Bigwan

[quote name='jbasst' timestamp='1452699894' post='2952572'] I currently have a Nate Mendel P that is working great for me - I've replaced the Seymour Duncan QP's for Aguilar 60s pickups, and replaced the badass II with a BBOT vintage style fender bridge. Strung up with flats it's great for that dead, thumpy sound, but I still miss having the sheen of rounds for pick playing and slapping .. What does everyone think about having two of the "same" type of bass? How do you justify it to yourself that you 'need' another? [/quote] Yeah... Don't see a problem with it based on what you've already said. I have Beedster's 70's Yamaha Pulsar incoming and other than being maple/ash (as opposed to my current rosewood/alder p) it's my year of birth bass I've been keeping an eye for for while and wanted before my 40th next year...

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1452589401' post='2951320'] That's more like it all the ones I could find yesterday had a massive great humbucker in the bridge position.... I'd have to order a custom one though because that has a tort pickguard and tort makes me feel sick... [/quote] Scroll down that page, there's a few to choose from. If memory serves I think Adrian can change out pickguards too! I had planned on sneaking a Maruszczyk into the collection before the end of the year, but then Beedster waved a YOB Yamaha about the place and now it's sneaking in instead!!! EDIT: One of these with 33" scale was the plan: http://www.public-peace.de/index.php/bass-guitars/maruszczyk/jake/4-string/1119-jake-4p-human-nature-classic140230

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1452588385' post='2951312'] ah fair enough I was just looking through the models on their website the other day and couldn't see a standard P. [/quote] http://www.public-peace.de/index.php/bass-guitars/maruszczyk/jake/4-string

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1452584468' post='2951280'] Going a bit further afield, I've been tempted by Maruszczyk as they seem to represent astonishing value for a custom build, but they don't seem to offer a straight P. [/quote] I think Adrian will build you whatever you want!

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1452528051' post='2950835'] Just ordered a soul food. [/quote] Me too...

Lakland Skyline JO into Orange Terror Bass into Tech Soundsystems 4x12... Incredibly loud and tonally much more flexible than you might think.

Looking forward to hearing about these!

[quote name='Darkglass' timestamp='1452278341' post='2948513'] Hey guys! Whoa, the drama continues, unfortunately. I have tried to stay out of this whole situation as much as possible on forums: I started Darkglass because there's nothing I love more than designing electronic circuits and making bass sound good. All this drama, conjecture and confrontation are very distracting and I really don't think they help anyone. That being said, I feel obliged to clarify any assumptions that I feel are baseless or simply inaccurate: If anyone thinks that I would or could coerce Mark from Bass Direct into doing anything against his will clearly doesn't know me or him very well, I've gone through enough owning and running a business to know that blackmail is a very poor business move in the long run and hope to never be naive and foolish enough to go that route. Mark is a great guy, he was our first dealer and has continued to be a great one throughout the years, he's always been very pleasant and fair but he's no push over. Aside from that, I'm pretty sure Darkglass accounts for a very modest portion of his business - he deals, many times with exclusivity much bigger brands - it's reasonable to assume that I don't have nearly as much muscle as some of you think I have. Mark is his own man and I'm quite confident me nor anyone can tell him what to sell or not to sell at his store. Hopes this helps clarify some of this so we can move on, I for sure already have. [/quote] Good to see you here Doug! I don't know what happened in the whole Darkglass/Spencer affair, and I don't want to know. If I've spoke out of turn I apologise. But... I DON'T think the term CLONE should be being bandied about as there has been development in these pike pedals... even if the visuals are, ahem, questionably familiar!

What about the guitar version of the Line 6 PODXT. You can add their bass expansion pack to it which gives you a load of bass amp emulations. You loose out on a few things that you'd get on the bass version of the POD, different multi band eq is one from memory, but would certainly do what you want. If you want to go lower budget seek out a Johnson J-Station. Has it all.

