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Re: NBD: Actually, FIRST bass day! Advice?
Update: So I got the Gotoh 201B-4 bridge in the mail today and installed it. Did a bit of cleaning and oiling of the fretboard while the strings were off. Put the same strings back on and intonated the bridge. Here are my impressions:
This bridge is a serious hunk of gear compared to stock. From plate to saddles everything is much more substantial in build as well as aesthetics. Yeah, it's way more pretty.
Direct drop in. Unscrew the old one, screw the new one in. Screw size and length were identical.
While the sustain is more or less the same, there is less resonance felt in the body with this bridge. The sound at first glance (uh, listen) is less harmonically rich. But what's really going on is there is less sympathetic vibration of the other strings. At first I thought the Gotoh bridge was killing sustain but really it was that the other strings were ringing less.
While all that sympathetic vibration sounds kinda lovely when playing unplugged, it's a pain when plugged in. I plugged in and played along with some tracks for a few hours this morning and it was really frustrating having to mute so much. The E string was the worst in this regard with the old bridge. With the Gotoh it's drastically more controlled.
Overall the sound is much tighter.
As far as the electronics go I'm going to order some CTS pots with black Speed Knobs and a .022uF Orange Drop cap. With the stock cap I don't use the tone control below 5 or 6 so hopefully that'll give me a more usable range. And if I hate it I'm ordering a .047uF cap just in case.
Update: So I got the Gotoh 201B-4 bridge in the mail today and installed it. Did a bit of cleaning and oiling of the fretboard while the strings were off. Put the same strings back on and intonated the bridge. Here are my impressions:
This bridge is a serious hunk of gear compared to stock. From plate to saddles everything is much more substantial in build as well as aesthetics. Yeah, it's way more pretty.
Direct drop in. Unscrew the old one, screw the new one in. Screw size and length were identical.
While the sustain is more or less the same, there is less resonance felt in the body with this bridge. The sound at first glance (uh, listen) is less harmonically rich. But what's really going on is there is less sympathetic vibration of the other strings. At first I thought the Gotoh bridge was killing sustain but really it was that the other strings were ringing less.
While all that sympathetic vibration sounds kinda lovely when playing unplugged, it's a pain when plugged in. I plugged in and played along with some tracks for a few hours this morning and it was really frustrating having to mute so much. The E string was the worst in this regard with the old bridge. With the Gotoh it's drastically more controlled.
Overall the sound is much tighter.
As far as the electronics go I'm going to order some CTS pots with black Speed Knobs and a .022uF Orange Drop cap. With the stock cap I don't use the tone control below 5 or 6 so hopefully that'll give me a more usable range. And if I hate it I'm ordering a .047uF cap just in case.
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