How to Turn a Cheap Glarry Bass into a Killer Bass!

Props for attempting Thundercat!

The way I see it is upgrading a cheap Bass is:- Your trying to get it to a higher standard but your going to end up like Aunt Shea says If you not used to tinkering then you could run into problems and end up costing you more money in the long run which you won't get back if you sell,(all though a good place to start and or learn is on a cheap instrument) BUT then the other way is " CUSTOMISING" you find an Instrument you really like and you're determined to get it the way you want it and hopefully keep it.

It would have been nice to listen to the bass with its original components. so, we could had compare the old version and the new one. This video tells nothing... does it sound better now... does it not? Who knows...

You should have saved your money and not bought those pick ups.

I like the video, but I think you put a little too much into the pickups. That was where most of the money went. For a third the price, you could have gotten much better pickups than the original while keeping the total with upgrade much less than the cheap Squire. I'll probably make these changes on my Glarry... but without the SD pickups. 🙂

I purchased a Klaxton Bass online and received it super quick on Amazon. I had the exact same thoughts, to upgrade it. I now know what to do...Thank You!

I do this every now and then for a side project. The Glarry guitars are great platforms to start with the light bodies and more than adequate necks at the price points. Personally I have found it to be a trial and error process while hunting for "that" tone when it comes to upgrades.

Can you make a cheap guitar sound great? Yes. Is it going to be more costly than a mass manufactured guitar? Yes.

I do like how the video showed the effort and cost put forth for minimal tone difference you got that would likely go unnoticed to most of the population.

IMO it is a great side hobby that will teach you a good bit of maintenance practices and help identify what you do and do not like about the tone of certain basses. Besides, it is always fun to have a unique bass.

IMA buy a Glarry!

Im a Master Luthier, I just got the Glarry H-H Bass. The neck was not fine sanded, the frets were a mess, setup was playable but not done to my standards. Everything else was all right. The humbuckers were very good. The bridge was just fine. So I level/crown/polished the frets, finished the neck, made a brass nut from scrap brass. I had some better pots and stuff around so upgraded those too. Spent no money, its better than any Fender at any price. When the nickel frets ware out I'll put stainless one on it.

If yr one who starts cheap. Play it till you are happy with your experience and accuracy. Give it away then buy a fender or yamaha. Then you'll feel much happier and possibly satisfied with that model. Do not, repeat don't buy expensive if you can't play, or a beginner. If you can't get experience or feel it's not the instrument for you, you haven't burnt a hole in yr pocket. Above all enjoy and love music. 🎵🎵🎵🌈❤

Had you not done it, you never would have known.
Fun project.

Not worth all that Just play!

I love Duncan Qtr. Pound Precision pickups, but not their single coils. Beefy for sure but lacking that Fender squawk. Great video.

Love that Mac Miller thundercat run you did there “you can love it, you can leave it, they say you’re nothing without it”

That is a pretty good list of alteration which should get the bass working pretty well. There are a few more things that I would recommend you do. The first thing is to oil the fretboard. Even through the video the fretboard is looking quite dry. A touch of linn seed oil or lemon oil on a piece of kitchen paper is good for that. If you were feeling fancy you could even use something to give it a bit of a darker stain. Otherwise I always advise people to get strap-locks. They can be had pretty cheap and they are a lot easier than repairs. A decent set of tuners from a quality manufacturer (Wilkinson, Gotoh, etc) would be a decent thing to consider as the cheapo ones you get on these kinds of instrument don't tend to last long. The only other thing is a high mass bridge. This is mostly a visual thing but it can make things easier where it comes to setting up intonation.

How do you remove the knobs💀

Interesting Mod (great effort) ! As you mention the 'lite-weight' of the Glarry is Nice and might be an important consideration for the younger (older) player. Everybody agrees Out of the Box, the basses are setup pretty well, sound okay. and the frets ends probably won't cut your hand.

And you are right, that playing the Glarry, reminds up any money spent on a Fender, is money well spent .

PS Does anybody know what color stain would match that yellowish Glarry finish - want to stain the headstock ?

it would be good of we can see your wiring diagram better but thank you

In that slot under the pick guard you could probably fit a humbucker

I think the differences are minimal.
What does a pu do? It converts mechanical vibrations into electricity. SD does nothing else.

I liked the original pick ups because they have that little extra brightness on top but the Quarter Pounders have that umph on the low end. I have a set of Quarter Pounders on my Classic Vibe 70s jazz 👍

There was negligible difference in sound. I was not impressed with the SD's. I have a Squier Jazz bass I want to do the same thing - nut, pickups and solderless new harness. I have a few Squier guitars (Strats and 2 teles) that have been fully gutted and redone with USA pots/pickups/switches, and they sound killer. I don't like the headstock either and would have paid $50 more for a used Squier J bass as the foundation. But still, it's cool you did it.

I got a Glarry bass too, but I got the set that comes with a strap, cord and amp cab combo. The cord is a major weak link and immediately upgraded. The whole guitar needs a set up out of the box. The bridge ground was upgraded by adding a piece of aluminum tape under it to ground the loose wire from the bridge to the tape, that helps alot. The Pots are pretty trash and make noise, so I shielded the pot cavity. The amp is low volume and I got a suspicion they just rebranded the guitar version to bass. SO I went out and scored a used ampeg 4x10 and a broken Hartke HA5500. Now I got the Amp on my desk like Im some kind of guitar tech amp repair man. AND the Hartke has a hum coming from the bridge non pot. I call them non pots, because they got like a 1/4 of the dial working at best...I just wanted to make cheap bass noises. Big oof.

