High mass bridge debate (again)

[LITTLEWING]

Well, FWIW I can categorically state that this thing did nothing to usefully enhance tone for me in any way or form. I tried out a F*nd*r himass brass bridge simply because I had a £25 gift card and added £2 so it wasn’t any real loss to experiment. I rehearsed and gigged with it on my P bass for a while and realised I lost all of the gorgeous Precision tone especially on the bottom E. It just wasn’t clean or clear and had me thinking there was something wrong with the fairly new strings. Today I swapped back to the old faithful Wilkinson BBOT and there was that beautiful Fender Precision round fat crystal clear tone especially on the bottom string once more. Maybe a £100 thoughtfully engineered Babicz could sound good on another bass but this hunk of metal casting completely ruined mine.

Emperor’s new Y fronts 100% all day long. 

[Lozz196]

A few years ago I put a Badass bridge on a 51 Reissue Precision. To me it modernised the sound, emphasising the highs and tightening the lows. Not to a point where it would be noticeable in a band mix, just at home volumes. Anyway I swapped it back as it had taken away some of the character of the bass imo. Great piece of engineering, much easier to set up/intonate etc but ultimately not good on that bass.

[PaulWarning]

the only thing that will make a significant difference is the type of strings, type of pick up and the position of the pick up, ymmv

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, LITTLEWING said:

Well, FWIW I can categorically state that this thing did nothing to usefully enhance tone for me in any way or form. I tried out a F*nd*r himass brass bridge simply because I had a £25 gift card and added £2 so it wasn’t any real loss to experiment. I rehearsed and gigged with it on my P bass for a while and realised I lost all of the gorgeous Precision tone especially on the bottom E. It just wasn’t clean or clear and had me thinking there was something wrong with the fairly new strings. Today I swapped back to the old faithful Wilkinson BBOT and there was that beautiful Fender Precision round fat crystal clear tone especially on the bottom string once more. Maybe a £100 thoughtfully engineered Babicz could sound good on another bass but this hunk of metal casting completely ruined mine.

Emperor’s new Y fronts 100% all day long. 

 

Works on some basses, doesn't work on others. You take your chances 👍

[Stub Mandrel]

I have five or six basses with high mass bridges. Can’t say I notice any consistent difference with one.

[Geek99]

I put one on a cij jazz from OldGit (late) - no difference whatsoever 

[Boodang]

I've got Babicz bridges on all my basses and I can't notice the difference (but they don't make the bass sound worse!). So why do I do it... because they're well engineered, nicer to setup than a standard bridge plus the saddles lock down, so to me feels solid.... oh, and I think they look great. Technically though,  a low mass bridge.

[BigRedX]

The reason it makes so little difference is that the overall weight of the bridge and body combined, and because they are attached to each other we need to consider the combined weight, hardly changes. I did the maths last time this was brought up and even though a typical high-mass bridge is almost 3 times heavier than the BBOT, the combined weight of the bridge and body is less than a 5% difference.

[itu]

11 hours ago, BigRedX said:

...a typical high-mass bridge is almost 3 times heavier than the BBOT, the combined weight of the bridge and body is less than a 5% difference.

This is a good point. Few other things to consider:

- centre of mass is in a different place

- the tuning of the whole system has changed, because mass has changed

- ghost notes have moved because of the change in the mass of the system

- rigidity of the system is as it was before, because even that BBOT is already pretty rigid

 

Because of these - if nothing else has changed (tuning, strings, their height...) - there may be a change in sound. 

 

All of the mentioned physical changes are on the tiny side (like that under 5 % difference, that @BigRedX has calculated). Therefore I can say that if someone hears, or feels a difference, fine. But without proper ABX-testing I am not sure how much these tiny numbers mean to the overall sound.

 

Measurable? Maybe. 

Noticeable? Maybe. 

Important to the player? Most likely.

 

One more thing: as we are talking about wooden instruments (read: stuff made of uneven material), all basses are slightly different, and act in a slightly different way. Some other bass may benefit from another bridge. 

[Beedster]

15 minutes ago, itu said:

This is a good point. Few other things to consider:

- centre of mass is in a different place

- the tuning of the whole system has changed, because mass has changed

- ghost notes have moved because of the change in the mass of the system

- rigidity of the system is as it was before, because even that BBOT is already pretty rigid

 

Because of these - if nothing else has changed (tuning, strings, their height...) - there may be a change in sound. 

 

All of the mentioned physical changes are on the tiny side (like that under 5 % difference, that @BigRedX has calculated). Therefore I can say that if someone hears, or feels a difference, fine. But without proper ABX-testing I am not sure how much these tiny numbers mean to the overall sound.

 

Measurable? Maybe. 

Noticeable? Maybe. 

Important to the player? Most likely.

 

One more thing: as we are talking about wooden instruments (read: stuff made of uneven material), all basses are slightly different, and act in a slightly different way. Some other bass may benefit from another bridge. 

 

The differences are theoretically measurable using pretty standard audio gear. But as you point out, basses are usually made of wood and wood is highly variable, so the only differences that could be measured usefully would be those for a single bass by - while keeping all else equal - switching the bridges and measuring the audio output. Frankly, I prefer to use my ears, on which basis I'd say that on probably 25% of the basses on which I've installed them a Badass has made a difference I can hear, tonally usually in the high mids/highs and harmonics, structurally in greater sustain which I tend to notice on the lower strings, and possibly a different envelope. As has been pointed out above, I'm sure that some of these effects have less to do with mass per se and more to do with greater stability/better engineering. 

