Vintage Bridge vs Hi Mass Bridge

[WHUFC BASS]

1 hour ago, MichaelDean said:

I do!

 

What if I want a note to ring out for 2/4/8/16 bars? I need the sustain for the music I play. I don't want a thumpy tone of flats and foam. Never have. Not sure if I'd even want to play the music that needs that tone. 

 

Trust me mate, a Hi-mass bridge won't get you there, you need either a 35" scale neck, a multi-scale neck, or a some kind of sustain pedal. 

 

And if you own the Dingwall in your avatar you should be able to get that kind of sustain ... and guess what? No BBOT, Badass or Hipshot in sight ....

Edited September 3, 2023 by WHUFC BASS

[Count Bassy]

2 minutes ago, WHUFC BASS said:

 

Trust me mate, a Hi-mass bridge won't get you there, you need either a 35" scale neck, a multi-scale neck, or a some kind of sustain pedal. 

Or a keyboard!

[BassAdder60]

8 hours ago, MichaelDean said:

I do!

 

What if I want a note to ring out for 2/4/8/16 bars? I need the sustain for the music I play. I don't want a thumpy tone of flats and foam. Never have. Not sure if I'd even want to play the music that needs that tone. 

Me neither .. a thumpy tone of flats and foam is great for some genres but for me a sustained clear ringing note from roundwounds is my aim ( rock )

 

Playing with a pick is also helpful with this as is correct EQ at the amp 

[SH73]

I have three, two came with a bass. But I can't tell the difference between the classic p bass or high mass bridge when playing.I play strings not the bridge. It's like comparing a tone on a vintage Olympic white Vs lacquer finished mustard colour bass.

Edited September 4, 2023 by SH73
.

[MichaelDean]

7 hours ago, WHUFC BASS said:

 

Trust me mate, a Hi-mass bridge won't get you there, you need either a 35" scale neck, a multi-scale neck, or a some kind of sustain pedal. 

 

And if you own the Dingwall in your avatar you should be able to get that kind of sustain ... and guess what? No BBOT, Badass or Hipshot in sight ....

I'm not saying that I need a high mass bridge, and I can indeed get the sustain I need from my Dingwall. I'm just saying that I do want all of the sustain. Just that one point was what I was countering. 

[MichaelDean]

Just also to say, the only reason I've ever put a high mass bridge on any bass is because the BBOT doesn't normally have grooves to hold the saddles in place. If you hit hard with a pick, it's possible to knock them out of alignment, which makes the whole thing sound a bit out of tune. I haven't noticed any tonal difference from swapping bridges.

[BassAdder60]

11 minutes ago, MichaelDean said:

Just also to say, the only reason I've ever put a high mass bridge on any bass is because the BBOT doesn't normally have grooves to hold the saddles in place. If you hit hard with a pick, it's possible to knock them out of alignment, which makes the whole thing sound a bit out of tune. I haven't noticed any tonal difference from swapping bridges.

^+1 this ..

 

I changed my Player Series bent bridge because the saddles would move and grub screws wind out.

 

Himass fitted removed that problem completely. However they do look ugly and out of proportion sitting on a PBass 

 

The arrival of my Vintera which has the vintage bridge with threaded saddles open my eyes to the alternative hence buying the Hosco  Japanese bridge with threaded saddles. One bass ( my Silver one ) returned to this bridge and my other Player which also has a HiMass on it is yet to be changed back, next string change probably 

Edited September 4, 2023 by BassAdder60

[Chienmortbb]

On 11/06/2020 at 13:52, wateroftyne said:

The BBOT bridges are rubbish, which is why hardly any classic basslines have been recorded using one.

Sarcasm does not become you Sir

[Baloney Balderdash]

 

Resonance does affect the vibrations of the strings, and thereby what the pickups pick up.

