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Neck heavy bass.


lee4
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If you do end up forking out for new tuners, I recommend the Gotoh GB640 instead as the will fit right where your heavy tuners are as they are vintage style and they look the biz with the tall stems. Plus they are still insanely light enough to solve your problem (I've got some on another bass). They are £140(!) from Allparts but £100 from Thomann below (plus postage that is)

Sounds crazy I know spending money on a relatively inexpensive bass but they are good those Tony Butlers, they just don't say 'by Fender' on them that's all.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/gotoh_gb_640_bass_mechanik_set.htm

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I had terrible neck-dive issues with my previous bass (Warwick Thumb). This is caused by the balance point of the bass being off-set by the short top horn. This also makes the 1st fret feel far away. All very fatigue inducing really. As much as I loved that bass, and percivered with straps, playing positions etc, it had to let it go. I now play a bass which sits where it should and gives me ache-free playing.

Getting a better balanced instrument is the ultimate answer really.

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I'm learning to live with the difference between the Butler and the Groove,and I'm becoming a total P-bass convert!
Eventually I will get some lighter tuners,in addition to the cream pup covers that I'm after.
As a bandmate of mine said "Moves some air,does'nt it!".....

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  • 7 years later...
On 11/07/2013 at 10:02, BigRedX said:

I don't get this. The bass should just be a P-Bass copy and therefore shouldn't balance any better or worse then any other P-Bass. How much does the whole bass weigh?

The weight and balance of Ps and their copies is all over the place. Same with Js, Ricks, loads of stuff. 

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On 14/07/2013 at 21:28, 4 Strings said:

[quote name='Mottlefeeder' timestamp='1373667020' post='2140516']
For a Warwick 5-string Corvette with a Swamp Ash body and Ovankol neck, I needed an extension of about 1.5 inches (about 35mm),

David
[/quote]

35mm, really? That's a long way and I'm surprised Warwick would make such an unbalanced bass. 

My take from this is you haven’t played a lot of Warwicks.😉 some balance fine, but many don’t IME. 

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  • 1 year later...

Hi. Any more comments welcome, I've just bought a G&L Fallout Tribute short scale and I absolutely love it, it's perfect ... but it wants to hang several degerees below my optimum balance point. I really don't want to return this guitar and start agian. I've ordered a wide grippy strap, and I've seen Jay Lamm's video re. contructing a back-end counterbalance, anyone else got any ideas? Extending the top horn button mounting seems neglected ...

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Get some lead, melt it in a cooking pot, and then pour the melted lead down in the control cavity and weight for it to set... :i-m_so_happy:

 

Alternatively, if you don't want to completely ruin the bass (and the cooking pot), get a handful of lead weights, the kind used for fishing, put them in a small bag made out of fabric and secure them to a corner of the control cavity with gaffatape.

 

 

Edited by Baloney Balderdash
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4 hours ago, 64stratopete said:

Hi. Any more comments welcome, I've just bought a G&L Fallout Tribute short scale and I absolutely love it, it's perfect ... but it wants to hang several degerees below my optimum balance point. I really don't want to return this guitar and start agian. I've ordered a wide grippy strap, and I've seen Jay Lamm's video re. contructing a back-end counterbalance, anyone else got any ideas? Extending the top horn button mounting seems neglected ...

Presumably the USA built version (which is usually around the same weight range as the Tributes) does balance .... and that will have their lightweight tuners. My USA LB-100 has those lightweight tuners and balances perfectly — despite weighing only 7 lbs 0.

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Def one of my pet hates. 2 things:

 

- I put Hipshot Ultralite licensed tuners on a Fallout Tribute and it completely fixed the neck dive, and/or

- I had a little strap button extender made for a Fender Dimension once that also completely fixed its neck dive.

 

Oh, also, I have a Fullerton Deluxe Fallout now (which has a slightly lighter body that the Tribute had) and it had a tiny bit of neck heaviness, but a Dunlop Straplock button (and a bit of a homemade extension using Presta value nuts from bike inner tubes!) has pretty much fixed it.  It seems to be about a lot about where that strap button is in relation to the 12th fret. 

 

It’s possible I’m a bit obsessed by this problem…..

DB83302D-90A0-4B62-ABCB-FB5856786CCC.jpeg

8BC04065-9885-44C7-B495-0F1D53602F13.jpeg

1AD3723C-5854-4368-B5DA-3F6915C8DAD1.jpeg

Edited by dmckee
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I have a real weighty aluminium bass vi/ baritone that suffers from neck dive with a normal strap. I bought a Mono Betty strap and it’s completely cured the neck dive and has made the guitar comfortable to play for long rehearsals. I can’t say it’ll sort your problem out for sure but I was really surprised at the difference it made for me. I went for the short strap. 

Edited by mononick
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I really don’t like the idea of adding counterbalancing weights to a bass body but that’s possibly because I am old with joint issues. Talking of neck dive:  I really like my Squier Jaguar H, which makes a great bass (with a few mods) for not much money but it dives badly. It seems to be a design fault with the Jaguar body shape. The top horn needs to be longer: at least reaching the 12th fret. It is quite heavy as well. If anything I would like to route some chambers in the body under the pickguard to get rid of some of that weight but that would make the neck dive problem even worse.  I think the only answer is a ridiculously long strap button. It’s not going to look good.

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As an alternative to moving the neck strap-point to the left, you could try moving the bridge strap point to the left. 

Take the bridge strap end off the bass, thread  a shoelace/bootlace through the strap keyhole and tie the 'lace ends to the existing strap buttons. Slide the moveable end of the strap towards the fixed end, and note the point where the bass sits right for you. 

Take the 'lace off, tie a loop in it to fix the position of the strap end and put it back on the bass.

It's cheap, discreet, and removable if it doesn't work for you.

David

Edited by Mottlefeeder
clarity
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