Now Im in some Hartke amp rabbit hole, where I replaced the toob and the wrong amp fuse and it had a bad Driver AMP Transistor. But its little sister transistor is obv. replaced just up stream with a wrong transistor thats not an equivalent. So waiting for the blown transistor replacement and the upstream equivalents. I'll be testing up stream and down stream to try to isolate whats blown as its "popping fuses dont know whats wrong with it sold as is". But I got a month to sit here and stare at it waiting for these transistors.Not sure if the blown transistors issue was just no thermal paste.

I still think the package deal is a good deal. Because you can give the guitar a setup, replace the guitar to amp cord and ground your strings and make bass noises. Just turn down the bridge pot turn up the other pickup and ground it from the strings with your plucking wrist to "get that tone" which is probably what Bob Marley and the Wailers was doing rather than "hunting tone" ...and now we got foam bass muting, in case your bass doesnt make noises on its own.

He reminds me of a guy who plays on a cop show ..

sometimes the difference its not too far considered to the upgrade price..especially on pickups. stock pickup more open/treble than the new one. But this is really good video to person like me who had cheapo bass.

Squier Affinity isn’t quality

Delano pups and pre for me and any bass upgrade

I did the same to my Glarry jazz bass. Ran into the same issues with plate and knobs. The only thing I did different that made mine a killer bass was the addition of a hip shot bass bridge, Guyker tunig machines and D'Addaro strings. Did the same pickups and a similar electronics package.
Yes it was expensive vs purchasing a Squire or similar price point bass. But Glarry's and a great platform to do upgrades and learn a good deal about setting a up a bass.

I think the SD quarter pounders sound more articulated and robust. I modified a generic J bass similarly with Aguilar humbuckers, high mass bridge, Audere pre-amp and Hipshot lightweight tuners. I'm in it about $600 and it sounds every it as good as my 2012 Jazz Deluxe Active bass. Thanks for the vid! Cheers from Utah

great for buying the wrong things. What a waste

The SDs are clearer and punchier for sure, but the stock p/us are pretty decent if that's all you can afford. Good bass.

Sounds slightly different but not necessarily better. The knobs will feel better but that's about it.

never use flux .

Great before/after info - much appreciated. Just bought this bass and am basically looking at it as a fully-assembled kit bass that I may upgrade later. I'm just hoping the playability can be easily tweaked. Changes to PUs and elx are way down the line. I just need something light (vs. my Am. Deluxe Jazz V!!) that motivates me to practice more. If I can get that for (currently) ~$70, I consider that a win.

cant tell to much of a difference

I have modded several Glarry basses. If you notice it the pickups put in one this video do not line up correctly with the string spacing and they will not... Glarry has out and out refused to give me their specs on string spacing. Good luck trying to find a bridge replacement. Even if you want to get brass saddles they will not fit either because the saddles on the Glarry bridge have such short string spacing. You will have to take each brass saddle and grind them down to fit. If you try and put a standard bridge on these basses your strings will be off the fretboard. Glarry has done themselves a hug disservice to themselves and people who would buy these basses by not having standard specs., You will not find a replacement pickguard either. I have changed the color of these pickguards by buying auto wrap. That works well.
.You will most likely have to keep the pickup covers off the old pickups if you want the new pickups to fit the route which is not standard either. Best idea for replacement pickups are rail type pickups. Otherwise your pole pieces will just be off. On the GIB series their pole pieces don't line up to start with. Glarry is pretty much a hot mess to mod. Just telling you like it is!

i heard boogie W! nice!

Excellent upgrade, great tones. If the neck and the action is nice, I wouldn't hesitate to gig with it.

Stock pickups are not bad but of course sd is awesome

Upgrading a cheap bass to the extent of what you did defeats the joy of it being a cheap bass. The only thing I would have done differently was raise the action if there was fret fuzz, and maybe change the strings if I felt the quality was too low.

Nice video but I don't hear a big difference in sound

Hah. yea as you were modding I was saying to myself that .. this is the point where i would look for better hardware already on the bass I want to get.,. hehe.. The bass does sound really improved tho and now has a great story

Well done! I've upgraded a few Glarry bases and the outcomes, except for one, have been very good - just like yours! Only the 30" Glarry short scale bass was a problem. The word "cheap" describes it best. I've already replaced the guitar pickup (yes, guitar pickup) with an actual jazz bass bass pickup (GFS) and am waiting for a replacement neck to arrive. Although you ran into a few bumps along the way, you ended up with a comfortable bass with excellent sound and good looks. I would suggest that you try upgrading another bass in a while now that you've done it the first time. 😊

I respect the effort and honesty, but this was kind of an endorsement for Glarry because those mods (while better) were not better enough to justify the cost/effort. That cheap bass sounded ok as was.

Plus you can get a new Sire bass for $399 where everything is better for the same price.

I got the cousin to that bass but it’s a P bass and I spent a full day dialing in the neck. It came out very nice. I put a bone nut, new high mass bridge, a deluxe pick guard, upgraded the machine heads, put in some active EMG pickups. It’s enjoyable for me at this stage of my life and l couldn’t be happier with the results. Everything turned out great. I wouldn’t do this one again because it still feels kinda cheap. But, that’s all in my head. It sounds as good as Mexican p bass. I just feel a little more comfortable with the real thing and l believe spending the extra money compelled me to get much better and over the last fifty plus years of playing l have an extensive array of gear. Thanks for your video

Wait til you see that the 6 string version is also, 100$

No bridge upgrade?

It was an entertaining video, but to me the bass sounded just fine for the price, and it seems like the upgrades only real value would be for a fun project, and or bragging rights (which is cool also), so if I want to upgraded my Glarry, I will just sell it and put the $ towards a name brand bass. Thanks for the video and your insights!

The new pickups are a big improvement 👍

Any kind of file that tapers can be used to enlarge a hole in a scratchplate. Stick it in and twirl it around 😊