To Bridge Upgrade, or Not to Bridge Upgrade

You know what they say. If it ain’t broken, upgrade anyway! :slightly_smiling_face:

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:100:

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AMEN!

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I have a perfectly good P pickup in my drawer as testament to that

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I don’t know if they have much benefit, and I wouldn’t want to try to “switch” to these on a bass that didn’t already have them, but I do really like the look of these…

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This might be approaching tone wood territory again (regarding the vibration isolation etc), but one thing is that you can more freely choose string spacing (at the bridge) - if that is important to you.
I really only mentioned them here for completeness sake :smile:

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True fact: my P-Bass has a brass TonePlate under its bridge. It came that way.

I’m serious. It’s a TonePlate to conduct the Tone to the Tonewood. Through (presumably) the ToneBridge. For Sustain.

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Interesting that Alembic installed brass plates under bridges long ago.

A guy in this thread says that installing a brass plate screwed up his P bass to his ear.

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No plans in my future to go that far. :smile:

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Awesome. Put some ToneStrings™ on it and you’re good to go :crazy_face:

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And I have a spare MonsterTone-P pickup you could install as well! Tone, tone, tone, tone, tone!

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If I upgrade the bridge it would be for the looks and probably the intonation function. Sustain not so much. They other end is more important I think. The tuners can make your day to ruin it.

Granted that many entry level are quite awesome my squiers’ are very smooth and installed properly. It hold its tune really well. Some are just heavy turning and horrible to use.

So, tangentially related to this thread…

…as is the case with ALL basses that I bring into my house, my new Fender Aerodyne Jazz is in need of some additional shielding. I’m in the process of doing that right now. However, part of that process includes taking off the bridge to insure that a good ground is being made.

I have a brand new Gotoh 201 bridge.

In your opinion, is it worth it to replace the standard Fender bridge with the Gotoh, since I’ll have it off anyway? Or would that be pointless and I should leave well enough alone?

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No. I’d leave it.
I’ve only replaced one of my 6 because the bridge was messed up.

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Remind me @JustTim does the Aero come standard with a Fender High mass bridge?

In that case the Gotoh isn’t an upgrade.

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Nope. Just a regular, I guess, “low mass” bridge. But it is in black chrome, which is rad.

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I only swapped out to a Gotoh bridge for the black aesthetic when I did some upgrades.

I took some sound samples before and after and couldn’t hear any difference. But my hearing is garbage.

I’d say leave it stock as it’s a good looking bass as is.

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I think you should fix the environment :slight_smile:

I know, easier said than done. But it seems a common thing for your place.

Yes, because they look much better. The Gotoh 201B-4 is my go-to bridge, have them on two basses now. Not a huge fan of the look of stock Fender bent-L bridges.

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And how. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to even start with that. But I can re-shield and re-ground a bass! :slight_smile:

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Easy, tear out all the drywall and rewire the entire house top to bottom. Couple of weekends tops.

Alternatively buy a bass with humbuckers / split coils :sunglasses:

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