LukeFRC

I've seen plenty of sandbergs in the shops... and Sadowsky. never a Lull. Looking at them though - I've always seen the sandbergs as equivalent in price to Fender and Musicman and the more mass produced basses- you get maybe better quality but without the "brand" that the americans have. Sadowsky pitch their metro line above the fender while the NYC line and Lull are obviously even more boutique. So American boutique manufacturers vs European small batch production in Germany... (you could stick german Warwicks in this question too) are american basses overpriced? are sandberg equivalent to sadowsky? based on price... is the pound stronger against the dollar or the euro? But at the moment... you could get a custom built bass by a small british manufacturer (ACG, ALPHER, OVERWATER, LETTS come to mind) with a starting price about that of a US built mass produced american standard fender..... I'ld suggest that that is where the value is at the moment!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HanKNe502i4 i like this. The beatles are odd - great music but much like the stone roses first album - nowdays something about the production and mastering makes it sound a little flatter than other stuff to my ears (yes I know that this is very possibly cos it's actually better quality etc) you have to stick with it to enjoy it.

over even!

this is one of the best threads on basschat. almost 6 years old now!

[quote name='karlfer' timestamp='1370152617' post='2096938'] Yes they are, or my Alembic at £1k would have gone in seconds [/quote] you know I have been sat there, and every time I go by the sale forum wonder why your bass hasn't sold yet. It looks good! [quote name='martthebass' timestamp='1370169335' post='2097111'] Recently Ive pretty much gone for trades on here to accommodate the fact that basses in the >£1000 bracket seem to be slow movers. [/quote] Trades seem to be the way forward - my last deal on here was a trade of an acoustic I wasn't playing - the fella didn't have money but he did have a couple of old basses and a Pod thing - well sold the pod and one of the basses- stripped down the other bass, stuck a new body on it and built the jazz bass in my profile - which was gigged for the first time on sunday. Better deall for us all that money changing hands. [quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1370174558' post='2097185'] I picked up a gem recently on ebay where it was collection only and the auction ended at 9.00 a.m. ........... Result!!! [/quote] I had a bike - he had it in parts... but had the parts of two bikes, photo just showed a frame, collection only ending at 4:45 on a friday... and he had spelt every single keyword incorectly.

ooh that is a nice nail

http://www.edfriedland.com/equipment/1/62 1974 fender

i'ld spotted that on the website and thought it looked like one of the nicest things I had seen!

would the angle on something like this... be too off centre and funky for you? I don't know why folk don't just stick one or two photos up and then a link to an album - like this one I made before I gave up trying to sell it... http://s1230.photobucket.com/user/LukeFRC/library/JV but then agian maybe the above photo is too funky.... ach you'll all enjoy photos of a lovely P bass

[quote name='dougal' timestamp='1369782981' post='2092805'] I think this is probably the most common 'problem' with playing the bass. No-one really notices, until it's too late. At an extreme, I physically assaulted a guitarist when after playing a song with my volume rolled to 0, he [i]still[/i] claimed the bass was too loud. I'm still ashamed of my reaction to this day. [/quote] i've done that- turned the bass off... thumbs up from the sound desk, band happy. i start pretending to play like flea in the 80's.... still don't notice...

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1369770549' post='2092635'] [sup]Same thing happened to me on here, sold a Bass and he put it straight onto eBay at a pretty big mark up and used my photos, without the courtesy of a quick email. Does it sound like sour grapes....?[/sup] [/quote] I would be right pissed off at that if it were me. Worst I've seen was someone who bought a bass very cheap off ebay (i know as I was watching it) then listed it on here at twice the price a few hours later.... of course no photos and he stalled for a day or two untill he actually got it posted to him.

[quote name='EMG456' timestamp='1369735087' post='2092025'] No bother Luke. I suspect your ACG pre is a bit more sophisticated than mine - I only have one low pass filter stack so whatever blend of pickups is set goes through that one filter. I was always a big fan of the Wal circuit and the ACG really takes that to another level versatility- wise by offering continuously variable boost around the filter cutoff frequencies and a variable frequency and boost for the high- pass which in the Wal is the switchable "pick attack" at a fixed frequency but with the amount pre-set by an internal trim pot. With the flexibility comes added complexity of course, so if using that bass live, I tend to set up the pre carefully to suit the room/ stage and then not really vary it that much during the gig - that way I can just use the techniques I would use on any bass to vary the tone on a gig - pickup selection/ blend and right (picking) hand position. The trouble with going to town and fully using something like the ACG pre live is that it is so variable. For example, I may think I need just a little bit more bass, so I reach for the bass stack gain but depending on where I have left the frequency control set on that stack, it could be acting effectively as a treble control... or a high mid or a low mid or a subsonic bass! It's not always easy to hear these things in the middle of a gig so I go very canny on these adjustments. For live work the other possible difficulty with using eq at source - ie in the bass or in the amp if you're taking a DI post eq- is the potentially radically different frequency response curves of the amplification chains involved. My big rig cabs are Acme LowB2s which have a very similar response curve to good big PA rig -ie basically flat from 20Hz to 20KHz. So if I'm over egging the bottom end at source, I can hear that and fix it. On small gigs though, I often just take my little Phil Jones Bass Briefcase which has nothing like the low bottom end of the Acmes so it's quite possible for me to be setting up a nice, chunky sound on stage which is far too bass rich for the PA. The sound guy has to then try and compensate for that using eq which is almost certainly operating at different frequency centres from the ones I am using and well, you know what the results can be! So, for me using eq at source live with a feed to the PA - nothing too extreme and set it and forget it for the night! Cheers Ed [/quote] cheers Ed! good reading there Oh and after playing with my amp EQ, and the ACG preamp for hours, I could kinda hear what the PA folk were asking, and compared it to my jazz and I still couldn't dial in the kinda tone I wanted.... so back to basics.... i had changed the strings to ones with less tension.... lower the pickups slightly... and boom there's the top and bottom agian!

