Quick Question on Bridges

[Fwarginator]

Hello good people of the Luthier's Corner. I am in the planning stages of a 5-string bass to be built over the summer in a wood shop one of my buddies owns. I drew up a couple rough designs (nothing to scale or anything yet) and gave them to him so he could look them over and see if there was anything there we wouldn't be able to do using the tools he has. In the meantime, he suggested I start looking into hardware, types of wood, etc.

Anyway, my question regards bridges. I know there are the major companies everybody knows of (ABM, Leo Quan, Hipshot, etc), but do these bridges really offer anything that could not be attained from using a cheaper, generic bridge? I personally like the look of individual string saddles, and there are some which are very inexpensive on ebay. Would using these be in any way detrimental to the bass?

Thanks very much in advance,
Fwarg

 

[XylemBassGuitar]

It depends on how good you want your bass to be. A more expensive bridge can definitely affect the quality and sound of the bass.

I would highly recommend spending some money on a decent bridge, Hipshot in particular.

Cheaper bridges can have intonation issues, bad threads, bad saddles, less accurate adjustment, etc...

You probably could get away with a cheaper bridge, but when you start dialing in the setup on the bass you might notice some factors on a cheaper bridge that you wish was better.

 

[Fwarginator]

Okay, thanks for the help. I think I will shell out the cash for a quality bridge.

 

[bigTbass]

I just picked up a hipshot B-style bridge at Carvin for $47. I haven't installed it yet so I i dont know how good it is. It feels like it is of decent quality though.

I was also looking at name brand versus cheapo bridges. I decided to go with a lower priced name brand for reliability.