When you upgrade, what do you expect?

[Nuage420]

If you replace a set of iron sights with tritium night sights, that's a modification and an upgrade. The modification is implicit in the term "upgraded."

I'll argue that. If I can't identify my target I'm not shooting. That requires illumination and enough that the blades outline and my sight picture is visible. Now I have a tritium brightly colored dot on my front sight post that can blur and obscure instead of black crisp outlines of my irons. So again, it may be an upgrade but it's certainly a modification.

 

[BlueTalon]

The OP was referring to replacing a bass with a different one.

Good point, as I read through the parts swapping content started to take over and I forgot the original post.

In that vein...
I ordered my Maruszczyk Frog last year, having never played one, hoping it would be an upgrade. It was.
This year I'll be getting an Adamovic Soul. I'm confident it will also be an upgrade -- not from the Maruszczyk necessarily, but from gear I have now.

 

[BlueTalon]

I'll argue that. If I can't identify my target I'm not shooting. That requires illumination and enough that the blades outline and my sight picture is visible. Now I have a tritium brightly colored dot on my front sight post that can blur and obscure instead of black crisp outlines of my irons. So again, it may be an upgrade but it's certainly a modification.

Fair enough. But your linguistic quibble seems to be whether or not a modification purported to be an upgrade is actually an upgrade. And when someone is speaking of their own gear, that is certainly an "eye of the beholder" thing, meaning they have the right to use that terminology IMO.

 

[DJ Bebop]

There is a difference between a bass that is easier to play versus the notion that a change in bass is going to foster a sudden change in ability. It is easy for some to fall into that trap.

 

[logdrum]

Nowadays I expect to be disappointed when I upgrade. Because it really is the same old thing. Sorry if that may sound cynical but for me not you or anybody else - there is no more improvement. Even if in the unlikely chance, I get hired to tour nationally for a well known artist - my basses are presentable, they sound good and are professional level instruments. That is why I just stick to Made in USA or Japan for all Fender branded bass, have a couple boutique ones and practice the discipline of contentment

 

[DJ Bebop]

What he actually said was, "Your playing improves. It just does."

I agree, your playing would improve, at the ability that you posses on a bass that had a good adjusted neck.

It won't make you play stuff that you didn't know before, simply because you have a new neck or bass though and I'm not saying he said that, but some think that.

My point was, I didn't consider putting a new neck on an existing bass an upgrade, in the context of the subject matter of the OP. He fixed what he had.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Depends on what you mean by "sudden change in ability." My 3-pickup Warmoth jazz with bubinga neck/wenge fretboard was put together, set up, and PLEK'd by Mike Lull. When I first held it and played it, I could literally play faster than I could before with other instruments. I'm no Geddy Lee, but I experienced exactly the same thing he experienced.

If you can play faster with different instrument, you already had the ability, you lacked the proper gear. The bass allowed you to optimize your ability, it did not give you new ability.

 

[BlueTalon]

If you can play faster with different instrument, you already had the ability, you lacked the proper gear.

Hence the term "upgrade."