Brass bridge better or worse?

[mickebas]

In a recent purchase I got a P-bass with brass sadles in the bridge.
The bass has great sustain and clear sound but I'm starting to wonder if the brass sadles gives me less warm bottom.
Is that a fact anybody has knowledge or experience of ?

 

[Turnaround]

In a recent purchase I got a P-bass with brass sadles in the bridge.
The bass has great sustain and clear sound but I'm starting to wonder if the brass sadles gives me less warm bottom.
Is that a fact anybody has knowledge or experience of ?

Why are you sitting on your bridge?

But seriously, opinions differ with respect to bridge materials. Generally it is felt that brass gives a warmer sound, whereas steel gives more punch. But if you can actually hear a difference your ears are better than mine.

 

[Aloe]

usually brass saddles are perceived to have a warmer sound than aluminium or steel, not the way around.
some perceive brass saddles to increase the sustain.

this said, my experience with this once was 'doesn't really that much matter'.

 

[Bodeeni]

My favorite fender style bridge is the Wilkinson with brass saddles. I like the way it is built and 'looks'. I never noticed or thought it effects the sound.

 

[mickebas]

Ok. Thanks for your input.
So I guess the more faster response and brighter sound is not due to the brass saddles.

 

[Ggaa]

I put a brass bridge on a P years ago, all I could tell was the bass was heavier and my wallet was lighter. Only reason I'd swap bridges now would be adjustability.

 

[mickebas]

I put a brass bridge on a P years ago, all I could tell was the bass was heavier and my wallet was lighter. Only reason I'd swap bridges now would be adjustability.

Only brass saddles on this one.
I was just curious to know if it affects the sound of the string in any way since this bass originally is equipped with the brass saddle bridge.

Personally I have favored the vintage fender bridge most of my bass life.
Had a short period of Badass bridge in the 80’s but then went back to original fender bridge.

 

[2saddleslab]

My dad made these saddles [and 3 bridge plates] for me in chrome plated solid brass. I replaced the brass saddles with/ fiber [Bakelite] and hear no difference in tone or sustain. Might be my old ears aren't as finely tuned as they once were but it surprised me how consistent both saddles sounded.

Could have sworn it was the brass that created the great tone, turns out it was the instrument.

 

[bassdude51]

My dad made these saddles [and 3 bridge plates] for me in chrome plated solid brass. I replaced the brass saddles with/ fiber [Bakelite] and hear no difference in tone or sustain. Might be my old ears aren't as finely tuned as they once were but it surprised me how consistent both saddles sounded.

Could have sworn it was the brass that created the great tone, turns out it was the instrument.
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Agree!!!!!!!!

Over the years, I've gone with Fender Vintage threaded saddle bridges, High mass Schaller bridges. Fender two saddle metal bridges. And, just like 2saddleslab two saddle phenolic bridges used on the '51 to '56 Ps.

For me, bridges and saddle material make "zero" difference in sound. (I use vintage all thread 4 saddles for standard Ps and 2 saddle phenolic for the early 50s Ps.)

But perhaps, YMMV.

 

[laklandplayer]

I've probably used every kind of bridge saddle made.... brass, steel, aluminum, zinc, synthetic and I honestly can say that I can't hear a tonal difference between any of them.
The overall mass and weight of the bridge play a bigger role in sustain than the actual saddle material.
I've also found that a bridge that has really tight tolerances or can be locked down to prevent a loss of physical energy from the string vibration works and sounds best. The old G&L bass bridge is a good example. Guyker makes a good inexpensive one that I just installed on a bass, as does Axlabs and Babicz, and I'm sure there are others out there. Look on Amazon, Ebay, Reverb, you'll find there are a lot of choices.

 

[SC Bassboy]

I've swapped bridges before for this very reason. In the end, it mainly just changed the color or weight of the bridge (brass is heavy). I'm not saying don't do it. Everyone has their reasons and their reasons are valid. If you THINK swapping the bridge will make a difference, it will. If you believe in something, it will manifest.

 

[mickebas]

I've probably used every kind of bridge saddle made.... brass, steel, aluminum, zinc, synthetic and I honestly can say that I can't hear a tonal difference between any of them.
The overall mass and weight of the bridge play a bigger role in sustain than the actual saddle material.
I've also found that a bridge that has really tight tolerances or can be locked down to prevent a loss of physical energy from the string vibration works and sounds best. The old G&L bass bridge is a good example. Guyker makes a good inexpensive one that I just installed on a bass, as does Axlabs and Babicz, and I'm sure there are others out there. Look on Amazon, Ebay, Reverb, you'll find there are a lot of choices.

