That's pretty impressive, considering that fingerboard looks like it weighs about eight pounds by itself! Has the Navy ever tried to land an airplane on it?
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Why aren't upper horns longer, to eliminate dive?
- Thread starter Never2Late
- Start date
- Jun 30, 2010
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Yes, it all adds up over a night on stage. This solves neck-dive taking advantage of the basses 'offset' design -
My Yamaha BBs hang comfortably, but the upper horn doesn’t seem overly longish. Maybe because the cutaway is deepish? I don’t know.
I use a nylon spacer, sand a curve on one end to match the curve of the horn, paint it black, add a longer screw, and done. This, along with/ lightweight tuners, have been the trick for me.
no matter where you fall in this topic, you're not going to change anyone's mind once they've typed it here... 
nuts lol
nuts lol
- Jun 30, 2010
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- 222,129
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
It definitely depends on the bass, how it's designed according to all the particulars involved. (body wood, neck wood, parts & scale-length) Most production basses are following set-in-stone ingredients & construction which are sometimes based purely on nostalgia. A well designed bass should not neck dive.
Fender was a radio repairman that got into building amplifiers and then the electronics for guitars. The first Fender guitar, the Esquire, was more of a mechanical engineering exercise (it's where he implemented the bolt-on neck and started planning mass-production processes), and subsequent instruments were largely designed through input from others because Fender was not trained in luthiery and did not play guitar. Didn't even like guitar music much, he was mostly into big band swing.Does anybody know if Leo actually took the concept of neck dive into consideration when he laid out the shape of the first P?
Or did he just sketch out a shape and say, "yeah..that looks good".
I know he was famous for using feedback from musicians in other areas of design.
Inquiring minds want to know.
People who think of Leo Fender as a man of brilliant insight whose guitars are the pinnacle of guitar design have to appreciate that Fender guitars are the way they are as much to reduce cost of manufacture and repair as anything else. Guitarists were not begging for chunky block neck heels, and I doubt the fact that necks were wholly interchangeable mattered to them at all. The ergonomics were better than for acoustic guitars and that was good enough.
So when they started planning the Precision, they used the same headstock design because that was part of the product identity. Having a bass you could wear on a strap was a first -- nobody was going to complain about neck dive because it was a significant ergonomic improvement over having to carry a bull fiddle around and nobody had used a Precision Bass for long enough to contemplate further improvements.
Because to a large degree, basses are style and fashion, and IF that doesn't necessarily balance on a strap, well, that's a YOU problem and not a THEM problem, you just had to have it, and lots of players buy them regardless.
Personally, I think it's ridiculous that builders will not consult real designers or at least an engineering grad student to figure C of G and balance. We deserve better, but not everyone thinks like this, so we keep buying Divining Rod Basses that keep heading for the floor. . . . but they look good doing it.
Personally, I think it's ridiculous that builders will not consult real designers or at least an engineering grad student to figure C of G and balance. We deserve better, but not everyone thinks like this, so we keep buying Divining Rod Basses that keep heading for the floor. . . . but they look good doing it.
- Apr 18, 2008
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- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
Neck dive I don’t care about that much. I care about short upper strap horns that cause the instrument to shift out towards the fretting hand making playing in first position (especially on a 5 string) quite the stretch. THAT drives me up the wall about 3 incredibly specific basses I wish I could own simply because they are for the most part, the sounds I’m always trying to achieve. But if it ain’t comfortable, I’m not willing to make that sacrifice.
IME, even heavier 7enders could dive and be heavy. IME, you can't have a lightweight FSO unless you compensate for neck dive.
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A bass can be balanced with a little added weight on the light end, but everyone wants less weight, not more. Hanging a bass on just the one strap button closest to the headstock will show if it might be prone to neck dive (use some kind of strap lock to try this!!). Some basses don’t need this test at all because you can clearly see they will be headstock heavy.
The worst of all neck diving basses I own and have ever owned is a Gold Tone Micro bass; It has a super light acoustic body with the neck & tuners sticking out one end. There is no upper horn to extend, so the strap button on the neck heel is nowhere close to a balance point. I’ve put a strap to the headstock to play a few times, but that’s a really clumsy feel. It will get some kind of weight hanging off the bridge end strap button on the next standing gig.
I also have a Gibson T-Bird, but I’ve finally figured out to put the strap over the top of the body on the bridge end and hold the neck up at about 45° from the floor. That makes it manageable and easier to reach notes near the nut….
