MythSte Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 With a good setup, and in extreme cases, a neck shim - Any bass can play just as good as any other. (not ignoring the neck size/dimension, but thats so subjective) /Discuss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musky Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 Hmm... I bought a new Precision in 82 - it would have needed the fretboard removed and the neck planed to make it play as it should. So experience tells me no. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywalker Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 No Some basses are just plain crap. I had one, all the setup in the world was never going to make it good, eventually a new neck sorted it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slaphappygarry Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 I agree as far as feel, but sound wise its not such a great theory. Most of the players sound comes from right hand and its position. No neck shim or set up will keep that happy. G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merton Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 No. The quality of woods affects the stabilty and tone, the quality of the hardware also plays a part, and most of all teh qualit yof the workmanship on the frets will have a massive effect. I've played a gorgeous Wal with the lowest action ever with zero buzz, yet my cheap J copy could never be as low even if I threw hundreds of pounds at it. Conversely, I've just had my Groove 5 set up and is now an equal to that Wal, but that was a far better built bass in the first place.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lfalex Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 (edited) [quote name='Merton' post='61914' date='Sep 17 2007, 09:26 PM']No. The quality of woods affects the stabilty and tone, the quality of the hardware also plays a part, and most of all teh qualit yof the workmanship on the frets will have a massive effect. I've played a gorgeous Wal with the lowest action ever with zero buzz, yet my cheap J copy could never be as low even if I threw hundreds of pounds at it. Conversely, I've just had my Groove 5 set up and is now an equal to that Wal, but that was a far better built bass in the first place....[/quote] I'd agree with that. [i]Theoretically[/i] any given neck could be adjusted, planed, sanded, crowned, dressed and levelled to the same physical dimensions as any other, but the very fact that they're (generally) made of wood means each will react differently to humidity and temperature changes, and each will have varying rigidity and stability accordingly. This in turn may impact upon tone and the frequency with which the neck needs adjustment to keep it playing as well as possible. In my experience, good things in necks include; Graphite / Carbon Fibre reinforcement - Stiffness and stability. Phenolic or Ebonol fretboards - Amelioration of dead spots (and they're stiff and tough, too) Zero frets - Excellent for intonation accuracy, helps prevent nut wear & tear, can help to give a consistently low action across the neck. Edited September 17, 2007 by Lfalex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MythSte Posted September 18, 2007 Author Share Posted September 18, 2007 wonderful replies! As you can see, it was just one of those things that came to me whilst staring away into yonder regions. =) From personal experiance, it seems that mid range basses can be made to play aswell as high mid range basses, but absoloute low and high simply cannot be matched Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha-Dave Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 No. I bought a £60 (new) Lindo bass off ebay for a uni project. The truss rod snapped as soon as I tried to get the action down! Fortunately I only needed the neck, but that thing was an utter POS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul, the Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 (edited) The neck on my Samick is a [b]much[/b] nicer shape than my jazz neck. Having said that, my hand catches on the nut and the fingerboard is horrible (could just be dirt). I could probably get all these things sorted but I really don't think the guitar is worth it. -- Yes, you could probably buy some decent quality parts cheap and put them together with a nice piece of wood and come away with a professional instrument. But the hassle of visiting luthiers and making mistakes with hardware is a real pain. Plus, if it's your only bass you're modding you could be left for a long time bassless. It would be interesting to see whether anyone has a seriously good instrument that is somewhat custom in terms of playability and feel without the bank balance imploding. Edited September 18, 2007 by paul, the Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MythSte Posted September 18, 2007 Author Share Posted September 18, 2007 Well i had an old encore, I put a Card (The ace of spades, in fact) in the neck, and twiddled about with the truss and action, mainly as a sort of excuse to fiddle. but when i had finished it played just as nice as any mim fender. (but i suppose thats not saying huge amounts! ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krysbass Posted September 19, 2007 Share Posted September 19, 2007 [quote name='Alpha-Dave' post='62181' date='Sep 18 2007, 03:21 PM']No. I bought a £60 (new) Lindo bass off ebay for a uni project. The truss rod snapped as soon as I tried to get the action down! Fortunately I only needed the neck, but that thing was an utter POS.[/quote] I also bought a new "Raypierrre B4" bass off ebay for about £70 for my son. The truss rod later proved to have no adjustment left, so now the strings are about 10mm off the fretboard and the thing is unplayable. Shame is, the individual parts of this bass are OK quality and before the neck went banana-shaped it had a nice, if not particualarly variable, tone. Where it all falls apart is that whoever was tasked with putting it all together evidently wasn't told they were supposed to be making a working bass guitar. The moral of this tale has to be that you get what you pay for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimD Posted September 19, 2007 Share Posted September 19, 2007 [quote name='ste_m3' post='61862' date='Sep 17 2007, 08:06 PM']With a good setup, and in extreme cases, a neck shim - Any bass can play just as good as any other. (not ignoring the neck size/dimension, but thats so subjective) /Discuss [/quote] Depends how you define "play"... Your thought makes me imagine we're discussing a mythical point where "a bass" becomes "a bass for all seasons" that suits every type of music, style of playing, and style of player. I don't think such a thing exists (though some basses do come close). A setup can make any instrument play better, and the satisfaction from tweaking something deemed-to-be-not-so-good, and making it better, is very satisfying. But "how a bass should play" is a personal thing that is more to do with how a player plays, so even if there was a set of undisputable rules that made for "perfect playing", it wouldn't suit everyone. I have a Westone Superheadless bass; headless, neck-through, with active jazz pickups. It "plays" brilliantly (very little buzz, stays in tune, intonates well) and is probably my "best" bass. But I can't play punk on it - it just doesn't work well for that at all, and I don't think I could set it up to do that either - it is just not suited to that style. I have another theory that is related and yet unrelated, and that is that what feels "right" to "play" in an instrument goes way beyond the setup and takes into account facets all of our senses. One day I'll postulate it properly and post it for 'pinions... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ped Posted September 19, 2007 Share Posted September 19, 2007 [quote name='Krysbass' post='62611' date='Sep 19 2007, 12:39 PM']I also bought a new "Raypierrre B4" bass off ebay for about £70 for my son. The truss rod later proved to have no adjustment left, so now the strings are about 10mm off the fretboard and the thing is unplayable. Shame is, the individual parts of this bass are OK quality and before the neck went banana-shaped it had a nice, if not particualarly variable, tone. Where it all falls apart is that whoever was tasked with putting it all together evidently wasn't told they were supposed to be making a working bass guitar. The moral of this tale has to be that you get what you pay for.[/quote] Thats a shame. You might be able to get more mileage from the truss rod if you stick some washers on it to give you extra adjustment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Burpster Posted September 19, 2007 Share Posted September 19, 2007 This doesnt take into account that some necks, wont intonate properly or have flat spots. Fotunately I have not had one but they must be frustrating as hell to own. With enough time and effort most intsruments could be made to play acceptibly, however how much time and effort is necassary must be taken into the equation..... eg where does modding or tweaking end and re building start? B. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MB1 Posted September 20, 2007 Share Posted September 20, 2007 (edited) MB1. "You cant polish a turd!"....... however disposing of said turd adequately, ussually means nobody else has to waste there time trying ,either! Edited September 20, 2007 by MB1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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