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[BassAdder60]

Ok all my PBass have vintage bridges now and I like the look and feel of them. They look visually more correct and so far I’m happy 

 

I’m hoping the feint lines in the lacquer will disappear over time where the large HiMass were fitted 

 

Simple change to the bass but I think worth it and I can get lower action too 

[peteb]

I've just seen that Mo Foster's main fretless bass is for sale in the Bass Gallery. It's a Fender Jazz that he got a symphony-bass repairman to replace the fingerboard with a 100-year old piece of ebony removed from an old upright bass, as well as replacing the original bridge with a Badass. He said that this instrument became his 'voice'. 

 

Of course, he was completely mistaken as we know from this thread that the choice of wood and using a hi-mass bridge make absolutely no difference to the tone of a bass... 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by peteb

[WHUFC BASS]

54 minutes ago, peteb said:

IOf course, he was completely mistaken as we know from this thread that the choice of wood and using a hi-mass bridge make absolutely no difference to the tone of a bass... 

 

 

The wood certainly doesn't. I've yet to see any convincing evidence that wood type can make a difference to an electrical induction system that converts sound into an electronic noise signal.

 

 

[JoeEvans]

I've recently read quite a few reviews of Steinberger-type small-bodied basses. Interestingly, they nearly all say that the bass has very long sustain and bright tone.

That suggests an interesting possibility - that the body actually reduces sustain, by soaking up the string vibrations.

It might be that the resonance of the body does affect the sound, because that's energy which is no longer in the vibrating string; different woods might absorb different frequencies at different rates, changing the sound.

In other words, the tone wood is actually sucking tone out of your strings, and it's the rate that it does it across different frequencies that produces the sound of a bass 

 

[BigRedX]

9 hours ago, peteb said:

I've just seen that Mo Foster's main fretless bass is for sale in the Bass Gallery. It's a Fender Jazz that he got a symphony-bass repairman to replace the fingerboard with a 100-year old piece of ebony removed from an old upright bass, as well as replacing the original bridge with a Badass. He said that this instrument became his 'voice'. 

 

Of course, he was completely mistaken as we know from this thread that the choice of wood and using a hi-mass bridge make absolutely no difference to the tone of a bass... 

 

 

Both of those changes would have made a difference to the sound of the bass. However, it would have been slight and until they were made there was no way of knowing if they would be an improvement (which in itself is completely subjective). We also don't know what other tweaks to the setup of the bass were made at the same time, or if simply the act of dismantling and re-assembling what is essentially a very ordinary factory-made instrument would have been responsible for most of the "improvements" in sound. There of course is the placebo effect, and the fact that no-one will want to admit that complicated and expensive modifications to their instrument will have resulted in it sounding worse.

 

As with all these anecdotes there is no scientific method and the data itself is completely subjective.

[wateroftyne]

Re: Mo's bass. Another possibility - maybe it had a bit of dead area (we all know these things happen) and the hi-mass bridge fixed it?

 

Of course wood makes a difference. Resonance (or lack of) is important.

 

 

[WHUFC BASS]

1 hour ago, wateroftyne said:

Of course wood makes a difference. Resonance (or lack of) is important.

 

 

 

This video would suggest it doesn't and until I see a test that completely destroys these findings I'm going with the whole tonewood thing is snakeoil and marketing
 

 

[wateroftyne]

15 minutes ago, WHUFC BASS said:

 

This video would suggest it doesn't and until I see a test that completely destroys these findings I'm going with the whole tonewood thing is snakeoil and marketing
 

 

Im not talking about adding to tone. I’m talking about taking away from it. Knots in wood, air pockets, grain… all these are variables that can cause a clash at specific frequencies and which can kill fundamentals and overtones.

[WHUFC BASS]

35 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Im not talking about adding to tone. I’m talking about taking away from it. Knots in wood, air pockets, grain… all these are variables that can cause a clash at specific frequencies and which can kill fundamentals and overtones.

 

Do you have any evidence for that? Not saying you're wrong, but I'd like to see some evidence.

Edited September 5, 2023 by WHUFC BASS

[wateroftyne]

Just now, WHUFC BASS said:

 

Do you have any evidence for that?