The worst of all neck diving basses I own and have ever owned is a Gold Tone Micro bass; It has a super light acoustic body with the neck & tuners sticking out one end. There is no upper horn to extend, so the strap button on the neck heel is nowhere close to a balance point. I’ve put a strap to the headstock to play a few times, but that’s a really clumsy feel. It will get some kind of weight hanging off the bridge end strap button on the next standing gig.
I also have a Gibson T-Bird, but I’ve finally figured out to put the strap over the top of the body on the bridge end and hold the neck up at about 45° from the floor. That makes it manageable and easier to reach notes near the nut….
Gibson is the biggest culprit in neck-dive basses. The latest is the Gibson/Tobias Growler. The original Gibson/Tobias Growler’s balance was near perfect with the Swamp Ash body. The “re-released” version has a Paulownia body which obviously much lighter but Gibson failed to compensate for it. Ginbson’s response is “it’s within spec”. That tells you how loose their specs are.
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Think of it this way. If you have no feeling in your foot and you step on a nail, you may tell everyone there’s no nail but there is, in fact, a nail in your foot.
I feel like you and I had a conversation like this about Spectors. The short upper horn, compact body, and bridge placement make some of those basses balance too horizontally and jut the neck out so the first position "money notes" are a far away reach. I felt that with a ReBop 5-string I used to own.
But here's the thing. I've heard it said by bass enthusiasts here on TalkBass and elsewhere online that the neck-through Spectors balance better than the bolt-on ones because of the added weight on the body end. So though the neck-through Spectors are heavier than the bolt-ons, they allegedly balance better.
And all this goes in line with the conversation that long upper horns aren't the end-all-be-all for balance. Just like scale length isn't the end-all-be-all for a good low B (best low B I experienced was on a 34" scale 6-string). And weight isn't everything. Light weight is good, but not if I'm fatiguing my hand holding up the diving neck all night.
Synergy of the overall design and all that.
It’s possible we’ve had this conversation. I’ve very vocal about it. Spector and Warwick are 2 basses I REALLY want to own. But that reach below the 5th fret is just too much for me.
If someone could build me a P bass or Stingray body with a similar shaped neck with 17mm spacing, with a reverse P/JJ setup to have the NS2 and Thumb pickup positions with a Ken Smith preamp and I’d be one HHHhHHHhHhhhhhhHhhAAAAAAAAAAPPY dude.
@Element Zero
I've owned both. I had a Warwick Corvette Standard 4 (a 1997 one with the wenge neck, brass just-a-nut 1) that was one of the best basses I ever owned. Got it from a TBer at a great price, Warwick was my dream bass (I drooled over Warwick ads in Bass Player magazine in high school), and I finally had one in my hands! Everyone who played it couldn't put it down. But the rub was, I never quite got along with it. It balanced too horizontally for me and first position was a miles-away reach. I was so conflicted that this bass was something special, everyone loved it, but why didn't I? I forced myself to "make it work" and try to love that bass for about 10-11 years until I sold it to a then-budding jazz musician whom the bass fit like a glove. It's like with relationships. Sometimes two great people are not great together.
I also briefly had a Spector ReBop 5 that, despite being one of the best 5-strings I ever played, I couldn't jive with its ergonomics. Horizontal balance, first position too far away... Sold that one.
That's why I too am vocal on here that Spector ergonomics are not for everyone, so try before you buy.
(My ergonomic happy place is my Ibanez Soundgear SR4600. Most comfortable bass ever! Best bass I've ever owned and probably ever will own).
I've owned both. I had a Warwick Corvette Standard 4 (a 1997 one with the wenge neck, brass just-a-nut 1) that was one of the best basses I ever owned. Got it from a TBer at a great price, Warwick was my dream bass (I drooled over Warwick ads in Bass Player magazine in high school), and I finally had one in my hands! Everyone who played it couldn't put it down. But the rub was, I never quite got along with it. It balanced too horizontally for me and first position was a miles-away reach. I was so conflicted that this bass was something special, everyone loved it, but why didn't I? I forced myself to "make it work" and try to love that bass for about 10-11 years until I sold it to a then-budding jazz musician whom the bass fit like a glove. It's like with relationships. Sometimes two great people are not great together.
I also briefly had a Spector ReBop 5 that, despite being one of the best 5-strings I ever played, I couldn't jive with its ergonomics. Horizontal balance, first position too far away... Sold that one.
That's why I too am vocal on here that Spector ergonomics are not for everyone, so try before you buy.
(My ergonomic happy place is my Ibanez Soundgear SR4600. Most comfortable bass ever! Best bass I've ever owned and probably ever will own).
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