Headless design

[Henning Hojen]

Is there any special reason why only a few manufacturers make headless basses ??
To me it is a very good design as I hate fighting with the traditional very heavy tuning gears in a considerable distance giving a bad balance and pain in the shoulder.
Furthermore there are only minor “dead string ends” giving tuning ptoblems, and furthermore they have a 0th fret giving better intonation in general. Why it isn’t ingorporated in traditional design I don’t understand, a piece of fretwire can’t tilt the economy !
Greeting from Denmark!
Henning, bass, piano and Hammond.

 

[Gorn]

Lack of demand. You might think they're better but the vast majority of bass players don't.

 

[GIBrat51]

Gorn is right. And my Kramer Duke Special is a good example of why that's so. As you can see, I'm limited in my choice of strings, because there's no room for silk at the ball end. You'd be surprised how limiting that is - especially since it's also a short scale bass. The Duke uses a Schaller Roller bridge and guitar tuners, so no problem on that end - other than having no choice but to use short scale strings, or nothing. However, with the tailpiece/tuners that most headless basses use? I'm not sure how well they work with silk on the tuner end of the strings, given the way they work. If silk is a no-no on that end, too, then the string choice is even more limited. And, if that headless bass is one that requires a ball at both ends of the strings? Then your string choices are very limited. So, I'd say that limited string choices, and the fact that - let's be honest - headless basses/guitars just look weird, are the reasons they aren't more popular. But, weird looking or not, I do like my Duke very much...

 

[jd56hawk]

Aesthetics?
Looks funny to so many people.

Other than that...
To me it is a very good design as I hate fighting with the traditional very heavy tuning gears in a considerable distance giving a bad balance and pain in the shoulder.
Furthermore there are only minor “dead string ends” giving tuning ptoblems, and furthermore they have a 0th fret giving better intonation in general. Why it isn’t ingorporated in traditional design I don’t understand, a piece of fretwire can’t tilt the economy!

Can’t say I agree.

Regardless, Morticia Addams chopped the heads off her roses and Wednesday chopped the heads off her dolls, so...

 

[Guitalia]

If precision screw thread technology had existed when the first stringed musical instruments were developed, chances are that pegheads/headstocks would never have appeared or, at most, would have been a minor design deviation long extinct by now.

 

[ixlramp]

Headless is a better design in many ways, as long as the hardware is designed to work with single ball end strings.

The reason is because guitar design is unfortunately dictated by 'rock music fashion', not 'good design'. The average target consumer is, or is perceived to be, on average: Very young, insecure and image-concious (i don't want to look like a nerd on stage), fashion concious, intent on looking like musicians of the 60's and 70's, or their heroes who also want to look that way, uninterested or unconcerned about their health, and considers ergonomic design 'uncool' due to inverted-snob anti-intellectualism.

60 years on everything is still essentially a Strat or a P-bass or slightly modernised version of those. If Fender had made the Strat and P-bass headless and 60's rock bands used them, that would be the dominant design now and they wouldn't be considered weird looking.

The design of mainstream guitars is still essentially an acoustic guitar from 300 years ago, made solidbody and with 2 cutouts added.
This one was made in 1680:

Acoustic guitars couldn't have the tuners on the body, but electrics can.

The Strat / P-bass 4-piece rock band fashion is still very strong now, and this makes me think maybe it has to die for mainstream guitar design to progress. Guitars can then be seen as modern, progressive instruments with no reference to the past.