Please educate me on headless bass bridge/tuner hardware

[Matthew Lau]

Normally, I don't have time to go on MIMF.

However, we just had a baby boy 2? 3? days ago.
I've been going down a rabbit hole thinking about making a lighter bass for my wife...and recently came across the TalkBass thread about Steinberger, Hipshot, and the cheap chinese stuff.

Would someone mind educating me on this stuff?

Also, salute to David King.
I've seen quite a bit of his posts floating out there, and he has a solid rep.

[Jim McConkey]

Can't help with the bass questions, but congratulations on the new addition!

[Clay Schaeffer]

Congratulations on the new addition Matthew!
No help on the bass hardware, except to say most of the cheaper Chinese made stuff i have used is usually of "lighter construction". I have also bought some Chinese made stuff that is good quality and still priced competitively but not uber cheap.

[Matthew Lau]

What would you recommend?

[JC Whitney]

I ventured down a similar rabbit hole a few years back. That project has yet to make it to the starting line, but at the time I was really intrigued by ABM's 3901 single string combination bridge/tuners (and their cousins by other mfrs). Reviews of the ABM version seemed to be predominantly positive.

[Matthew Lau]

Dang! Expensive! Looks well made though.

[Jarno Verhoeven]

There are also options on Aliexpress. For basses and guitars, for guitar I've tried the ones with the worm gears, pretty cheap, not great. There's also the individual ones similar to the ABM bridge, these are a bit finicky because of the mounting hardware. The hardware to screw it to the baseplate is in the way of the string which is dumb. I'd also make a baseplate which fits all 6 (or 5 or 4 if you make a bass) rather than trying to get all of them properly aligned on the instrument. This way, if you make a mistake, you can discard a bit of aluminium plate and start over.

Overall though, I think the ABM-esque tuners on Aliexpress are too expensive to take a gamble on (IMHO anyway, something like 16 euro each without shipping and duties).

[Veronica Merryfield]

ABM or Hipshot would be a goto. However, if you are just making one bass and the price is the touch point, you might be able to find a suitable set on eBay. I've not seen any of the Ali Express stuff nor the singles from Solo. Dave King was making his own and Ola Strandberg went that way too. I have used Steinberger and made my own in the past. FWIW the Hipshot bass tuff I have used has been excellent.

[Jarno Verhoeven]

The ABM ones are 50 euros each or so, and the head unit is sold separately, so that is quite expensive. Also, in my mind at least, it is more expensive than necessary. I always try to assess whether the price, whether high or low, makes sense. In the production volumes and quality ABM does, I see a 25-30 euro part, not a 50 euro part.