If it's an older bass, I prefer to keep everything original. If I'm gonna tinker, I'd rather have a 'tinker bass' or something that hasn't dug a hole in my heart.
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Who Believes In Leaving Basses Alone?
- Thread starter plangentmusic
- Start date
Most artists that I know are never satisfied with anything. Neither in their artwork or in their tools.
They are always just one step away from perfection.... Until their next big idea comes along.
Some musicians I know are more like mechanics. They approach their music as getting the job done and doing it right. If their tools are functional they are probably unmodded.
Not saying that either approach is better or that people are limited to these two stereotypes alone. Everyone is different and thank god for that.
They are always just one step away from perfection.... Until their next big idea comes along.
Some musicians I know are more like mechanics. They approach their music as getting the job done and doing it right. If their tools are functional they are probably unmodded.
Not saying that either approach is better or that people are limited to these two stereotypes alone. Everyone is different and thank god for that.
Then again, not everyone is into flipping gear. Some of us buy an instrument to keep.
MM
If I don't like an instrument as is, I won't buy it, so there is no need for a modification. I am not counting changing to Schaller strap locks, so if someone thinks that is a mod, well that is the extent of it. 
Usually straplocks and sometimes a Hipshot D-Tuner (for the 4-stringers, if it warrants the need). That's as far as I go.
I can see getting some good Warmoth body/neck combos and going that do-it-yourself-customized route.
I can see getting some good Warmoth body/neck combos and going that do-it-yourself-customized route.
When people come on TB and start asking about replacing tuners or a bridge, my first question is always "What's wrong with the one you have?"
If there's no malfunction, 99 times out of 100 there's no reason to replace the item in question.
Fender bent metal bridge? Millions of them are working fine. Leave it alone.
Tuners "cheap"? Well, if they work, they work - so leave them alone.
I'm at about one dozen basses, and I've only changed the bridge on one...and that was one where I changed out all the hardware to black. OTOH, I recently got a '64 Gibson EB-0 with a Badass bridge on it - yanked it off, sold it and put the original bar bridge back on. It works fine and looks a lot more appropriate, and it intonates as well as I can hear, so I'm not worried about that.
I can do anything I need to - including full refins and electronics replacement - but there's no reason to do it most of the time. Each bass has its own voice based on what the manufacturer designed for it; PLAY IT and enjoy it the way it was designed to sound.
If there's no malfunction, 99 times out of 100 there's no reason to replace the item in question.
Fender bent metal bridge? Millions of them are working fine. Leave it alone.
Tuners "cheap"? Well, if they work, they work - so leave them alone.
I'm at about one dozen basses, and I've only changed the bridge on one...and that was one where I changed out all the hardware to black. OTOH, I recently got a '64 Gibson EB-0 with a Badass bridge on it - yanked it off, sold it and put the original bar bridge back on. It works fine and looks a lot more appropriate, and it intonates as well as I can hear, so I'm not worried about that.
I can do anything I need to - including full refins and electronics replacement - but there's no reason to do it most of the time. Each bass has its own voice based on what the manufacturer designed for it; PLAY IT and enjoy it the way it was designed to sound.
- Feb 16, 2008
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- John K Custom Basses
maybe for most people, but i wouldn't say 'never'. i recently modified/upgraded a BC ric Mockingbird classic with a tummy cut, MOP "R" inlay, rosewood veneer headstock overlay, modded the upper strap mount to correct its neck dive, and intalled hipshot ultralight tuners. I bought it for $350 and put $80 into the hipshots (the rest was labor) and sold it for $1K.
on one of my jags, i installed a new allparts (block bound neck) neck, duncan hot stacks and gotoh res-o-lite tuners. after selling the original neck, i had $500 into it and sold that one for $1K too.
before and after pics:
Bryan R. Tyler
TalkBass: Usurping My Practice Time Since 2002
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- May 3, 2002
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Heck, I can't even bring myself to mod my Ibanez RD707, and I bought it to practically mutilate.
Mods are okay but it's always the same freaking thing. BAII bridge, pearloid pickguard, some generic sounding aftermarket pickup, straplocks, ultralight tuners. Whoop dee doo, you have just created the exact same bass that every other modder on the planet has created. Your "personalized" bass is indistinguishable from the next guy's. To me it's more interesting to keep an instrument intact. That way it's distinctive. I was watching a YouTube video the other day where a guy was just tearing it up on a great sounding MIM stratocaster. Someone asked about the pickups and he replied that he was using the originals and it was like, wow, what an edgy thing to do.
I've changed strings on every bass I've owned but other than that I think the only thing I ever modded was a pickguard on one bass. Just my preference.
I do have an SX that I've considered selling, but by the time I pay for shipping I'd basically be giving it away. It's a fretless, which I hardly ever play, so maybe modding it (fretted neck, pickups) might be a way for me to get some actual use out of it.
I do have an SX that I've considered selling, but by the time I pay for shipping I'd basically be giving it away. It's a fretless, which I hardly ever play, so maybe modding it (fretted neck, pickups) might be a way for me to get some actual use out of it.
Here's my take on all this. It's about people more than about bass players! Maybe the rest of you will say it's obvious, but I want to type it anyway.
I've spent most of my salaried life in education. One of the several big things formal education gets wrong is that we (humans) seem to be hard-wired to tinker with kit: formal education skirts round this and behaves as if the only skills that are valuable are intellectual ones. Just look at the magazine racks in your local shop. Leaving aside the publications specialising in somewhat surprising aspects of the human body a huge number of them are about practical skills and equipment: cars, boats, fishing, bikes, computers, home improvement, gardening..the list goes on. How to use the kit, how to improve it. This is not just for folk who are "blue collar" by training or inclination, it seems to be most of us. I did the academic thing at Trinity College, Cambridge, but the aptitudes I regret not having and try to improve are the practical ones.
The practical skills I work on with my bass are to do with playing the thing. I have a lot of learning to do, plenty of gaps in my understanding and dexterity. It isn't surprising though that other players get their pleasure from tinkering with the kit.
I've spent most of my salaried life in education. One of the several big things formal education gets wrong is that we (humans) seem to be hard-wired to tinker with kit: formal education skirts round this and behaves as if the only skills that are valuable are intellectual ones. Just look at the magazine racks in your local shop. Leaving aside the publications specialising in somewhat surprising aspects of the human body a huge number of them are about practical skills and equipment: cars, boats, fishing, bikes, computers, home improvement, gardening..the list goes on. How to use the kit, how to improve it. This is not just for folk who are "blue collar" by training or inclination, it seems to be most of us. I did the academic thing at Trinity College, Cambridge, but the aptitudes I regret not having and try to improve are the practical ones.
The practical skills I work on with my bass are to do with playing the thing. I have a lot of learning to do, plenty of gaps in my understanding and dexterity. It isn't surprising though that other players get their pleasure from tinkering with the kit.
I change stuff until I like what I hear. Every bass or guitar that I've changed out parts on is awesome now... to me. AND I keep my stuff. Never saw the point of trading my instruments like baseball cards.
I don't like to tinker with mine. I feel that when you're buying basses, the main thing you're buying (aside from parts and labour) is whatever the inventor envisioned it to be. Like I wouldn't buy a Sterling if I didn't like the MusicMan sound, etc. Of course, that's not to say that I won't grab a Squier CV and stick some Am. Std. pups in it, since it's still a Fender. This is probably more true for electronics and less for hardware.
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