Hang on - are you actually suggesting the resonant properties of wood has no effect on how the strings behave when plucked? Have you never played an acoustically dead bass before?

[WHUFC BASS]

18 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Hang on - are you actually suggesting the resonant properties of wood has no effect on how the strings behave when plucked? Have you never played an acoustically dead bass before?

 

I'm saying that wood and wood type has no affect on the sound of an instrument with an enclosed electric induction circuit. The video above proves that.

 

An acoustically dead bass as you call it has nothing to do with the wood and more to do with the following:

Neck angle

 

Warped Neck

 

Loose frets

 

Uneven fretboard

strings - their quality and the way they're cut than the wood. Scott Devine touches on this phenomenon in this video:
 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by WHUFC BASS

[wateroftyne]

3 minutes ago, WHUFC BASS said:

 

I'm saying that wood and wood type has no affect on the sound of an instrument with an enclosed electric induction circuit. The video above proves that.

 

An acoustically dead bass as you call it has more to do with the stings - their quality and the way they're cut than the wood. Scott Devine touches on this phenomenon in this video:
 

 

Nah, not buying it. How bodies and necks interact is fundamental (if you excuse the pun). Hundreds of years of instrument luthiery will attest to this.

 

Take wood out of the equation and replace it with either nothing, or something synthetic and consistent, and yes, you’re starting from a level playing field.

 

Once wood is in there, stuff changes.

[Baloney Balderdash]

1 hour ago, WHUFC BASS said:

 

This video would suggest it doesn't and until I see a test that completely destroys these findings I'm going with the whole tonewood thing is snakeoil and marketing
 

 

 

11 minutes ago, WHUFC BASS said:

 

I'm saying that wood and wood type has no affect on the sound of an instrument with an enclosed electric induction circuit. The video above proves that.

 

An acoustically dead bass as you call it has more to do with the stings - their quality and the way they're cut than the wood. Scott Devine touches on this phenomenon in this video:
 

 

 

And I can prove that you are a rock!:

 

A rock can't fly

You can't fly

Therefore you are a rock!

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[peteb]

4 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Nah, not buying it. How bodies and necks interact is fundamental (if you excuse the pun). Hundreds of years of instrument luthiery will attest to this.

 

Take wood out of the equation and replace it with either nothing, or something synthetic and consistent, and yes, you’re starting from a level playing field.

 

Once wood is in there, stuff changes.

 

No, you've got that wrong - hundreds of years of snakeoil salesmen conning deluded musicians about how an instrument sounds! 

 

Seriously, you can't argue with these people. I once had a builder tell me that the laws of physics worked differently in the UK compared to how they do in Germany (when challenged as to why British homes are built to a much lower standard than those built in Germany). 

 

[WHUFC BASS]

8 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Nah, not buying it. How bodies and necks interact is fundamental (if you excuse the pun). Hundreds of years of instrument luthiery will attest to this.

 

Take wood out of the equation and replace it with either nothing, or something synthetic and consistent, and yes, you’re starting from a level playing field.

 

Once wood is in there, stuff changes.

 

How bodies and necks interact is fundamental  - of course, I'm not disputing that but as I outlined above, the neck angle, fretboard integrity, fret integrity are what should be taken into consideration. Not the wood type. The original argument was about Mo Foster's new ebony fingerboard remember?

 

"Once wood is in there, stuff changes" - of course it will. On acoustic instruments, that's not something I'm disputing, it will absolutely make a difference to the sound of drums, woodwind instruments, acoustic guitars and other stringed instruments.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that wood type or "tonewood" isn't a thing.

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

No, you've got that wrong - hundreds of years of snakeoil salesmen conning deluded musicians about how an instrument sounds! 

 

Mmm, to use your own phrase, no you've got that wrong. If you're going to bring in the laws of physics then the transmission of energy through a medium will differ with the characteristics of that medium, type, density, age, moisture. Yes it makes little difference most of the time but certainly can make a big difference in some. Whether or not it suits snakeoil salesmen, science (physics) also attests to this reality