Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

hey

need a hipshot bridge in black.... 1988 JG/BT refin to MG

so, I have the black trim and would like to keep it black....


here is my question


big difference between the brass and the alum?

brass is heavieer and has more sustain....but is it enought to notice over the aluminum?

what do you guys and gals use?

check in and lets see whats up!

thanks

big al

hmmmmm


the dog is getting tired!

hey for 30 bucks more for the brass...I will prolly go this way


just wanted to see what was being used out there!


big al

I have the chrome plated brass one & like it. A heavy bridge with a lot of mass. Really helped with the "oomph" of my G string. (heh heh...).
Doesn't seem to diminish much of the signature Rick clank either.

Good luck...

Tried two alums. Terrible! Brass does fine it would seem.

rokkitt wrote:
big difference between the brass and the alum?

brass is heavieer and has more sustain....but is it enought to notice over the aluminum?

what do you guys and gals use?

check in and lets see whats up!

thanks

big al

I had the brass one time, but besides the slightly improved sustain, it added so much weight to my 4001, that I sold it fast.
Then I tried the Alu one and it had more of a growl to the sound than the brass one. Also being lighter, I kept that one.

Didn't we just have a poll like this?

i've got the aluminum one on my 4000,it doesn't suck. in fact,it's great. i chose it because it was almost identical in weight to the rick bridge,and aluminum was what rickenbacker used to use when they first started with that bridge design. i really couldn't say what the difference would be since i never tried a brass one,but i have had several basses over the years with the brass badass bridges,which sound great too......and i think jaeger wants to go out now.......

rickenbrother wrote:Didn't we just have a poll like this?

I havent been aorund here for a while....

sorry for the duplicate.....

hey, its seems liek either one is good

and I didnt know that the orginal rick one was aluminum...

thanks!

big al

I posted a couple sound files some time back with my comparison. Brain is too fried to search at the moment, but it's out there in the last half year of my posts (and I don't post too often ). The bottom line for me was the brass added noticeably more lower mids to the sound (which I did not want) while the aluminum preserved the original tone. Just my own experience, YMMV.

rickenbrother wrote:Didn't we just have a poll like this?

It was mine and I'm pretty sure it got deleted.

I had a brass one for a few years. I liked it, but it was damn heavy and darkened the tone a bit too much. Switched to an aluminum one and I love it. Just sold the brass on ebay last week. As far as sustain... I hear a lot of hype about this or that "improving sustain". I don't know, but any quality bass with a fresh set of roundwounds usually has all the sustain I need.

tom-agreed about the sustain. my set-neck 4000 with 2 year old dr sunbeams sustains like crazy,when i'm messing about with it alone,i will tend to play power chords and they just ring out for days........hey i don't own a guitar these days......

Any product claiming to enhance sustain will most always do nothing of the sort. That's what I've noticed. My Hipshot lightweight tuner mod has been the only thing to really improve sustain, although Dane's bridge did add a bit. I've never noticed a Hipshot bridge to add much, definitely neither of the ones I tried in aluminum.

woodyng wrote:i will tend to play power chords and they just ring out for days...

This feature seems to be a Ric-sclusive to me. I haven't found many other basses that pull it off as well.

In '89 or so, I was recording for someone's project in school. The engineer was curious how long those fresh strings on my '87 4003 would sustain. No mods. Running direct, we hit the E string and turned up the monitors as the string gradually faded out.

Two minutes of ringing before we gave up. No exaggeration.