Badass III vs Hipshot A for Fender

[Nando Vallart]

Hello people!!

I'm in need of advice by the bass players of the forum!  :icon_thumright:

Warmoth does route for string-thru body bass bridges, but it's for Badass III bridge and I would like to know if the Hipshot A for Fender fits this routing... Couldn't find the drawings to see if match...

Also about the tone of BAIII and the Hip A, BA is a little bit more expensive (US$130) but is made of Zinc alloy and the Hip is a tad less expensive (US110) but can be bought from Brass or Aluminium...

What do you guys think about?
Cheers

 

[Rickgrxbass]

Hello people!!

I'm in need of advice by the bass players of the forum!  :icon_thumright:

Warmoth does route for string-thru body bass bridges, but it's for Badass III bridge and I would like to know if the Hipshot A for Fender fits this routing... Couldn't find the drawings to see if match...

Also about the tone of BAIII and the Hip A, BA is a little bit more expensive (US$130) but is made of Zinc alloy and the Hip is a tad less expensive (US110) but can be bought from Brass or Aluminium...

What do you guys think about?
Cheers

It sure looks like the BAIII is compatible with the stock Fender string-thru, so the corresponding hipshot should work as well. I really like the aluminium Hipshot A I just put on my fretless, I think it looks better than the Badass, personally. I'm starting to prescribe to the belief that lighter hardware will let the tone of the wood through better (whatever that means), so I went with aluminium. If you want "big brass" tone of course there's that option with the Hipshot, too.

Basically, from what I recall the Badass was supposed to "fix" the problem of mushy sustain in older basses that may not be up to the same standards of modern parts like Warmoth. The point was more mass=more sustain, which is also what Traben did with their pickguard-sized bridges, with questionable results (I had one up until this week; it sounded just as mushy as any other budget basswood-body bass, even with five pounds of brass hanging on it). So I've kind of written off the Badass bridges as a bit of an anachronism; I can't imagine they'd be much better than the hipshots.

Of course, that's my opinion; If it were me, I'd pick the one that I like the looks of best and go with that. (Which is what I did, and I went with the Hipshot  :binkybaby

 

[Nando Vallart]

Hummm that "big" brass tone is what I'm thinking about, actually... thanks