Thank you for this! I almost impulse bought this same bridge for my squier p bass, but decided to do a little research first. The string height issue is a big deal breaker for me. Very helpful video!
Glad you found it useful Brandon. It seems any small changes to string to bass angle can make a big difference. If the saddles on the high mass don't go low enough you shim the neck, this changes the neck to body angle and you need to readjust the pickups etc. and for some that's a bridge to far (pun intended) Be well, keep making music. :)
Great vid. I appreciate the time you took to make this. Personally, I hear both an increase in the trail and the attach of the note, but the sound really didn’t change much. If the bridge is throwing off your action then I agree it’s not worth the “upgrade” or cost.
You brought out the most important point that i haven't heard anyone deal with and thats the change in string height adjustability. I can't drop my strings any lower. So it's back to stock.
You can shim the neck but that creates other issues like getting the pickup height right. I'm satisfied that for me the stock bridge ticks more boxes so I'm sticking with it also.
Great video, you realized my fear... I was about to install a Himass on my Jazz bass and that was my big worry. I love the setup and don’t want to jeopardize that.
Hi, glad you found the information useful. We did a redux with a neck shim from Stewmac, this helped alleviate the setup issue. I used it with this bridge for a few gigs but found that the sound was not as punchy. I put that down to the brass saddles on the hi mass bridge, steel saddles may give different results. I resorted to the standard bridge, if it ain't broken don't fix it I think is apropos here but I had to try it out and see how it worked. Lots of people have positive results from the hi mass bridge, I have one on my P Bass and it sounds great.
I got High Mass bridges on my Squiers. They are comfortable when you rest your palm on the bridge and they look good if you like that Geddy Lee-ish look and they got „Fender“ written all over it which was the main „upgrade“ for me. I‘ve noticed that issue with the action on one of the basses.
I think the original bridge sounded better, particularly during the slap riff. Had more attack and presence. The high mass seemed to attenuate some of the highs.
Very good analysis, it has helped me, the difference is very subtle. playing in a band no one would notice the difference ... and with a compressor or a preamp it would be even less noticeable, thank you very much.!
By way of comparing my locking-bridge basses to my sheet-metal bridged and my "hi mass" bridged instruments, I found the latter two somewhat lackluster and "vintage sounding" at best. Only the locking types (Spector, G & L, Yamaha Motion LB1) offer major advantages in sound. The Yammys and Spectors are neck-thru, which is another advantage sustain-wise. The G&L has an advanced neck joint (deep pocket, 6 screws). Bottom line: get a solid bass guitar rather than "upgrading" from non-locking sheet metal to non-locking hi-mass.
Found a fender high mass bridge today, was going to put it on my affinity p bass but I think I’ll keep it as it is after watching your video. I enjoy my action low. I can hear a slight difference in tone but, ya like you say poor action is a deal breaker. Thank you!
Butch Davis hi, I tried the high mass bridge again with a neck shim to adjust the action where I like it but after a couple of gigs still went back to the stock bridge. I think the brass saddles on the high mass bridge didn’t give me the attack I wanted. In any case it was an interesting exercise. Keep on thumping that P Bass Butch, they’re awesome.
@@samatza Good point on the brass saddles. I was looking for more of a vintage sound, which I got from the brass. The nickel saddle will give you that more attacking sound. Also have a hipshot type A on my 62 reissue. Complete difference between the two. The hipshot gives that attack. Great video. Thanks 🙏
I have the Hipshot KickAss bridge on my Precision bass, and love it. No action issues like you experienced. If anything, I had to raise the saddles. And Hipshot KickAss bridge only costs $80 from Amazon.
I put a fender high mass on my 57 reissue P. I went for the brass saddle rather than the nickel. Sustain was awesome tone was better. Intonation was a little tricky on the E and G. Horses for courses. Had no problem with the action. Cheers
That's great, thanks for your input on this. As I said it seems to work better on some instruments. My P bass came with a Badass bridge and the action is great. I suppose it was manufactured with this bridge in mind so the difference was taken into account. I'm glad you had great results with yours. Be well.
Superb video and really appreciate the heads-up on the higher action ; I didnt anticipate the thicker bass plate to do this (although its obvious now). You just saved me a bit of money for beers instead ;)
Enjoy those beers Gabriel! Really you could use shims but it didn't make enough difference for me to consider adding the weight to the bass. Be well Gabriel.
