Re: VOTE: What do you want in a bridge redesign?
Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:53 am
I see so many posts on the bridge that it makes me wonder why this hasn't been rectified to some degree of acceptable compromise. I understand some people have a cow when they change something at RIC, and have read something about RIC having a damned if they do, damned if they don't dilemma going on, so here's my 2cs.
First of all, I'm not knocking the bridge any more than anybody elses. Old Fenders draw blood when you try to palm mute them, and some of these new basses have adjustments that take 13 fingers and 3 hands to adjust. The problem seems to be that you trade one problem for another when you switch(generally) and always get that "looks good, but it ain't a Rick" vibe going on inside. You dropped a wad on a high quality bass, you want it to be asthecially pleasing and correct(generally speaking.)Both Badass and Hipshot have their ups and downs, but ultimately, it appears that everyone wants one that RIC manufactures to address the issues that people have with them.
Why not just re engineer some components rather than the whole deal.A bridge that drops(or screws) in to the existing tailpiece could have a few small parts you could buy to fix only the issues you may have with it. Allen screws for the saddles and a template for adding additional tailpiece screws could be easily provided. All of this would require minimal retooling for the components, allow the player to only get the parts they need, and allow RIC to seamlessly continue making the standard bridge/tailpiece unit to please the purists. Ric could even outsource/liscense the manufacturing of these parts locally so they incur minimal or no cost to solve the problem in a way that would seem to suit most everyones needs.
And then again,maybe this new bridge addresses all of these issues, but with no guestimation of availability, folks will search elsewhere. None of us are getting any younger, and we need to give our best performances before we no longer can. I don't know what the outcome of all of this is going to be, but with the resurgance of Rickenbacker basses in the mainstream, it would suck to have all of these groups stop using them because they find issues with the way that they adjust.
First of all, I'm not knocking the bridge any more than anybody elses. Old Fenders draw blood when you try to palm mute them, and some of these new basses have adjustments that take 13 fingers and 3 hands to adjust. The problem seems to be that you trade one problem for another when you switch(generally) and always get that "looks good, but it ain't a Rick" vibe going on inside. You dropped a wad on a high quality bass, you want it to be asthecially pleasing and correct(generally speaking.)Both Badass and Hipshot have their ups and downs, but ultimately, it appears that everyone wants one that RIC manufactures to address the issues that people have with them.
Why not just re engineer some components rather than the whole deal.A bridge that drops(or screws) in to the existing tailpiece could have a few small parts you could buy to fix only the issues you may have with it. Allen screws for the saddles and a template for adding additional tailpiece screws could be easily provided. All of this would require minimal retooling for the components, allow the player to only get the parts they need, and allow RIC to seamlessly continue making the standard bridge/tailpiece unit to please the purists. Ric could even outsource/liscense the manufacturing of these parts locally so they incur minimal or no cost to solve the problem in a way that would seem to suit most everyones needs.
And then again,maybe this new bridge addresses all of these issues, but with no guestimation of availability, folks will search elsewhere. None of us are getting any younger, and we need to give our best performances before we no longer can. I don't know what the outcome of all of this is going to be, but with the resurgance of Rickenbacker basses in the mainstream, it would suck to have all of these groups stop using them because they find issues with the way that they adjust.
