Neck heavy Jazz bass

Rocker

played my brother in laws Jazz bass recently and was surprised to find it somewhat neck heavy. Not as bad as an SG but inclined to drop down. My Precision, which had a heavy neck, does not do this and the neck will remain where it is put......

guitarfishbay

If it bothers him it might be worth trying some lightweight tuners.  With bass necks being so long it should make a difference to the balance if you swap out the tuners for something lighter.

Funkfingers

Is B-I-L's bass a Fender, a self-build project or a budget copy?

For a Jazz or Precision style bass to suffer neck dive, either the machineheads must be massive, sealed gear Grover types or the body must be extremely light - to the point that you have to wonder what wood it is made from.

The last time that I experienced anything similar was on a Yamaha Attitude Plus. The Attitude variants with a machined from solid bridge do not suffer from neck dive. This is one reason why I recommend replacing the "vintage" stamped steel bridge of the Attitude Plus and cheaper RBX basses with a Gotoh 201B high mass bridge.

fretmeister

Many real fenders suffer from it as well.

If the tuners are big plate ones swap them for Hipshot Ultralites.

On some basses they can save almost half a pound, and when that saving is at the end of the long lever the difference in balance is remarkable.

They aren’t cheap though. So if the bass isn’t a keeper then it might not be worth it.