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I’m cobbling together a P-bass style body for a client to assemble. The Stewmac fretlocation tool tells me that the screws on a “Fender style” bridge should be located at 35”. I’m using a Gotoh 203b-4 bridge. Doesn’t look like a lot of compensation, so I thought I should ask — what’s typical compensation on a well-intonated P-bass.


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I usually take the bridge, find the center of the bridge adjustment,
figure out, or look at a chart (Stew Mac?) to find the compensation,
set the bridge, then dial it in.
Alan

Quite familiar with both the Stewmac calculator, as well as that by Mottola. The former doesn't give compensation for electric basses, and the latter is geared for acoustic bass strings. In fact, I have a calculator similar to that by Mottola, but I also don't have the parameters for electric bass strings.

I was kinda hoping someone with a precision bass would simply plonk a ruler on it. Perhaps none of our active members have one they can measure.

I am 90% confident in the information I've generated, but would just feel more comfortable with an empirical measurement before I start drilling holes!

The 35” that StewMac cite is the location of the mounting screws.

Does the Gotoh bridge have the mounting screws in the same location? If it’s a drop in replacement it should.

You shouldn’t need more than 1/4” rearward travel from 34”. I checked one of my basses just now and none of the saddles are even that far back.

Of course that depends on your action. Higher action requires the saddles to move farther back to flatten the pitch caused by the string being pushed down to the fret. But no one likes their action high anyway. [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND SMILING EYES]


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That’s very helpful, David — thanks! You’ve confirmed what I pretty much figured was the case. It makes sense that the Gotoh bridge is a drop in replacement for a Fender bass, and locating the screws at 35” gives compensation up to 3/8”, maybe more. Strange that this is how the SM calculator expresses compensation, but maybe most/all bass bridges have their screws at scale + 1”.


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