Today I did (hopefully) the last modification for my little Blackstar Travel Bass: replacing the wood screws with threaded inserts and “real” screws, for both the neck and the bridge, so I can dis- & resassemble the Blackstar easily for travel.
All this very precise drilling with potentially catastrophic results gave me a constant feeling of a heart attack, but now it’s all done and me & my bass survived the procedure. Barely…
Strange thing: I have the feeling that the bass sound better, as in fuller & having more sustain.
Is that possible? Is it because of the much tighter connection neck => body => bridge, and thus a better connection of the strings themselves?
Or is it just subjective voodoo and I my imagination runs wild?
Without any high-def before/after screws replacement surgery recordings to evaluate, it’s impossible to gauge if there’s any difference in the sound of your bass due to how the new neck attachment affects anything.
That said, the more tightly and solidly a neck is attached to the body, the better, overall.
Yep. Before/after pics are cool, for sure. But when it comes to any mods you think might contribute to having improved/significant audial differences, really high quality recordings are best to have.
I have never done this; but my experience with different bridges, saddles, himass, string through, etc. is that you can get a different tone, it will be a small change, and better is in the eye of the beholder.
I replaced the standard bridge with a higmass bridge - that did something for the sustain. Even better was my brass nut, which improved open notes a lot.
But the new screws/inserts made the sound more “knackig” as they say in Germany. A translation would be “crisp”, but that is not it. It sounds a little fuller and more precise, it’s hard to pin point.
My Telebass is the simplest bridge setup I have. It’s a plate that strings through, no top load, has two stainless steel cylinders for saddles, each cylinder gets two strings. That’s it. It has the most sustain of any bass I have, and when I pluck I can feel the note through my left forearm as it rings. Simple but it works amazingly well. They were onto something in the 50s
Even without changing any screw or anything, it’s possible that the instrument has more (or a better) resonnance after a simple neck disassembly and reassembly. On a lot of basses (and guitars) the neck can move slightly in the neck pocket from one assembly to another, leaving more or less wood in contact between the neck and the body, more or less in the direction of the natural vibrations of the wood. It can really change the resonnance. I’ve experienced that many times (mostly on guitars but it’s the same thing really).
There is a trick to maximize easily the contact between the neck and the body. With the instrument strung, unscrew a little bit each one of the neck screws, and then re-screw them. The string tension will pull firmly the neck towards the body. It works more or less depending on the instrument (generally works less on very good instruments with a very small build tolerance).
Not sure if the threaded inserts can really help. Maybe your neck is just in a slightly better position than it was before. In this case, it’s still an upgrade somewhat at least a better setting overall.
