About bridges.

[Modern Growl]

Originally Posted by C.Linton

Maybe so, but him selling the bridges means he has an agenda, and any conclusions he comes up with are suspect.

They have no "agenda". They will sell you brass or aluminum... If you think they are promoting Aluminum, take a look at the prices - the Brass Hipshot bridges cost more.

They put their opinion (which happens to be the same as many of the top bass builders around) on the tonal differences in writting probably because they are getting sick of being asked the same question 12 times a day.

[mjac28]

Originally Posted by Modern Growl

I truly dislike 90% of the post in this thread... all this "Prove it with Science" & "Blind Test" stuff... sheesh.

Michael Tobias, Mike Lull, Carey Nordstrand, George F, and other Top Builders (and MYSELF) have all come to the same basic, general conclusion.

High mass bridges sound "tighter" and more "focused", and tend to accentuate the bottm end. They also sound somewhat "compressed" in the mids.

Low mass bridges sound more "open" or "loose / wide" and tend to accentuate the mids more and let the woods "speak" more.

The above is all the "truth" I need to know. And I'm quite glad I hear things the same way top builders hear and describe things as well.

My experience comes from when I owned an American Fender Jazz (the highest aftermarket bridge bass) - and tried all of the above bridges and came to that basic conclusion as well.

No need for a double blind test, 2"x4" basses, chemisty sets or the like...

Below are the generally regarded "high mass" and "low mass" bridges popular on the market:

High mass: Brass Hipshot Style A & B, BadassII, Gotoh 201, etc....
Low mass: Aluminum Hipshot A & B, and Bent Plate style bridges...

Now let me guess - the next post in this thread is going to state "prove it", lol

PS - who cares about sustain. When was the last time you let a note ring out for 15 seconds?

I think you could put any bridge on those basses you mentioned and they would still sound amazing there are plenty of people who share your opinion and there are plenty who do not and maybe on the better built basses like the ones you mentioned a certain bridge will make a difference but on a MIM Fender or comparable bass I will beg to differ and that comes from my experience.

[F-Clef-Jef]

Originally Posted by Modern Growl

I truly dislike 90% of the post in this thread... all this "Prove it with Science" & "Blind Test" stuff... sheesh.

Yeah, let's not go muddying up the conversation with facts and science and physics and the such!

[Modern Growl]

Originally Posted by mjac28

I think you could put any bridge on those basses you mentioned and they would still sound amazing there are plenty of people who share your opinion and there are plenty who do not and maybe on the better built basses like the ones you mentioned a certain bridge will make a difference but on a MIM Fender or comparable bass I will beg to differ and that comes from my experience.

I didn't mention their basses, I mentioned their names and the opinions they gave on high mass vs. low mass bridges.

And perhaps you missed this part of my post:

"My experience comes from when I owned an American Fender Jazz (the highest aftermarket bridge bass) - and tried all of the above bridges and came to that basic conclusion as well."

I not only heard a difference, but also felt the strings reponding differently to the various bridges. A Fender is just fine to hear the differenes.

If you guys can't hear & feel the difference - well, good for you. You have one less thing to think about in your quest for tone.

[Pilgrim]

Lest you count me only in the "double blind test with 100 repetitions" camp, let me say that I do value expert opinion.

But the article offered by the OP was not expert opinion. It was a sales pitch.

[Modern Growl]

Originally Posted by F-Clef-Jef

Yeah, let's not go muddying up the conversation with facts and science and physics and the such!

All of this correlates to tone right? Which is subjective, right?

You need physics to tell you what tone you like better?

If your curious enough, try the different bridges and make your own judgment. Don't sit behind your computer and complain that you need science.

[Modern Growl]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Let you count me only in the "double blind test with 100 repetitions" camp, let me say that I do value expert opinion.

But the article offered by the OP was not expert opinion. It was a sales pitch.

100 reptitions? lol... How about you go just try them for yourself?

and while I'm in no way affiliated with BBB.com, I'm 99% sure they are just sick of the question of "whats the difference between brass & aluminum" ? If its a sales pitch, which "one" were they promoting?

[Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by Modern Growl

100 reptitions? lol... How about you go just try them for yourself?

and while I'm in no way affiliated with BBB.com, I'm 99% sure they are just sick of the question of "whats the difference between brass & aluminum" ? If its a sales pitch, which "one" were they promoting?

