BigRedX

Lovely piece of Cocobolo - looking forward to seeing how that works out.

[quote name='RichBowman' post='42914' date='Aug 8 2007, 03:09 PM']I'm intrigued - does anyone know if you can get a 10-stringer (as in low ? I'd love to have a go at that.

Ooooh - and while I'm here, has anyone tried playing a 8 or what not finger style? I'm guessing that you might have to reverse the courses of the strings (eg, thick string on top, octave below)?

Rich[/quote]

Point 1: [url="http://www.deanguitars.com/edge_hammer_10.htm"]Dean Edge Hammer 10[/url]

Point 2: [url="http://www.waterstoneguitars.com/video/vmain_008.html"] 12 string (4x3) finger-style[/url]

This turned up on Tuesday. My new Gus G3 4-string fretless bass in bright chrome and dark blue sparkle finish and herer are some better photos taken using natural light:









Sound-wise I've only been able to try it through my studio monitors (Tannoy Golds) via my BassPod so far, but there's lots of tonal variation with the PU switching and the active 3 band pre. Goes from rich and deep and dubby without any mud on both pups in series, through to a great mwah with the bridge pups solo'd. Can't wait to try it though my rig...

The Carlo Robelli was around £100 off ebay. Apart from the fact that the strings are starting to sound a bit old now (8-strings IMO need that new string zing) it was as new.

Looking at reviews on Harmony Central it looks as though it's the in-store brand for Sam Ash. This model seems to be discontinued now and the last ones were being sold off at $199.

The electronics are a bit weedy sounding for an active, so I'll investigate doing an upgrade ofthe pre-amp (and maybe the pup) after I've got the Washburn B20-8 rebuilt.

I have 2 8-strings:

A Carlo Robelli


and a Washburn B20-8 which is currently in pieces being restored/repaired/refinished/upgraded

Both suffer to a certain extent from neck-dive. The CR because it has a small body and a large and heavy headstock, and the Washburn due to it's body shape.

I believe that there's company producing strap-button extenders? which may go some way to sorting out the CR problems but I can't find their details. Anyone know where I should look.

The basses get used for some of my more Peter Hook-inspired bass lines. The octave stings allow me to play melody lines/riffs and still provide a decent low end at the same time.

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='41906' date='Aug 6 2007, 12:23 PM']And GB, RM, Zoot and a little outfit called Status.[/quote]

And don't forget [url="http://www.gusguitars.com/"]Gus[/url]

I bought one of the transparent Wesleys that someone had converted to fretless to see if I could cope with no frets. I don't know if it was the fact that previous owner had taken the bass apart to remove the frets but the set-up was terrible (even for a very cheap instrument). Nothing that a couple of hours work couldn't sort out, but for someone without the knowlege (or access to someone who does) not very useful.

As an instrument it's pretty well constructed given the price. However the options for upgrading may be limited as with the acrylic body it is harder to make good new screw holes (and you'll still be able to see the old ones). I couldn't even fit straplocks to mine, as the straplock screws wouldn't go into the old strap button holes and the old screws wouldn't fit the straplocks.

As the person who may well be getting the last Sei bass at the old price I thought I'd share my views...

Firstly from the point of view of the price increase. How long have the old prices been in force? It may be simply that they're finally moving to be in line with price increase in materials/overheads and living once again. There's no easy way to do this; you either have lots of small price increases happening all the time, or you hold out for as long as possible and go with a larger increase. There's also the build times to take into account. They've been getting steadily longer as Sei becomes more popular. You'd think that a long build time would but people off. However for every person who thinks that the build time is too long there's at least one who views it as extra breathing space to save the money to pay for the instrument. I don't know all the ins and outs of the economics of instrument building and I would guess that every luthier's situation is going to be different, but if you need £X to cover your materials, expenses and make a living and you are physically only capable of completing Y number of basses per year something has to change. You need to be finishing instruments in order to earn money. So either you stop taking orders, never a good idea, or you put up the price: more money up front to keep you going through overall longer build times, and maybe you can take on someone else of sufficient quality to help out with the builds and complete a few more instrument each year.

So are Sei basses worth the new prices? Were they worth the old ones?

From my point of view if you go to a luthier with a good reputation once your instrument crosses the £1000+ mark, there are things that you can be guaranteed: great playability, wonderful tone and quality craftsmanship. So what do you get for extra money? For me it's finding someone who's ideas of what is possible and practical fit with your ideals of what you want from an instrument. There's a whole range of luthiers out there who's attitudes to builds range from having a small number of models where you can choose the number of stings (within reason) neck shape, and colour scheme, to those who clain to be able to build you absolutely anything you want. There's nothing wrong with either attitude, but on the whole I'd prefer to have an instrument that is based on design principles that my chosen luthier knows will work. That to me means something that shares its major design features with previous examples of their work. In the end when you know that 90% of the time the practical aspects of the instrument will be taken care of, the choice of luthier pretty much comes down to "Do I like the look of what they build?" and if so "will they build me what I want?"