[quote name='ash' timestamp='1369759173' post='2092417'] If you look at Google images for a particular piece of gear often you'll come up with pictures of items seen or that you have sold on here or on eBay. For example today I was looking at JV Squier basses and I found pics of several I have owned and sold on here - it was especially poignant since there was one I really miss! I guess that once published on a site they are in the public domain for all to see so they could be used anyway, unless you add a 'watermark' ID or copyright. [/quote] see my one? that normally comes up too

took the jazz to practice yesterday - sounded great straight into DI (different venue) might take that this week.... as my wife says - the other one sounds better but the tomato soup (my jazz) one has more low end.

having had a brief facination with old japanese basses ply wood was something you avoided - it's interesting that your luthier goes for it.

[quote name='solo4652' timestamp='1369648834' post='2091128'] Could you explain your comment about the action and neck-curve, please? [/quote] so this isn't some expert here, just a loon who's messed around with basses a bit.... I've found my P basses sound a bit more full with the action up a bit and a bit more curve in the neck - that might just be down to how it's played.... but truss rod tightness (and how tight the neck is bolted on if the truss rod access means you take the neck off...) I think does affect the tone.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1369646162' post='2091091'] Sorry Luke, when I first read your 'new cable' suggestion I thought you were joking! Good call - I tend to take cables a bit for granted, though IME it's guitarists who seem perfectly happy to stand/walk on cables. I can't bear standing on mine. [/quote] oh I'm pretty sure in the OP's case it's about the action and curve in the neck - but cables can have an odd effect on tone - esp (obviously) on passive basses.

[quote name='solo4652' timestamp='1369643720' post='2091056'] Really? OK - That's easily done. [/quote] yeah, as they get damaged (stood on etc) the bottom end is the first to go..

try a new cable too

[quote name='EMG456' timestamp='1369394419' post='2088664'] It's your sound Luke. The job of the sound guy is to reproduce that as accurately as possible and then blend it with the other instruments and voices so that everyone can hear *everything* that is going on. Go to 90% of gigs and you can see what the basic problem is with this thought! So, some sound guys can do that and many others can't. A lot of the "education" in music technology nowadays also suggests that the best way to get separation in a mix it to divide instruments up into frequency bands and separate them that way. So all the bass players end up with a wooly, ill defined boomy sound because that doesn't get in the way of the vocals and guitars/ keys. To beat this approach I find it's best to go in with a collaborative approach. Be nice. Ask him does he want a DI out pre or post eq. Explain to him the sort of bass sound you like to use. Quietly give him the confidence that you know exactly what you are doing and that you're somebody he will enjoy working with - that way he'll do the best he can for you. Sometimes of course it doesn't work out but if you're going to be back there on a regular basis it's worthwhile trying to sort something out. Overall stage volume can work against you as well - could the whole band be persuaded to play a little quieter on stage to help out with the sound? Lastly (thank goodness I hear you say) I'm interested in your comment about the ACG preamp. Any gear you're not completely familiar with can cause you to misjudge your settings. I did a gig recently supporting another band. The bassist let me use his rig for convenience - it was a nice rig, Acoustic Image Clarus head and two EA cabs. It wasn't quite bright enough for my liking but I didn't want to mess up his eq settings and I had brought along a Jazz Bass 24 that I have recently acquired so I just set up the tone using the on- board preamp in the bass. I did actually get three comments from people in the crowd that didn't know me saying that they loved the bass sound but when I got home and next plugged the bass into my little Phil Jones amp that I use in the house, I realised how extremely I had tweaked the sound - huge amounts of top end which I simply wasn't hearing from the rig on the night. Now, I have an ACG filter pre in one of my basses and whilst I love it, I am also aware that it is perfectly capable of providing any number of completely unusable, extreme sounds, capable of speaker destruction even at seemingly low levels. Couple that with some of it's controls being slightly counter- intuitive on occasion and it's possibly making life more difficult for you in a live situation? If in doubt. Simplify and build from there - if that means take a P-Bass the next time, then do that and see what it's like. Hope it works out. Ed [/quote] Lots of good thoughts there guys! Thanks... I've done a fair bit of PA stuff before so I can appreciate - it was partly in interest in where they were going that I let them dictate my tone - to see what would happen (I didn't think it could go as badly as it did TBH) so now I can have nice discussions about how what they think bass should sound like isn't nesserserally what I will sound like or where I will fit in the mix.... but I am very flexible. Ed/EMG465 thanks for the long one! I've had the ACG for ooh 6 months now so in terms of being able to dial in sounds I want and adjusting on the fly (if needed) I can work that out.... any thoguhts/advice based on how you set yours up? I tend to go for a good rock tone on the front pup, a more middy sound on the back one with a bit of boost and then use the blend to set my sound with treble added if needed.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1369342864' post='2088239'] "Otherwise why not call it a Tokai..." Because they aren't made by Tokai. If they were, then it would say "Tokai" on the TRC. You can check this out by going to Music Inn on Canning Circus where they have two rather nicely made Rickenbacker copy guitars both showing the Tokai logo. They also have some Rockinbetter basses, which when you compare them are not at all in the same league when it comes to build quality and finish. [/quote] what i was going to say...