Not sure! I'm defending to the death my Fender bent metal bridge which sounds fantastic, whitens my teeth, prevents me from getting colds, lowers my cholesterol, increases my gas mileage and raises my testosterone.

In my opinion, of course.

[F-Clef-Jef]

Originally Posted by Modern Growl

All of this correlates to tone right? Which is subjective, right?

You need physics to tell you what tone you like better?

If your curious enough, try the different bridges and make your own judgment. Don't sit behind your computer and complain that you need science.

All of this correlates to incorrect claims made in the article...
"most of the string vibration stays within the bridge and is not transferred out to the body because of its high mass content."

B.S.

I've used many, many different bridges in the last 35 years, most of which worked just fine. I love my tone, which I can achieve with pretty much any decent, functional bridge. There is so much at play here, the material that the bridge is made of is only a tiny little fraction of the entire system. Strings and pickups matter sooooo much more.


Use whatever makes you happy, doesn't matter to me. I'm all for people buying stuff and supporting the people that make the stuff they are buying. (buy American please!) I just don't like to see false information and bad science thrown around.

[giacomini]

A bridge must hold the strings, must let me change string height and intonate the bass.

I had a bridge that had fine tuning screws, that was a great feat, but not quite necessary.

[kurosawa]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Consider the very accurate question you just asked, in which you used the term "subjective".

sub·jec·tive (sb-jktv) adj.
a. Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
b. Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.

Subjective means that it's ONE person's opinion, which is all the article is, and it's also all that listening to an instrument in a store is.

By definition of the term used, they all boil down to simple personal opinion. That's all they can possibly be because they depend on the acoustics of the room, the hearing acuity of the person, the position of the person relative to the speakers, and the psycho-acoustics of the person listening. By psycho-acoustics, I mean that if they WANT to hear a difference, they will. The ability of want and preconceived notion to affect perception in humans is well known.

Now, your opinion and mine might agree. We might both "hear" and believe that cab A or Bridge B is the best thing to happen to bass sound in history, and we might buy the device based on that perception.

That doesn't for a moment mean that we have perceived accurately or that the device we prefer sounds different than any other similar device. We might be the only two people in the world who believe that. But if we're happy, that's what counts.

The article in question is pure opinion, and does not even purport to offer real evidence. It just states "X is true" with no supporting evidence. It's a sales piece. It's intended to sell a product and offers no evidence to support its claims. I think that's pretty clear and pretty easy to understand.

No. Subjective DOESN'T mean anyone's opinion. In this case, the guy observed something. I heard something. Others here have heard that same something. What I'm interested in doing is finding out what that something is, how it's caused, understanding it so we can have a fun time playing with it. I'm not interested in seeing dictionary-pounding dismissal. Tweaking bass equipment is an adventure, not another tiresome Internet dictionary war.

[DaveAceofBass]

Mike Kinal suggested the brass over the aluminum for my bass. Sadowsky uses brass over aluminum. There is more profit in the aluminum bridges. I think it's all very subjective, and the one thing that no one is mentioning is something that their article did mention at the end: what wood are you pairing it with? A lighter wood like swamp ash may benefit from a heavier bridge, and a heavier wood like walnut may benefit from a lighter bridge. No one has mentioned that here.

[kurosawa]

Originally Posted by mjac28

You are correct about the article and excuse my rant I'm just so tired of these comparisons and studies about bridges. I have a Babicz Full Contact bridge in one of my Jazzes it is aluminum there is no extra punch and that's the reason I bought it after seeing some reviews on more punch greater sustain better tone etc... it is a very well made bridge but that's all it is and when folks ask me what upgrade do you "not" recommend I will always say the bridge.

I replaced a 201 with a Babicz and noticed right away the the Babicz was middier. I swapped back to check. Yep, no mistake, the 201 sounded scooped in comparison. And the Babicz was louder. I wish I'd stopped to think about where in the note it was louder. At that point I hadn't checked out this article, so I wasn't thinking about the concept of a bridge as storage for mechanical energy.

I'm not thinking of ANYTHING as an "upgrade" unless it fixes something that's broke, then it's not an upgrade, it's a repair. When the Badass came out, I stuck with bent tin because it was marketed as a device to increase sustain, and I wasn't running out by any means. Now if they had said it sounds different, I'd have been all over that to see how.

