Upgrade = Downgrade

[Ed_S]

24 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Yep had that with a few Fender style bridges. To be honest its only been on Fender basses. Both Mex built ones.

Other than that issue they were pretty much ok basses.

Dave

 

Aye, at least with those you can just replace the barrels if you really object to a whole different bridge, and if you don't then there are loads of drop-in replacements from the sublime to the ridiculous. Sadly this was the cheaper end of Ibanez, and I think they choose mounting screw locations by committee.

[Misdee]

7 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

The thing is that the beauty of the original Fender designs, is that their virtue was in their simplicity. These original designs produced the industry standards tones that define what an electric bass should sound like, but it is relatively easy to make minor improvements i.e. swapping a bridge out or changing pickups. Of course, you might prefer the original BBOT bridge design to a badass of whatever bridge you could choose, which is perfectly valid. But you can easily tweak a P bass (for example) to make what you consider to be a marginal improvement, but without changing the overall characteristic sound of the bass. Which is what lots of us did to 70s Fenders back in the 80s. 

 

I started playing at exactly that time and I also had 70's Fenders, both modified and unmodified, because they were affordable and available. 

 

To me, a lot depends on the quality of the modification. I've played and owned some cracking modified Fenders, and also some botch jobs. You just  have to use your discretion. It's either a good bass for you or not, you just have to play it and decide.

Edited 12 hours ago by Misdee

[Len_derby]

8 minutes ago, prowla said:

One issue is when the sellers says it "owes them" however much and expects to recupl the full price of the upgrades.

Similar to ‘I just want back the amount I paid for it’. Good luck with that one 🤭

[TimR]

Ibanez put pattern machineheads on their affordable basses. It's the only issue I've had with my bass that's 20 years old. I replaced 2 machine heads with Ibanez stock machine heads when the original broke, and they also subsequently broke.

 

I have now upgraded them all with Gotoh machineheads which are miles ahead of the stock ones. 

 

The fact that the premium Ibanez basses come with Gotoh machineheads tells me that's an upgrade. 

[Boodang]

10 hours ago, Terry M. said:

Good argument. I have however seen claims of pickguard swaps being upgrades along with stuff such as scrubbing off a Squier decal for a Fender one. Even attaching straplocks and adding a different design of fretboard dot markers. But I do like your point about the engineering aspect. 

Maybe upgrades can be put into three categories;

modified = tone

upgraded = engineering 

cosmetic = aesthetics 

[SteveXFR]

Anything to change tone is not an upgrade. There is no better or worse tone, only different tone. We all have different tonal requirements to fit with our band and the genre we play.

A funk bassist would hate my super bright sounding strings and high output pickups but for me, they're great.

[prowla]

I have upgraded a number of basses with a Hipshot drop-D eXtender.

(I do keep the original tuner to put back if needed.)

 

[Terry M.]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

 

A funk bassist would hate my super bright sounding strings and high output pickups but for me, they're great.

Not all funk bassists 😉

You've possibly described a recipe for effective cutting through which some of us crave regardless of genre. 

Edited 6 minutes ago by Terry M.

[Ed_S]

9 hours ago, TimR said:

Ibanez put pattern machineheads on their affordable basses. It's the only issue I've had with my bass that's 20 years old. I replaced 2 machine heads with Ibanez stock machine heads when the original broke, and they also subsequently broke.

 

I have now upgraded them all with Gotoh machineheads which are miles ahead of the stock ones. 

 

The fact that the premium Ibanez basses come with Gotoh machineheads tells me that's an upgrade. 

 

Agreed. I put GB707s on all my Ibanez SRs. Never had a problem with the function of the stock ones myself, but I prefer the shape of the tuning keys and the wider string posts on the Gotohs, and they feel nicer. I also used them on my Harley and Fazley cheapo P copies, but that required a degree of bodgery to get the 18mm holes down to 14mm.