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Heavy or light bass?

#62
Chad Johnston said:
Quality. I tried one of those Sterling by MM Ray 24 basses and while I enjoyed the way it played and sounded, the neck moved on it every other day and needed constant adjusting. They also don’t hold their value at all (probably because they start off with very little of it), so I returned it.
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I asked because I have an Epiphone Thunderbird Vintage Pro that was built in Indonesia, and the quality is really good. I got it about a year ago and have played/gigged it a lot with no issues. The only thing that could be better is the machine heads. They work fine and hold tuning, but they aren’t as smooth as higher quality ones.
It weighs about 8.5 lbs which is good for me.
If you see an Eppi Tbird with chrome pickups, bridge and tailpiece in a music store, that’s the Vintage Pro - check it out.
 
#64
JimmyM said:
OK, well let's assume that it is. So what?
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Lol doesn't matter to me, do whatcha like.

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#65
Kmonk said:
I have never understood how people can play a bass that weighs 9 pounds but have a problem with one that weighs 9.5 pounds. I honestly don't believe that the majority of people can even notice an 8 ounce difference in weight.
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Not so. We are all put together differently and have different thresholds of comfort. Most of my go to basses are between 8 and 8-1/2 lbs. I can deal with a 9 pounder, but I definitely notice it.
Even if you do not notice the difference between 9 and 9-1/2, will you notice the difference between 9-1/2 and 10? 10 and 10-1/2? 10-1/2 and 11? I'm sure you'd hit your threshold somewhere.
 
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#67
Chad Johnston said:
... better tone and sustain from heavier, denser woods...
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I have had heavy-weight basses that sounded great ( i.e. solid-maple Gibson Victory, eleven or twelve pounds I am guessing! ) but the very very very very best sounding bass I have ever owned - with the best sustain - weighed just under seven pounds. That one was headless and all composite. I would still have that one today but it came to me with a freak QC issue in the neck and rather than make it right, the maker opted to just refund my purchase price.

The second best sounding one (which I still own) was not headless and has an Aluminum neck... and still weighs in at a modest 8 pounds, six ounces. (Vaccaro X-Ray - no shortage of sustain either!). Pretty comfortable! But for me I think that "seven and a half pounds" is ideally comfortable. I have some thoracic vertebrae issues ( from being an unlucky passenger in not one, but two bus crashes!) but really I feel the ten-pound basses weigh hardest on my shoulder, more than anything. Seven to eight feels feather light by comparison! :)
 
#68
dxb said:
That's the only reason you gave though. You said you couldn't take it seriously because it was so light that it felt like a toy.
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That’s right, but it’s an apples and oranges comparison. I didn’t say that I’m opposed to all light things. If I’m backpacking, I use the lightest gear I have.

You’re making a straw man argument.

Specific to my bass guitar, I just like the thing to have some weight to it.
 
#70
Chad Johnston said:
Seems like the trend right now is manufacturers making their basses lighter and lighter. I was in GC the other day and played a new EBMM Stingray and I couldn’t believe how light it was. It was a complete turnoff, to be honest. I’ve owned two EBMM basses and they were both a significant amount heavier than this one. One of them was a USA Sterling which is partly marketed as lighter than the Stongray, because it has a smaller/slimmer body. But those are still quite heavy compared to what I’m mostly seeing on the shelves...or hangers....today.

Maybe I’m just old school or something but back when I started playing guitar and bass it seems like the good, American stuff was stout and heavy and the cheap overseas stuff was light and made out of very inferior woods.

I’ve been criticized for thinking this way in the past, but I just feel like I get better tone and sustain from heavier, denser woods.

Am I alone here? Do I need to adapt or am I destined to buying only 10-20 year old basses, LOL?
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Some basses do feel better with more weight!
 
