No love for the bottom?

[dabbler]

[
Oohh. How many quotes can we nest on this sw?

I suspected the bridge at first so I tried
To really lock it down when plucking. I mostly proved to myself that wasn't the prob. I then suspected the truss rod actually. But I never figured it out. Maybe it's not possible to lock the bridge down enough with those fat strings.

Not having channels for the height screws at least on the E (or B) and G strings does tend to allow things to move around. So I shimmed my necks so that, when set up for reasonable action, the intonation screws were pretty much parallel with the base of the bridge. For me, that gave enough down force on the saddles to make them pretty much stay put.

Of course, YMMV.

We lost our quote nesting. I guess 4 is the limit?

No, actually I deleted the other messages to conserve bits.

[dabbler]

Honestly, I think the Gotoh 201 is just as useful as the BadAss bridges. Really, it's more about saddle side movement than the mass of the bridge, tbh.

And the 2 main things that determine whether or not you have excessive side-saddle movement (see what I did?) are the presence or absence of something constraining saddle side movement and string down-force on the saddles.

[Mossman]

Why no on the badass now? I've thought about adding something like that if I get back into bass. My fav bass is my p/j kawai and it has some type of big cast bridge and it is an outstanding bass. Dont remember if its a badass.

I'm not down on it. It's just not a "must-have" mod anymore. A Badass bridge can do a world of good for a bass that sounds lifeless, but if your bass doesn't really need it, installing a Badass won't make it sound much better.

I used to slap a Badass on as a matter of course, because the first time I used one it really made a dull-sounding Jazz Bass come to life. But after a while, I started to wonder if it really made a difference on my other basses, so I conducted an ad-hoc experiment, and recorded one of my SX basses with the stock, bent metal bridge, a Gotoh 201 high mass bridge, and a Badass. The Gotoh and the Badass sounded almost identical. The bent metal bridge sounded a little different, but by no means "bad". It sounded just as lively and bright, and sustained almost as long. I then realized that I would be happy with any one of those bridges, and the Badass kinda lost some of its shine. I still used a Badass on that bass (and another bass after that), but that was mostly because I bought them, I might as well use them. They still sound good an look cool, I just no longer consider them absolutely necessary.

It's just as well, because they don't make them anymore (though there's always the "Omega" bridge), and the last time I was buying up Badasses, they were starting to get hard to find for a reasonable price. I never paid more than $50 for one, but they were starting to go for $80 for a used one. They eventually got up to about $110 average (new) price, but that was several years ago. I don't know how much they're going for now, or even if there are any available anymore.

[Mossman]

Honestly, I think the Gotoh 201 is just as useful as the BadAss bridges. Really, it's more about saddle side movement than the mass of the bridge, tbh.

I agree. I'll take either one and be fine with it.

[MattFireblade]

This is my current bass gear, not pictured is my LDS 212/6.5 because it's buried under boxes in the basement right now.

Basses: Schecter Model T with a Squier VM Jazz neck, Lakland Skyline 44-60, SUB Ray4
Amps/Cabs: Peavey VB-2, Ampeg SVT-210AV, Trace Elliot V4, Trace Elliot ELF
Pedals: Peterson StroboStomp HD, Darkglass Microtubes X, and not pictured is my Line6 G30 wireless and Zoom B3

[Gear_Junky]

Today is "old photos of old instruments digging out day"

This is an SX SPB fretless (can't remember if it's "62" or "57" or whatever).
Tonerider vintage P-pickup, love the tone.

[eicca]

I busted my bass out tonight for the first bit of reasonably serious practice in a looooong time. I forgot how fun that is.

I'm still a little shocked how seemingly nice my bass is. No idea exactly WHAT it is though. I bought it for $100 eleven years ago. My closest guess is a Carvin kit. No numbers, markings, nothing of any identifying sort. It plays with extremely nice feel, but need to take the plunge and learn to re-wire it. The pots do nothing and it buzzes. PIckups sound great though, good and clear with lots of bite and nice tight rumble. It's a P-bass neck pickup and jazz bridge pickup, two pots and a toggle. The toggle does work.

Any bass experts have an off-the-top-of-head idea about my bass's origins?

Trying to figure out uploading a pic...

[eicca]

Here we go. I believe this is called a PJ. I bought it 100% because of the paint job.

[MattFireblade]

Definitely not a Carvin. Looks like a Chinese house-brand PJ, akin to a Rogue or so, from what I can tell. The 7 screw bridge is a giveaway there. Other than that, I'm not sure. I've seen that headstock before, I just cannot for the life of me place the brand. I feel like it starts with an S.

[dabbler]

Today is "old photos of old instruments digging out day"

This is an SX SPB fretless (can't remember if it's "62" or "57" or whatever).
Tonerider vintage P-pickup, love the tone.

image.png
image.png

Oh yeah! Burst and maple is a good look!