[quote name='Kev' timestamp='1452260035' post='2948172'] I don't think this will be Darkglass pressure at all. [/quote] Err... How do you work that out then? Mark is a businessman. As my grandfather would say "the only thing soft about him are his teeth". I'd say the only reason he won't sell something people want us if he loosing out in other ways. Doug, or somebody at darkglass, has played the "sell Pike, no more darkglass for you" card, or hinted at it. What else would "diplomatic reasons" mean? He has to keep his suppliers sweet. He's bound to sell A LOT of darkglass pedals. Call me a cynic...

Think this might interest me, especially the 2.67 ohm handling, but I'll hold off for a used one I think.

You may have done this already, but change the strings and give it a setup and try again. I've had this before, where I was convinced a bass wasn't for me. A little bit of fiddling and hey presto! Admittedly it hasn't worked in every case...

[quote name='Sibob' timestamp='1452243675' post='2947890'] The Monarch shape has been built by Fodera since they started in 1983 Si [/quote] Yes, but it normally doesn't look as... bare as that...

My first thought was the body looked like a Yamaha RBX... not that there's anything wrong with a Yamaha RBX!

Guilty of all of those in my time... Except Deep Horizon. Haven't gone that far yet. Although Chilliwailer's 57 P bass nearly got me there!

If you're handy with a soldering iron (or know somebody who is!) you can get the Blueberry as a kit from Fuzz Dog Pedals. The RunOffGroove Ginger is always mentioned along with the Blueberry and VFE used to build them under license, but all the RunOffGroove stuff seems to have disappeared from their site recently... My drive of choice has been the Ashdown J-Lo for a LONG time now, but it's BIG, almost B3 size. Much more flexible than most people give it credit for. I use it in a similar way to how James Lomenzo himself demonstrates it on YouTube, but with a slightly lower frequency center (not a treble hound me!) and a little more gain. I've just received a VFE Triumvirate to see if it gets in the same ballpark, but saves a bit of space on my little board.

Seem to be a lot of electronic "experts" around all of a sudden. Every single component on Spencer's board could be a different value and at the range those pictures have been taken you couldn't tell with the naked eye. The joy of surface mount components is you usually need a magnifying glass to tell their value. Ask me how I know... You can be pretty sure based on the different layouts that the drive circuits are EXTREMELY UNLIKELY to be the same. I've taken the time to partially reverse engineer the original b3k pcb layout (from way back - it was posted for all to see on one of the DIY forums) and the drive circuit takes up VERY little real estate on the board. The rest is taken up with copious buffering and blending. The actual drive circuit is suspiciously similar to the few other CMOS circuits out there... Red Llama, Craig Anderton's tube sound fuzz... So who are we trying to kid here. I'd also point out that the market for boutique muff and tube screamer derivatives is HUGE. At least as big as the market for the originals! So even if the drive WAS the same, nobody is crucifying the 99% of boutique builders who are doing exactly the same thing. In my opinion Spencer has no case to answer, except in being naive enough to think that the visual similarity of the enclosure artwork wouldn't raise a few eyebrows.

[quote name='zawinul' timestamp='1452106900' post='2946530'] Thats a lot of notes, Ampeg 20 watt is cheaper!! [/quote] As far as I'm aware you can't pick up an almost new Ampeg second hand for £300 like you could have with an Ashdown here last week... Keep an eye on the classifieds!

Ashdown LB30 (or CTM30 as they are now) would be my choice. Output transformer derived DI so you could stick a dummy load on it and record silently if you wanted to.

[quote name='Guinness21' timestamp='1452021492' post='2945659'] What's not to love? It's now got the versatility of the b7k with the addition of the switches and extra mids controls, and is obviously a warm/vintage sounding pedal. [/quote] I've had b3k, b7k and vmt and wouldn't have any (or derivatives thereof) again. Maybe the eq of the vmtd would help dial out the fizzy harshness in the upper mids... or maybe not - doesn't on the b7k despite its apparent versatility, I tried.