Fender Jaguar w/ BAII

[jkjgiants26]

Is the BadAss II a direct replacement for a Fender Jaguar vintage bridge?

[vegas532]

Yep. I had a Jag with a BAII and I regret having to let that one go to this very day. She sounded great!

[jkjgiants26]

thank you! I'm going to order a BAII soon then and put it on my already pretty awesome Jaguar

[walterw]

this is an older japanese jag bass with the active stuff and the threaded-rod saddle bridge?

don't bother, you've already got an excellent bridge on there. spend your money on better pickups.

[jkjgiants26]

It's a 2009 Jag and I hate the bridge. The pickups are great I love them

[walterw]

funny, 'cause the pickups are cheap ceramic-bottom units like you'd find on a squier, while the threaded-rod bridge is a perfect bit of engineering from leo fender, low-mass but rigid with plenty of tone and sustain. being MIJ, i believe it's made by gotoh, so high-quality machining to boot.

[parsons]

ill have to disagree. The bridge that came on my MIJ Jag sucked. The pickups although cheap, actually sound great. You can youtube tons of videos of people getting great tone from a stock Jag.

[walterw]

what sucked about the vintage bridge? did it rattle or move around?

the key to those things is to line the strings up between the pickup magnets; that spreads the strings out, which forces the outer saddles to press in against the inner ones, holding everything tight together, which improves tone and sustain and usually prevents any drift or rattle. (a bit of loc-tite can help, too.)

[J. Crawford]

Originally Posted by walterw

funny, 'cause the pickups are cheap ceramic-bottom units like you'd find on a squier, while the threaded-rod bridge is a perfect bit of engineering from leo fender, low-mass but rigid with plenty of tone and sustain. being MIJ, i believe it's made by gotoh, so high-quality machining to boot.

Glad you have your opinion, he wants a bridge.

BA2 are awesome bridges, and they look killer.

[vegas532]

I found the bridge to be a huge improvement, personally. The stock pickups on the Jags sound fantastic...particularly when you don't use that active circuit.

I always favored it completely passive.

[walterw]

yes, they look killer, and that's very important to the sound of a bass

there's lots of epic threads about "high-mass" vs. "low-mass" bridges here on TB, they're worth a review.

the badass is an excellent bridge (if you get it slotted properly).

the stock threaded-rod vintage is also an excellent bridge.

[vegas532]

Originally Posted by walterw

yes, they look killer, and that's very important to the sound of a bass

Agreed.

[Foamy]

There are also plenty of threads wrt slotting BAII's. I have 2 that are un-slotted (on a Geddy and a Jag), and sound great. The strings don't move around. Love my BAII's.
I don't know about the "quality" of the stock pickups, but I had to pot mine. Does that mean they are low quality? I don't know. Before I did that, they would squeal uncontrollably in some live situations. Now they are fine, and I, too, prefer them passive.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by Foamy

There are also plenty of threads wrt slotting BAII's. I have 2 that are un-slotted (on a Geddy and a Jag)...

how did that happen? did you sell the stock BAII on the geddy, then replace it later?

plenty of threads on that, yes; they consist of players who didn't spend the $25 to get them properly notched and say they work "fine" or "OK" that way, and players, builders and techs who point out that cutting the notches works better, and are the entire point of the original design, as stated on the package by the designer.

if you want the strings to actually have consistent spacing, to line up between the jazz pickup magnet pairs (like leo fender originally designed), and to have a clear, clean witness point, you get the bridge notched.

(or you just buy the newer BII2 version like the highway 1s use, which have multiple pre-cut notches built in.)

Originally Posted by Foamy

I don't know about the "quality" of the stock pickups, but I had to pot mine. Does that mean they are low quality?

pretty much, yeah.

[Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by walterw

yes, they look killer, and that's very important to the sound of a bass

Which is the main reason that most bridges get changed.