I'm very happy with my vintage Fenders with the standard 60's vintage bridge and I've come to the conclusion that for me they give me the best feel tension-vise and also the instrument seems to vibrate more lively and organic with them. For a while I had more hi-mass alternatives that gives a very solid feel and stable open string, but... to me the smaller, less mass vintage style bridge gives the string more dynamic and lively sound. But that's the old vintage ones. The newer versions of the same bridge more made from some nickel composition are not bad but to me personally they're not the same. Maybe just n illusion and mindtrick but I played so long now that I think it's what I want.

But returning to the question in this thread, what I was curious to know was, since I just got this new P-bass with the brass saddle bridge, if my impression of a more open trebly sound with good sustain but a bit less low frequencies was because of the brass saddles.
But the consensus so far seems to be it doesn't affect the tone in that way so I probably have to look eleswhere (pickups ?) to get a bit of a deeper sound. On the other hand not having as much lows kind of gives me a low cut and maybe a good thing cleaning up the sound in bigger spaces. There's always the possibility to add more lows from amps, preamps and whatever.

I'm planning to change the pickup and once that's done I might understand more.

 

[Scarey Larry]

My ears, and they are mine, not anyone else's ears, like a brass bridge combined with a brass nut. I think it rounds the attack and decay of a note. This is a personal choice. Difference is pretty small. Ok, real small. It is your bass do what works for you. Generally, I use J type basses so can't say how it would work on a P. My current P has taped LaBella flats that do a nice job of mellowing out sharp attack/decay.

 

[L-u-A-R]

Contact point material definitely does affect tone (and amount of contact). Try a rubber bridge and see.
Hardness and/or density might be a decent portion of that effect, with differences being small between similar materials.

 

[gln1955]

Unless there is a blind A/B test involved, it's all people hearing what they want to hear.

You'd get much more tonal difference changing strings than changing bridges.

 

[mickebas]

Unless there is a blind A/B test involved, it's all people hearing what they want to hear.

You'd get much more tonal difference changing strings than changing bridges.

Well, I’ve used most common bridges thats around so far so the initial idea with my question in this thread was if anyone hade experience of any difference in sound if the saddles on this, in all other aspects, normal bridge, is in brass.
It wasn’t about what kind or sort of bridge I should replace the present one with because I don’t think I will do that. It’s a good bridge but the first one I’ve come across that has just the string saddles in brass so I wasn’t sure wether the bright sound in the bass came from this fact.

 

[RGerhart]

I've never done an A/B with saddles, so I'm not sure. I do know that my Fodera Emperor 5 has some of the best sustain to my ears, but it's hard to determine if that is purely the brass bridge/saddles, or a multitude of other factors.

 

[Fuzzbass]

my Fodera Emperor 5 has some of the best sustain to my ears, but it's hard to determine if that is purely the brass bridge/saddles, or a multitude of other factors.

Correction: impossible to determine. Even if you swapped the bridge/saddles on your Fodera, you'd have to design a double blind testing environment that guaranteed that all other factors were equal -- in particular, strings (not just type, but freshness) and playing technique.

I'll put my money on "it's the bass, not the bridge"... can't prove me wrong! (I can't prove I'm right, either. )

 

[Guitalia]

Contact point material definitely does affect tone (and amount of contact). Try a rubber bridge and see.
Hardness and/or density might be a decent portion of that effect, with differences being small between similar materials.

In the mid-'60's, Gibson used nylon saddles for a few years. The idea must have been to reduce string breakage without affecting tone (my '65 ES-124TDC has nylon saddles and has always sounded as good to me as my guitars with steel saddles), but people hear what they expect to hear, so Gibson went back to steel.

The whole brass hardware thing is interesting. All the rage in the late '70s to early '80s or whatever it was, because people could definitely hear the difference, and then the craze petered out. Either people ceased hearing a difference, or there wasn't actually any significant difference.

 

[DrBnz]

I've used brass saddles many times, primarily because of the look and they are slightly heavier (helping with any neck dive you may have). While I've tried to HEAR a difference, I can't really say that I have.