My suggestion for the action on a bridge that you’ve already bought, would be to remove the offending saddle and basically sand the bottom of it until you can reach the desired height, or replace the offending saddle with another that will. (In the future it pays to know how much adjustment you’ll have, a lesson all us builders/modders learn the hard way😊)
That's a great suggestion. I've done this in the past with different bridges, in this case we wanted an "out of the box" solution that anyone could use to upgrade. I think we'll try different material next to see if there is any sonic difference. Keep well :)
@@samatza funny you should mention that. I just finished an old 5 string Jazz bass of mine. New SS frets, electronics, a musicman humbucker in the bridge pu, and a beautiful gold flake with purple candy over it. I put a SS nut on it, and it seemed to give it just a tiny extra oomph.
Thanks for you video, but I think the fender hi mass bridge is ideal for fender basses (American/Mexican), Probably with Squier you have different measures!!!
it is not ! This bridge is bloody shit, so to say, I have top Ultra Jazz and have to buy standard bridge to make possible any playing. Himass is wrong designed
Thank you for the video! On my bass (fender p bass) I noticed a bigger difference. With the old bridge I had overtones on some strings that I didn't like. With the high mass bridge it sounds louder, more compressed and the overtones are gone.
Hi IronSteffi, it does change the sound and I guess it depends on the other parameters on the instrument. I'm glad you got good results out of your P bass, I just couldn't live with the action and I didn't want to shim the neck. I have another Warmoth J with a similar bridge and it sounds great, the bottom plate however is thinner than the Fender bridge. I guess it's whatever works, my USA J 5 string has this bridge and it sounds fine.
You can buy a full size shim from StewMac that fits the entire area of the neck joint, and in different thicknesses too. So it won't result in the twisting of the fretboard end, as you mentioned.
Hi Christos, thanks. I tried one of those but still preferred the standard bridge. This may be because of the brass saddles on the high mass, I know lots of people have noticed an improvement but for me on this bass at least it wasn’t for me.
You have to make the rills in the saddels deeper!..by the way,the stringspacing of the highmass fender bridge is not right!! In my opinion,there must be from middle to middle of the strings 20mm.That did not happen by the Fender highmass🙂🤟
I would use the high mass bridge and shim the neck to get a better action and IF you eventually get the ski ramp towards the heel deal with it then by re- leveling the frets or new neck . it's a Squier Affinity it's replaceable. It's not always worth it for a high mass bridge , I rarely replace the hardware .
The sound difference is small however the control you have on setting up a bass with these after market bridges is incredible and so much better than the stock bridges so like the man said it’s up to you
Thomas Barker yes indeed, they are more refined than stock bridges and the design eliminates side to side movement. Good to hear you are happy with the results on your bass.
Some folks have good results and some like you and I didn't find it makes enough of a difference to keep or didn't like the shim. I thought I'd give it a try because my P Bass came with a Badass bridge stock (Steve Harris P) and it sounds pretty good. On the Jazz though the results were not to my liking so I went back to stock. Be well, keep making music.:)
you can get shims from stewmac that wont have that issue of messing with the end of the neck if you particularly feel like making the high mass work for you
Hi Paul, yes indeed, I tried this with a neck shim from StewMac and it did work for setting the bass up. I think the brass saddles in this particular bridge don't work on this particular bass so I went back to the stock bridge. I'll try it on another bass in the near future.
I’ve been on the fence about putting a Fender hi mass or Gotoh 210b onto my J-Bass. I was worried about the action issues that you described. Not worth it IMO. I’ll stick with the stock one. Thank you!
Yeah, I tried a shim in the neck to get the action right but I still didn't like the sound as much as the stock bridge. I suspect it may have something to do with the brass saddles on the hi-mass but I don't have any other saddles to test with. I do have a Gotoh on my other Jazz, same woods and pickups and it sounds great but it was designed with that bridge in mind.
I actually ended up purchasing a Gotoh bridge for my J-bass. The base plate looks a lot thinner than the Hi mass. I’m hoping it will work out. If not, I’ll just stick with the stock one.
I put the Gotoh bridge on my J-Bass. Looks great. I was able to adjust the string height to my liking without issue. And I kid you not, I screwed that bridge down, strung it, tuned to pitch, stretched strings, tuned again, checked intonation and it was perfect for all 4 strings. I was floored. I wouldn’t assume everyone would have the same luck.
Looking at the sound files, the second file, clearly the note after it played, hit the fret, you can hear this clearly, it was not a clean note, the corkscrew look of the wave file, tells me, a few harmonics are bouncing around, that can cause nulls and voids, as well as stacking of harmonics on top of the fundamental, and why it seems thicker. I would very much like to see this test without the note hitting the fret as it did, and what that wave file looks like, anyway, just my thoughts.
