Who doesn’t mind neck dive?

[John Stephen]

Yep! Use this on my lightest bass...

Diver's weight.

Interesting. I'll have to look into that.

 

[darwin-bass]

Gotcha. It sounded funny and didn't register, because I was thinking in terms of either or.
As in, either a bass is neck heavy and not balanced well,....or it's not neck heavy and balanced well.
I wouldn't call it neck heavy or neck dive. I think they are essentially the same thing.
I'd call it degrees of neck heavy.
A bass that is a little neck heavy can be easily addressed by a sticky strap.
A bass that dive bombs when you let go, or pulls your shirt off should probably be taken out behind the barn and put out of it's misery.
All kidding aside though, some instruments have a terrible design and I don't know how some folks don't mind fighting with them. But, to each their own.

Neck heaviness can be measured. Easily. It is called the center of gravity or CG. I do the measurement with a rolling pin on the kitchen counter. Easy Peasy.

And yes, the more neck heavy the more prone to neck dive. The dirty little secret is that basses don't have to be neck heavy. You can achieve reasonable overall weight plus not be neck heavy through some simple design choices. But manufacturers routinely ignore this and keep marketing neck heavy instruments to players who are unaware it could be different.

 

[RichterScale]

The dirty little secret is that basses don't have to be neck heavy. You can achieve reasonable overall weight plus not be neck heavy through some simple design choices. But manufacturers routinely ignore this

True, but I've learned that the consumers are as much to blame as the manufacturers.

 

[ctmullins]

Economics 101: Manufacture what sells.

End of story.

 

[E2942]

had to do this for real with bungee cords

You know you're winning when you can afford vice grips for the hand crank on the windows:

 

[IronLung1986]

My knee jerk response is that neck dive is one of the worst dealbreakers a bass can have. But the reality is that I've put up with it quite a bit over the years and in some cases not even realized it. For example, I recently pulled out my old Rickenbacker, which I had played for years back in high school and college, and found that it neck dives pretty readily. I never noticed that when I was playing it regularly and would have probably cited it as an example of how I would only ever play a well balanced bass.

My P bass also dives a bit because the body is so light. My Pentabuzz dives, but not as badly as the design would have you expect because the body is so heavy. So really the only bass I own that doesn't dive is my Stingray. Pretty odd considering I "hate neck dive".