

Most jazz style basses including current Fenders made in Mexico and Japan have this same cavity size. A few other brands may be different and some older Fender basses, especially vintage models, may vary from these dimensions.

When you check the size of your cavity, our preamp needs cavity dimensions of: 1.1" wide, 1.2" deep and 4.8" long.

Volume Controls

The standard knob configuration for a passive Jazz Bass is volume, volume, and a treble roll off. If you like having separate volume controls for each pickup then we offer separate volumes with Treble and Bass active tone controls.

The standard configuration for most active basses includes volume and balance controls. If you like this configuration, we offer this with Treble, Mid and Bass tone controls. You will notice our balance control is actively buffered so it will be very smooth in its operation as you pan between the pickups.

More info - JZ Volume Controls

Tone Controls

In the JZ5D product you get either a 2 or 3 band tone control depending on configuration

2 band tone controls:
  Bass is shelving +/- 13 dB at 100 Hz
  Treble is shelving +/- 14.5 dB at 2.5 KHz

3 band tone controls:
  Bass is shelving +/- 12 dB at 80 Hz
  Mid is wide bandwidth +/- 10 dB at 470 Hz
  Treble is shelving +/- 10 dB at 3.7 KHz

All of the tone control pots have center detents where the response is flat.
More info - JZ Active Tone Controls

Battery

The preamp uses and ships with a standard 9 volt battery. A high quality battery should last just over 300 hours in this preamp. More info - Battery FAQ

All of our preamps feature a very useful LED battery power meter. The meter operates for a few seconds when the cable is first plugged in to let you know about the batteries status. More info - JZ Battery Meter

Flexibility

Replaceable capacitors - Pickups vary in their signal response and most have a high frequency peak when loaded with high impedance (you can read about it on our High Z page). The JZ3 allows you to change the location of that peak in High Z-mode by changing the amount of capacitance loading the pickup in the circuit, independently for each pickup. Each pickup channel has a socketed capacitor that can be changed, which changes the location of the peak frequency. You can see a bridge cap in the picture on the right. Optimized for stock US Fender Jazz pickups, JZ3 comes with 660 pF (encoded as 681) loading the neck pickup and 330 pF (331) loading the bridge pickup. To make changing your pickup's high frequency peak location we offer a kit of 10 cap values as an option.

Gain adjustment - In the Low Z Mode, the signal response of pickup changes 10:1 depending on how the pickups were constructed. The picture to the right shows a gain adjustment for the Low Z-Mode. If you want more gain, turn the gain adjustment for that pickup clockwise. If less gain is required turn counter clockwise. It is a relative gain control - it does not affect the frequency response of the pickup but due to the way humans hear we need lots of volume or sound pressure level to hear low notes. So adjusting the gain up will make your bass appear to be getting lower when actually it is just making the existing lower frequencies more audible. This is why this adjustment is for Low Z only. Stock US Fender Jazz pickups have the correct gain when the control is set to about 9:30 and this is how units are shipped.

Already Changed Out Your Pickups?

Our technology works great with all of the common upgrade pickups except active EMG pickups. Common customer replacement pickups we see include Nordstrand, Bartolini, Fralin, Basslines, DiMarzio and various forms of the Fender custom shop pickups.

NOTE: To use our preamp, you must have PASSIVE PICKUPS, meaning that the pickup does NOT have a semiconductor component in it (transistor, op-amp etc). If you are uncertain about your pickups, check with the manufacturer or send Sales an email

There are additional details on the controls and installation in the FAQs.

Configurations, Pricing and Ordering

Fender Jazz Bass is a trademark of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Audere Audio has no affiliation with them.