LukeFRC

The holes would annoy me I think! Its a different beast to the warwicks I’ve had. Like you know in the video you’ve posted you can hear every note? Like take away the fact he’s a way better player than i will ever be and eq, amps etc - each note is present with a punch and a tone. On a lot of other basses I’ve owned the note is there but with less defined punch, I’ve got the house to myself so I just cranked her up to have a bit of practice and some of the little fills I would play on other basses just don’t seem to work as they sound more musical and stand out as guff ...

Wasn’t Leo Fender an amp man at heart?

It’s good. Go back 3-4 years and I had three through necks - they were great but picking up the G&L made me realise that I enjoyed a bolt on fender-type as much as anything else. Tone wise it’s obviously been designed to have a certain sound, there is a punch to the notes and musicality that seems designed to sit a certain place in the mix. Even in passive The bridge pup sounds a bit more full than you might expect, and the neck pup is usable, rather than a nasal tone. The nicest thing is that the ‘mid drop out’ with both pups up full isn’t too extreme and that’s where I like it. It’s seems both more trebly, more bass focused and with a punching midtone - all at the same time. With the current strings on, it doesn’t have the hollow warmth of the L1000 (think P bass) and in passive mode seems more synthesised and tailored to sound a certain way. Switch the preamp on, boost the bass just a tiny bit, and the bottom end fills out just enough for a typical P bass player like me. Thats playing gently/normal - dig in hard and the tone gets a certain aggressive grind to it that makes you smile. The Will Lee mids switch I need to try out more in different contexts to have a strong opinion on. Simple to use. I did the trade for it with the thought in the back of my mind that if I didn’t like it it would be easier to move on than a vintage Warwick. To my ears it will just ‘work’ in a mix, it’s super playable, not too heavy and Is more than enough bass for me.

Hmmmm calling the genius that is “the Bass Doc” (a Sadowsky pickguard imported would cost over £100!) and a wall of basses. The Sadowsky fell off the other day, mostly due to my bad diy skills and stupidity... but while the screws are good the rawl plugs that come with Hercules hangers aren’t ... anyway scraped the back but was the catalyst for me getting the tort...

Charcoal frost metallic btw. There was just one thing I didn’t like... this better?

So a while back I did a trade with the lovely @warwickhunt which led to me driving back down the A1 with this lovely Sadowsky metro. I wanted to try one out, had a bit of a jazz bass craving and he about the only person in the uk interested in my super early thumb bass so it made sense. omg effortless to play - And sounds amazing.

Some of the recent Alpher basses have been amazing looking

More expert folk will chime in - but I think that a lot of PA speakers in that price range will be designed to be crossed over to a sub so won’t be designed or massively equipped for bass guitar duties. (Dependent on gig, music style, how much volume you need, amount of bottom you want out this speaker etc )

I can’t work out how to copy an image URL on my phone but would love to try a basslab L bow https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2018/10/01/bass-of-the-week-basslab-guitars-l-bow/

+1 the designer in me would proportially mirror the pickup shape in the lower horn too

If you’re spending £1k on a preamp wouldn’t something like the helix work - I think you can have two separate channel paths, one each for both of you. Then feed two Di out to PA or blend to your foldback or whatever you need to do. I’m not sure how big a gig you play - but Theres part of me that wonders why you wouldn’t just use one of the foldback channels on the FOH desk to create a blend for your speaker. Then you get your nice preamp just for your bass. I can’t remember if you needed two channels for two basses too but you could collect multiple the fishman pres you like for less than the felix ?

Bass and other instrument- any vox in there?

Question - you’re a two piece duo, is the FRFR speaker for FOH or foldback for you/you both?

Looking at the feature and effects it actually looks more appealing than a helix for me https://behringerwiki.musictribe.com/index.php?title=10._Effect_Descriptions

Dawson’s have a massive new shop in Leeds which I popped into as I was passing ... I saw for the first time a helix pedal... flip me it’s gianormous! It’s bigger than some bass amps

What is it?

https://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/rcf-745-as/1326252184?utm_campaign=socialbuttons&utm_content=app_ios&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ios_social no idea if that’s a good price but secondhand pair of RCF 745a between Liverpool and Manchester...

No worries - if we’re reviving a build thread from over a year ago why not talk about nails in hands? Never done it myself mind, most painful injury I’ve had was the lime burn to my finger - dipping it in vinegar to neutralise it was agony

Excuse the slippers

Here’s the finished body and a few of it built into a bass... it’s a good instrument, obviously nails that stingray sound on the rear pickup as it essentially is a stingray (ie pup position and circuit are correct) on the neck pup it’s got more of a p thing going on, it’s got the brighter classic series pup on the neck which I don’t like as much tonally as bartolinis original series in the bridge... but select that pup and change your right hand attack and it gets to P bass territory. The single coil option gets towards jazz type sound, you have to majorly rebalance the preamp to get it sounding good, so it’s not quite as easy as turning it on, but it’s passable. Favouring the bridge pup with that switching option in single coil also sounds good so it’s great! The downsides for me is that: I Finished it slightly too dark to the point it looks a bit boring- I should have gone for a glitter finish! And ive got three other amazing basses that get played first, And like a lot of self builds the parts secondhand cost more than together... I’ve always bought basses kinda knowing that if you buy secondhand you can usually move them on and not loose to much. Building yourself, unless you are really skilled nobody will want your bass and you built it more for the joy of building. Different mindset. Currently a friend is borrowing this.

I’ll try

They didn’t crack open the Ashdown valve head. Had some new orange amp in that was ok and I think a rack mount ampeg SVT which had no headroom

I was in there before Christmas- it was odd but surprisingly liberating. It was quiet, the assistant was nice enough - I went in to try one jazz bass and ended up trying about six basses I had no intention of buying. I could point at the custom shop P and ask if I could give it a try. It was nice, though not £3k nice! Got to try one of the new rays and a sandberg too as the assistant suggested it and, heck you’re not telling me I can’t afford this then why not. (V nice Ray) the only odd thing was the lack of nice amps- but anyway... If I ran a shop that was always going to be undercut, but was the only place to try the real things then you’ll get s load of folk coming in to try and then buy elsewhere. The only difference you have is customer service- and by forcing the conversation about price you start the sales conversation- if I had gone in with money to buy a bass I dare say I would have bought that stingray - because it was nice and the assistant had facilitated a good experience for me...

Do you think that there’s much out there much better than the SFT? It essentially is a solid state SVT pre... beyond that it’s either a valve amp with valve power stage or something more valvey like a walkabout or a modern modelling solution ...

The fella has just finished a decade or so long project to come up with a tonal replacement to the walkabout, years of getting the opinions from talkbass... and you want an upgrade next year! Ps - if you’re throwing an amp away I can dispose of it for you...