sub-a-dub

...BTW, All the basses that I modified were Alder; Is yours Ash or Alder? I would imagine that the ash would be a little brighter again - I have an Ash bodied Bacchus jazz with a Bartolini boost only preamp and I think I'll have to change the pre to allow me to cut-back on the treble! The Badass made an alder bodied maple/R'wood necked vintage sound almost as bright as my stingray and Bacchus (Both of these basses have high-mass bridges - I think the Bacchus is a Gotoh, but not the same models as I tried on the 62's...) In terms of fitting, doesn't the Marcus Miller have a Badass fitted as stock?... Cheers, Sean

Hi, I have only recently finished modifying 3 Fender 62RI jazz basses, and I bought a Badass II, a Gotoh 201 and a Gotoh 203 by way of some comparative analysis. The Badass has been tried with stock Fender MIJ pups, '97 Fender US PUPS, Kent Armstrong Vintage and Lindy Fralins, as have the GOTOHs. The Badass immediately improved the sustain, resonance and high end on the stock PUPs and the improvements with the KAs andFralins was amazing. (US Fenders performed the worst but this is a subjective opinion - they just did not float-my-boat with any of the bridges). However, the 2 Gotoh bridges also performed very well and the only noticable difference was that the improvement in high end "glassiness" was not as notable as with the Badass (It was there if you wanted it, but just not as pronounced...). However, on a purely aesthetic level, the Gotohs look better (at least IMHO on a vintage looking Fender), the Badass looked crude on a very vintage looking bass, but this was probably partly because a Roland GK pickup makes the bass look a little "busy" anyway... The Badass now resides on an Audere/Kent Armstrong equipped 62RI, the 203 (the lighter Gotoh) resides on a jazz fretless, and the 201 Gotoh resides on the Fralin/passive "most vintage" looking '62! If I was doing another bass I would lean towards the Gotoh bridges unless I wanted a very bright glassy tone. You can go some way towards this with the Gotoh's - which IMHO performed equally well in terms of sustain and resonance - but the Badass just does the "glassy" part of the job a little better... All the best, Sean