[kurosawa]

Originally Posted by DaveAceofBass

Mike Kinal suggested the brass over the aluminum for my bass. Sadowsky uses brass over aluminum. There is more profit in the aluminum bridges. I think it's all very subjective, and the one thing that no one is mentioning is something that their article did mention at the end: what wood are you pairing it with? A lighter wood like swamp ash may benefit from a heavier bridge, and a heavier wood like walnut may benefit from a lighter bridge. No one has mentioned that here.

Right, and there's the very personal matter of how much attack a player wants and how long a decay. I was looking at the densities of brass, zinc, aluminum, and various species of wood, and wondering if all this playing around we've been doing with flatwound strings and mutes is nothing compared to changing bridge saddle material. I mean, look at the upright. There's that big ol' wooden bridge right in the middle of everything. And the Hofner is the thumpiest of basses, horrendously different sounding from all else. Wooden bridge.

[Joe Louvar]

FWIW - I’ve tried mighty might, badass, etc and I prefer the Fender American bent plate bridges better and they have just as much sustain and etc as the more massive bridges. Anyway, use whatever bridge you like on your bass and don’t worry about anyone else’s "opinion".

[pilotjones]

I will not touch most of this discussion with a ten foot pole. But there is o e factual point to be made.

No bridge stores vibrational energy. The vibrating energy of the string acts on the bridge, which then reflects some of it back, converts some of it to heat (this is the end result of its partial damping qualities), passes a tiny punt of vibration to the air, and passes part of the vibrational energy to the body. Further, part of the vibration induced in the body is passed back to the string.

This being a highly underdamped system with a light string and a heavy body (sorry to insert some actually physics there! ), the majority of the energy is reflected back into the string.

The reflections and absorbtions are all frequency-biased, so certainly material can play into the timbre produced. But there is no storage and release.



Also zinc-based pot metals have a relatively high damping factor, so they ought not be compared with brass on the basis of their similar density. Brass has low damping.

[kurosawa]

Originally Posted by pilotjones

I will not touch most of this discussion with a ten foot pole. But there is o e factual point to be made.

No bridge stores vibrational energy. The vibrating energy of the string acts on the bridge, which then reflects some of it back, converts some of it to heat (this is the end result of its partial damping qualities), passes a tiny punt of vibration to the air, and passes part of the vibrational energy to the body. Further, part of the vibration induced in the body is passed back to the string.

This being a highly underdamped system with a light string and a heavy body (sorry to insert some actually physics there! ), the majority of the energy is reflected back into the string.

The reflections and absorbtions are all frequency-biased, so certainly material can play into the timbre produced. But there is no storage and release.



Also zinc-based pot metals have a relatively high damping factor, so they ought not be compared with brass on the basis of their similar density. Brass has low damping.

This is interesting. Does bridge mass matter and why?

[Jazz Ad]

Originally Posted by kurosawa

What I *like* about the article is its non-technical description, because it sounds like he's talking about inertia.

Inertia stores itself in a massive body with a swift movement.
There is no swift movement generated by a vibrating body such as a string into a bridge, because the bridge itself isn't moving. Only the string has inertia.
The more massive the body, the most easily vibrations transfer through it.

[mjac28]

Originally Posted by Modern Growl

I didn't mention their basses, I mentioned their names and the opinions they gave on high mass vs. low mass bridges.

And perhaps you missed this part of my post:

"My experience comes from when I owned an American Fender Jazz (the highest aftermarket bridge bass) - and tried all of the above bridges and came to that basic conclusion as well."

I not only heard a difference, but also felt the strings reponding differently to the various bridges. A Fender is just fine to hear the differenes.

If you guys can't hear & feel the difference - well, good for you. You have one less thing to think about in your quest for tone.

I never said you mentioned those basses (maybe you missed that in my post) but since you were name dropping those builders I thought I might bring it up. If you are telling me you can hear or feel the difference when changing bridges on a typical Fender or equivalent than sir you have a skill that I'm not sure many others have and good for you you have one more thing to drive you crazy in your search this has been fun thank you.

[Modern Growl]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Not sure! I'm defending to the death my Fender bent metal bridge which sounds fantastic, whitens my teeth, prevents me from getting colds, lowers my cholesterol, increases my gas mileage and raises my testosterone.

In my opinion, of course.

All is well. I love the bent plate design... one of my favorites. Raising testosterone... doubt it, but a simple & great sounding design.

These bigger, more complex bridges aren't always "better". They WILL sound different, but "better" is up to opinion.