#71
2112 said:
Agreed. While I'm sure there is small fraction of bassists who are actually sensitive to the difference of a few ounces, I suspect most of this kerfuffle is driven by snobbery and diva-ism.
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LOL I’ll confess there’s probably some truth to that on my end, ha! It’s pretty clear that the light thing is mostly an illusion (I’m not convinced this is true with the maker-origin issue though)
 
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#72
Chad Johnston said:
That’s right, but it’s an apples and oranges comparison. I didn’t say that I’m opposed to all light things. If I’m backpacking, I use the lightest gear I have.

You’re making a straw man argument.

Specific to my bass guitar, I just like the thing to have some weight to it.
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I didn't imply you were against "all light things", and I don't think asking about other similar stringed instruments qualifies as a straw man argument.
 
#75
The weight = tone thing has been debunct for a while now I think. High mass bridges and fat fingers are out of fashion these days for good reason. I just changed the bridge and tuners on a Jazz bass reducing the weight from 10.5 to 9.6 lbs. most of that being out at the headstock. It has made a huge improvement to playability with no noticeable detriment to the sound. Ernie Ball has done a lot to reduce weight on the new stingrays with aluminum hardware and such. These have been good improvements in my view. I’d love to check one out. Basses don’t feel like “toys” to me til they are under say 7.5 or so.
 
#76
Chad Johnston said:
Sure you did. You took a specific dislike and transposed it onto something completely different in order to debunk my opinion. It’s all good though, man, for real.
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An acoustic bass isn't completely different from an electric bass, nor is an electric guitar that different. But if you want to stick to electric basses, fine. How about short scale vs long scale or 4 string vs 5 string? Plenty of variation there in average weight and size, so I guess you must think everything's a straw man unless we're talking about the exact same model of bass then. Sorry, that's not how it works.
 
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#77
dab12ax7ef said:
The weight = tone thing has been debunct for a while now I think. High mass bridges and fat fingers are out of fashion these days for good reason. I just changed the bridge and tuners on a Jazz bass reducing the weight from 10.5 to 9.6 lbs. most of that being out at the headstock. It has made a huge improvement to playability with no noticeable detriment to the sound. Ernie Ball has done a lot to reduce weight on the new stingrays with aluminum hardware and such. These have been good improvements in my view. I’d love to check one out. Basses don’t feel like “toys” to me til they are under say 7.5 or so.
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Yeah maybe that is the difference (the lighter aluminum hardware,etc as opposed to wood)? I wouldn’t think that would make that much of a difference though since the body and neck wood make up, what, probably 90% of the weight? Curiously, that Ray24 bass I mentioned earlier which is definitely a cheaper bass at 599 retail, had a Mahogany body on it! Huge part of the reason I tried it out in the first place (and it had some weight to it). That damn neck tho...
 
#79
Chad Johnston said:
Quality. I tried one of those Sterling by MM Ray 24 basses and while I enjoyed the way it played and sounded, the neck moved on it every other day and needed constant adjusting. They also don’t hold their value at all (probably because they start off with very little of it), so I returned it.
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I have several Indonesian guitars and basses that are very well made. I've seen some Indo stuff that's far from perfect too. Its just inaccurate to generalize that its all bad- as you did in your original post- or that it doesn't keep its value. Even if it keeps a bigger percentage of the initial cost, you'll still lose more money with USA stuff you bought new because it depreciates by a much bigger dollar amount.
 
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#80
dxb said:
An acoustic bass isn't completely different from an electric bass, nor is an electric guitar that different. But if you want to stick to electric basses, fine. How about short scale vs long scale or 4 string vs 5 string? Plenty of variation there in average weight and size, so I guess you must think everything's a straw man unless we're talking about the exact same model of bass then. Sorry, that's not how it works.
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I didn’t read what you said as acoustic bass but as accoustic guitar, which, yeah I think it’s a completely different thing. Heck for that matter, an accoustic Bass is still a completely different animal IMO and I would use extremely different parameters in evaluating any of those. Didn’t mean to offend, I just didn’t think it was a good comparison.
 

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