When I started my quest to get the bass I'm currently having made by Sei, all I knew was that I wanted a quality 4 or 5-string fretless. I spent the first 6 months trying out every fretless bass I could get my hands on. The more I played, the more I could define exactly what I needed and liked and what I didn't. It became apparent to me that in order to get something that I liked simply from a tone and playability PoV I was looking at £2K+ price range for a new ready-made instrument. Unless I needed the instrument right now, and was prepared to put up with a couple of features that to me were less than ideal, I couldn't justify to myself paying that for an "Off the Shelf" bass, and since in my quest I'd bought acouple of cheaper fretless basses, that were almost but not quite what I was ultimately after, I was happy to wait for the right instrument.

The next stage was to methodically work my way through a couple of internet lists of custom luthiers. The result of this is over 100 bookmarks for companies or individuals for whom one day I would like to try an example or two of their work. Finally it was a question of working through the list and finding someone who was able to match up my ideas to one of the examples shown on their websites. It's at this point where Sei started to look like the favourites to build my bass. Some of those I contacted never even bothered to return my emails, others were currently not taking any new orders, and some had little interest in incorporating the changes I wanted into their existing designs. It was also at this point that I found out that to get what I wanted wasn't going to be cheap. Compared with some of the prices I was looking at my Sei is going to be very good value indeed.

What the whole process has shown me is that picking a luthier to build an instrument requires you to find someone who can take your ideas and flesh them out to a complete instrument. Sei had a design on their web site that looked as though it would be suitable as a starting point for what I wanted, and Martin was able to take my ideas for looks, sound and playability aids and fill in the missing details to give me a working specification that he was happy to build and put the Sei name to.

For what I was looking for in my bass, Sei weren't really in competition with the other UK luthiers mentioned at the begining of theis thread but with, Pagelli, Ritter, Spalt and Zon. I'm sure that it would be possible for Shuker or ACG to build me this bass, but there was nothing in the starting point designs on their web sites that spoke to me in the way that the Sei Flamboyant Offset did, and would they be prepared or willing to be making me an instrument that was pretty much based on the work of another luthier and I'd only picked them because they were cheaper? Somehow I don't think so.

I doubt everyone is quite as picky as I am when it comes to what they want out of their instruments, but I work in graphic design as my day job and have a finely honed sense of what I find aesthetically pleasing and for me that is just as important as how the instrument plays and sounds. I already own 4 custom instruments (2 guitars and 2 basses) from other manufacturers, and it's through having these made that I've learned that if you have ideas outside of the mainstream, the best results occur when the luthier you pick is already incorporating most of what you like into their existing instruments.

Sorry that this post is rather long and rambling. I'm sure someone more eloquent could have put the case in a briefer form. So what it boils down to is that I liked the look of what Sei were making, Martin was able to incorporate my ideas into something that was practical to build and fill in the blanks for me when I wasn't sure what was required. Also when compared to the other luthiers that appeared to offer instruments that would suit me, they were accomodating, accessible and even after the price increase still good value for money.

A good question and one that's made me think about the signal path from strings to speaker.

Firstly unless you're strictly old school in your amp choice then the tone circuit on it will be active, so what's the difference between having it in the bass or on the amp?

Active controls will give you cut and boost, while traditional passive will simply give you treble roll-off. The right active tone circuit in a good sounding bass will enhance but the tone has got to be there in the first place so to be honest it most likely sound just as good with a passive circuit. One thing I do think that active circuits in the bass give more consistently is a fully functioning volume control, whereas too many passive basses have only functioning volume control for less than half the knob's rotation, the rest is just an off-on switch.

Could be useful if you play several different basses live and need to tweak each one to get the best tone to go with the overall sound of the your amp/speaker combination, but if you think about what you are doing it's compromising the sound of your amp and your bass to find something that is efficient in terms of minimising fiddling with control settings between songs.

Plus what about all thos cut/boost frequency interactions between what is happening in the bass's active circuit and what's happening at the amp. From a sound shaping purists POV you should really only be modifying the frequencies once (and then as little as possible). However there's always possibility that with the right combination of active bass pre-amp and the amp's own tone circuit something magical will happen to give you the tone you're after.

Really there's no hard and fast rule. Certainly with less going on in a passive bass there's less opportunity to ruin the tone (provided you've got a good one the start with), but you can't simply say that actives are or are not better than passives. You have to consider all parts of the sound producing a shaping chain from your fingers all the way through to the speakers (and the room and your ears) and the way each link in that chain is interacting with the others.

I wondered if it was you Alex.

Up until recently I was playing in two bands - the second being mainly covers done in rather eccentric styles. One of the songs we did was REM's "The One I Love" where I ended up playing the main "guitar riff" on fretless bass. Since it was important to get this right I spent most of my time practicing the riff at the expense of the other parts of the song. The first time we played it live we got to the bridge at the end of the verse and I had a complete blank about what came next. In panic I looked around at the guitarist to see what chords he was playing so I could at least play something root and safe, only to find that he was busy tuning up, having heard something out of tune (me) and suspecting his semi as being the culprit...