Michael Ballard it seems people have different results depending on the instruments and their preferences, I did try to like this bridge but it just didn’t work for me on that bass.
5:07 vs 5:27 exact the same tonal difference comparing steel vs brass saddles which is perfectly expected considering that's exactly what's going on (minus the higher action and resulting lower pickup heights).
Yes, I agree. For some basses that brass bridge makes a noticeable improvement in sound. When I swapped the bridge I actually raised the pickups slightly to compensate, what I found was that even after shimming the neck to lower the action the sound was not working for me (could work for others though). I took the bass to a few gigs to check it out in a live setting but found myself gravitating towards the stock bridge for this one. As I said lots of people had the opposite result and liked the high mass better than the stock bridge. For me in a live setting it sort of lost a bit of its punch.
So on my Squier Vintage Modified Short Scale I added a cheap Warman higher mass bridge - the idea was to reduce the neck dive. That worked - because this cheap bridge added the mass on the right angle ...not to the guitar body. Tonight I ordered a Fender HM bridge + like yours. I see now they raise the the floor ...bummer. So my guess is I would have to add a flat shim of change in thickness so that the fretboard is same logical height (assuming the saddles are the same height). Then the pickups would need to also raise by thickness and them because body hasn't moved plucking will feel different right? So if one uses a thumb rest it would be ok. if one rest thumb on the body well your finger tips and now relatively closer to the strings - that would make a large difference to the fell
you can add a shim and adjust the pickups and that would work. On mine there was not an appreciable change in tone and the attack changed too much for my liking. You may get different results on different basses.
@@samatza I am more interested to weight the body down to reduce neck dive. Maybe I need some helium filled tuners as well :-) Should be ok when I get straplocks fitted so I can play standing up. Made a massive (pardon the pun) difference to VM Jaguar. It balances more comfortably now. Was almost impossible for me to play sitting down with it before. Hoping the SX will balance, and if so will do something about the J & D.
@@samatza work out ok for me to first order. Fender high mass bridge added to SX JB 75. The plate thickness is 0.5mm difference. I didnt initially put that into 64th of an inch - 1.25 / 64. Ah ... so the E string has moved up about 2/64 and the others 1/64 - I feel a parallel neck shim coming on. On the positive side it pretty much cured the neck dive - and that was my main aim. So I am pretty happy. SX75, shielding, Ironstone Alnico pickups, Fender High mass bridge, Billy Sheenan strings and soon a neck shim - really nice bass. Soon I will trial a different higher mass bridge on the J & D - thicker rightangle rather than plate. This has the EMG J pickups on it - no shielding and super quiet. thanks again for all your tips and tricks.
@@samatza made a YT today. I used Warman - cheap but decent guitar parts supplier in UK. This was an £8 bridge. Not as good quality as the Fender but crucially I didn't need to neck shim. As I am using pedals and mainly church gigs I dont have the same tone quality issue you have - and I can see you are decent bassist :-). So I am happy to keep it. On a totally shallow level I wanted a nice looking surf green bass to noddle on. I will mainly play my SX fretless.
Thanks. I was wondering myself if it was worth to replace my precision bridge, but it seems to have not enough difference and honestly... The original bridge looks much cleaner/nicer, the high mass bridges look like a big piece of steel on your bass...
Ögon Hi, I’ve had differing reports, some like it with the high mass bridge but for me personally I preferred the stock bridge on that bass. I suppose if your bass sounds good to start with it won’t make an appreciable difference.
@@samatza yeah, well i viewed a few videos , noticed the difererence isnt always good. Mostly it gets darker/more muffeled. Your video convinced me that my stock bridge is just okay as it is. :-)
I’m wanted to do this with a kit I built I’m not too worried about my finish would it be worth sinking the high mass bridge a couple of mm into the body to lower the action?
Hi Big T, it's probably safer to try it with a neck pocket shim. If you like the results then you can proceed to sink the bridge into the body, if not it's easy to remove the bridge and the shim and go back to normal. Be well.
Definitely stick with playability over what other people think is better. In a band setting you can't hear a lot of the different mods, especially a bridge. If it makes you less happy to play, don't do it. Cheers
The truss rod helps to get the neck properly straight, the action is adjusted by the bridge saddles. Because there is not enough adjustment in the bridge saddles you need to shim the neck to change the action.
