Early 90’s Music Man Stingray has this on the bridge then the HH version (Sabre) has it too, it’s called Flea Bridge after the artist I guess. In 93 they put them on the Sterling Model, no not the Sterling by Music Man but Ernie Ball’s son, Sterling, who has his own line of bass. It’s a slimmer body bass with narrower, faster slimmer neck 1.5” width at the nut (jazz profile) and very aggressive tone, with some fun electronics. Really cool bridge, as they stamped the serial number on the bridge instead of the neckplate.
I have a few MusicMan with Flea bridges.
94 ( first production year) ENMM Sterling.
Those are badass. I’ve fallen in love with the Stingray HH, despite my initial assumption that it’d be a jazz bass for me.
The Sterling (sub) that I have has the slimmer profile neck, maybe not as slim as the sabre I don’t know. I did try an Ernie Ball Stingray, and while you could feel the quality, I liked the neck on my cheapie a lot better.
I asked my luthier about this, and he told me that the stock Fender bridge is usually ok, but if you REALLY dig in, he’s seen cases where the setup can drift.
There’s really nothing wrong with it; as flimsy as it looks it’s more than up to the job. I primarily only replace bridges for aesthetic reasons, repair, or changing the bass balance; and they are the lesser half of that last one (behind replacing the tuning machines).
And the stock Fender L-frame is miles ahead of a Tune-o-Matic or Trapeze.
Music man bridge design is much better than fender G&L bridge is pretty much Leo’s best bridge.
If you come across one the Fender Elite bridge is probably the best bridge with Fender logo on it. Of course, they don’t make it, it’s made in Germany.
Fender Mute has been around a while too. Some bass bridges, like the Mustang, can use it, and there are different designs of the mute. This is an old one
Like I said file off the sharp corners. I work with extremely sharp knives for decades I hardly cut myself. The first time I use this mute kit ripped my finger tips open like San Andres.
I put a high mass bridge and emg-x pickups on my old Ibanez Gio. Together the bass sounded robotic and gross I really didn’t like it at all.
Dollar for dollar you aren’t going to make more money on bridge or pickup upgrades if you resell. I even think at this point I would avoid “upgraded” basses in the market personally unless it was something I a really wanted.
Probably better to switch back and sell the parts separate when it’s time.
If I had it to do over I would have used the $200 I sunk into that bass and bought the Sterling Stingray I eventually traded for. SOOO much better in every way
I find it interesting how many feel the same way as you do about upgrades even those that have been found to be provably better. For some they say they don’t like how it changes the tone. Fewer seem to have a problem with pickup or preamp upgrades than they do hardware upgrades yet both will alter the tonal characteristics of the instrument.
I’ve been using a Babicz FCH Bridge and Bill Lawrence/Wilde J45 Noiseless Air Gap Pickups on two separate CV Jazz Basses for around ten years now. There is no doubt those two upgrades more than marginally improved the tone and playability of the basses yet no one seems to want to buy the upgraded version when I offer it for sale even with the cost of the upgrades deeply discounted.
Dollar for dollar spent I got far more for the one I sold several years ago after I removed the upgrades. It’s always amazed how many players fear buying something that’s not 100% stock when no one would spend the time and money needed to design and produce upgrades like those if they were not an improvement. Furthermore why would I spend my money on them either if they were not?