Finger or plectrum depending on what feels/sounds best for the song. It's fingers only on the fretless and mainly plectrum on the fretted. I've done songs in the past where I've used both in the same song - my Overwater's Schaller bridge is excellent for holding the plectrum in place while I'm using my fingers.

Also from my guitar playing I've learned that the type of pick used is just as important as whether or not I use one. For live use I tend to stick with Herco Flex 75s as they give me the right sound in that situation. However when recording I'll try some of my thinner and harder guitar picks to see if they work better.

Try some Japan - Quiet Life album. Although most of waht Mick Karn plays from a technical point of view isn't too dificult, it's good to try and get your head around some of his note choices.

I find that some of the best fretless practice music is something ambient and electronic(ish) with no 'rhythmic' bass to it. This allows you to both groove and solo while trying to stay in tune.

The only set of bass strings I've had that didn't need cutting were the set of Roberts I put on my Squire VM Jazz.

I have my fretted basses that I normally play with a plectrum much lower than my fretless ones that I play finger style. It feels more comfortable that way.

I think the GW sig is a bit of an un-discovered gem. Great feel, playability, and sound. I checked one out at the Gallery a couple of weeks back as Martin was suggesting the Barts from the GW as options for my Sei build. If I didn't already have 3 really nice fretless basses plus the one that Martin's building for me I would have been very tempted to buy one.

I bought a second hand fretless with similar symptoms although on mine it was the lower notes that were choking. Hold the string flat against the neck to try and work out where the apex of the bow is and after making each truss-rod adjustment apply gentle but firm pressure to the neck at the point where the bow is in the direction you want the neck to move. Take it easy and adjust a small amount each day. I did about 1/6 turn each time (the amount you could turn the allen key without repositioning it) and tuned the strings up between a semi-tone and a tone in between adjustments. It took about two weeks but now the neck is super straight with just a hint of relief to give me a nice low clean fretless action.

Jamie, have you posted any pics of your Consat, because it sounds very much like the one I tried at Bass Day (there can't be too many fretless Consat 5s in the country). If it is I'm not surprised you're completely knocked out with it. I thought it was wonderful, and was this (fingers almost touching) close to buying it....

Normally F- styled basses do absolutely nothing for me, but that JT500-JJ is just different enough to appeal. That inlaid pickguard is stunning! Prices look excellent too.

So who's going to take the plunge first and give us all a report?

If you're VAT registered you can claim the VAT back on any imports but not the Customs Duty (or the clearance fees?)

However some carriers (FedEx definitely and definitely not Parcel Force) seem to have some sort agreement with UK customs where if they know that the delivery address is a VAT registered business there doesn't seem to be any fees at all to pay. I have all items that won't fit through my letter box at home delivered to my workplace, and I don't think I've ever had to pay VAT or duty on anything that has come via FedEx. I can remember the first time I bought something from the US (for work) that was being delivered by FedEx they contacted me for the business VAT number before they would deliver. Since then I can't recall ever having to pay VAT or duty on any item that's come via FedEx whether it's for my work or for me personally. I can't claim to know exactly how or why this has happened (or if my work is getting hit for customs and VAT bills at a later date and just pays them without realising that the items are for me rather than the business) but it's been good so far.

YMMV as they say though...

According to [url="http://www.acguitars.co.uk/News/63/"]this page on the ACG site[/url] the pre-amp is available for sale separately. I hope this is still the case, as I really want to go for this filter-based design.

Bassjamm, Once I'd seen the Nordstrand, I was sure that was how I wanted my bass to look color-wise. There some great looking basses on the Sei site, but a lot of the ones with the more outragous tops I think can be a bit hit or miss in relation to the wood patterns interacting with the body shape and what gets covered up by the pups and other hardware. I like the simplicity of the flamed sycamore (although we spent a bit of time selecting a piece with the right fanned flame pattern. Plus grey and orange is an awesome colour combination, yet not particularly common. (expecting to see lots of links for grey/orange basses now...)

So they are...

I was sure that I'd seen EB3s with bolt on necks...

It's all got me very confused - off the look for info about Gibson and Epiphone EB bases.

Actives being louder than passives isn't always true. My Gus G3 which is passive sounds much louder than all my other basses active and passive except for the Traben Phoenix and then only if I'm boosting more than one of the 3 frequencies.

It's down to a combination of pickup outputs and electronics. Also louder isn't always a better tone.

There were some special Epiphone EB basses made with set necks rather than bolt on (Elite?) The general concensous is that they are much better instruments.

I played (and nearly bought) the Marleaux Consat fretless 5 string that was at Bass day last year. Wonderful bass, very playable and probably the best 'off the shelf' fredtless I've played. In the end I decided that for the kind of money they were asking (even with Bass Day discount) I'd prefer to have something custom built. Still it was a close thing...

Oh and still lusting after a [url="http://www.marleaux-bass.com/instock_mp_5_02.html"]Marleaux Pagelli[/url]