 

So, here's my rules of thumb....

 

Instruments on which I would normally at least try a Badass

• Fretless bass especially with roundwounds
• Fretted bass using roundwounds especially on a maple neck

Instruments on which I would normally not use a Badass

• Everything else  

[Geek99]

1 hour ago, itu said:

This is a good point. Few other things to consider:

- centre of mass is in a different place

- the tuning of the whole system has changed, because mass has changed

- ghost notes have moved because of the change in the mass of the system

- rigidity of the system is as it was before, because even that BBOT is already pretty rigid

 

Because of these - if nothing else has changed (tuning, strings, their height...) - there may be a change in sound. 

 

All of the mentioned physical changes are on the tiny side (like that under 5 % difference, that @BigRedX has calculated). Therefore I can say that if someone hears, or feels a difference, fine. But without proper ABX-testing I am not sure how much these tiny numbers mean to the overall sound.

 

Measurable? Maybe. 

Noticeable? Maybe. 

Important to the player? Most likely.

 

One more thing: as we are talking about wooden instruments (read: stuff made of uneven material), all basses are slightly different, and act in a slightly different way. Some other bass may benefit from another bridge. 

You must be a bass player; you’re talking sense 🤔

 

 

[Geek99]

Maybe a high mass bridge makes a small difference to sustained notes in excess of a bar, but who the f uck ever does that ? 
 

And  would the audience even notice that 4 milliseconds longer? 
snake oil.com 

they’re maybe easier  to adjust but that’s pretty much where it ends IMHO

Edited March 18 by Geek99

[chris_b]

Depends on the style of music and the songs. If you need to hold a note for a bar you want the sustain to last longer than that so the note doesn't die half way though. 

 

I used to play Boys Of Summer and the sustain is for 4 bars. So a good sustain is required from a good bass.

[Geek99]

Depends on how long a bar lasts, but is something of an edge case not really justifying the outlay and effort of the hardware change 

 

Imho

Edited March 18 by Geek99

[Stub Mandrel]

12 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I used to play Boys Of Summer and the sustain is for 4 bars. So a good sustain is required from a good bass.

 

This looks suspiciously like a Jazz with a BBOT bridge?

 

 

Edited March 18 by Stub Mandrel

[Stub Mandrel]

Odd it refusing to embed properly.

 

 

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

This looks suspiciously like a Jazz with a BBOT bridge?

 

 

Some basses are fine as is, others benefit from a different bridge, not a lot to be gained from isolated/unique example 

[chris_b]

Just now, Geek99 said:

Depends on how long a bar lasts, but is something of an edge case not really justifying the outlay and effort of the hardware change 

 

An "edge case" in your world maybe, but that doesn't mean it isn't a requirement for others. If you are playing the kind of music that requires long held notes you can either shrug your shoulders and look embarrassed because your bass doesn't cut it, or buy a bass that gets the job done. If a high mass bridge gives you the sustain you need then it is worth having.

[Beedster]

12 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

Depends on how long a bar lasts, but is something of an edge case not really justifying the outlay and effort of the hardware change 

 

Imho

Unless you need that sustain 

[chris_b]

12 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

This looks suspiciously like a Jazz with a BBOT bridge?

 

. . . . and the sustain isn't very good, is it?

 

The original was probably Pino on a fretless, and in the studio you can do a lot more than you can on a gig.

 

More importantly, if your bass is resonant enough to sustain a note well for several bars it probably sounds great when you're playing 2 or 4 notes to the bar. Some people need flexibility and some don't.

Edited March 18 by chris_b

[Stub Mandrel]

8 minutes ago, chris_b said:

and the sustain isn't very good, is it?

 

Tbh I can't tell on my phone.

[itu]

6 hours ago, chris_b said:

The original was probably Pino on a fretless... 

Fretless yes, but the player was Larry Klein.

[LeftyJ]

On 17/03/2025 at 21:58, Lozz196 said:

A few years ago I put a Badass bridge on a 51 Reissue Precision. To me it modernised the sound, emphasising the highs and tightening the lows. Not to a point where it would be noticeable in a band mix, just at home volumes. 

 

This sums up my experience on my Fender MIJ 1975 Jazz Reissue pretty well too. 

Slightly enhanced brightness, tighter lows, somewhat diminished fundamental - and to me, no perceived boost in sustain / note decay. I do like it a lot, it's been on that bass for some 15 years now and it's not coming off any time soon 

[fretmeister]

13 hours ago, chris_b said:

Depends on the style of music and the songs. If you need to hold a note for a bar you want the sustain to last longer than that so the note doesn't die half way though. 

 

I used to play Boys Of Summer and the sustain is for 4 bars. So a good sustain is required from a good bass.

 

I can get that out of a muted upright.

 

Just have to play it at 300bpm.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I like the Fender High Mass bridge as it looks a lot nicer thasn a BBoT. Any difference in tone/sustain/mojo I have noticed could have been due to taking the strings off and putting them back on, but there has never been a significant change for me. I have had an issue with BBoT bridges where the saddles needed to be set fairly far forward which resulted in them being susceptible to lateral movement. The Hi Mass fixed this issue.