Opticaleye

10 hours ago, Radchenko said:

And fender JB usa Olympic white trade? 

Only interested in trade options already stated. Collection or meet only. 

3 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

Did your fender tapes have like a shiny finish to them  I’ve just bought some but haven’t fitted them yet.    only my D’addario ones have a  smooth Matt finish 

3 of them did! The E string as I remember was a strange matt finish.

1 hour ago, project_c said:

They’ll retain the snap forever, but they’ll lose that ‘slightly roundwound’ textured tone and sustain over time, and become darker sounding and also more slippery and shiny. But they do retain most of their personality for years, you might never need to change them. It’s weird going back to rounds once you get used to them, they sound clunky and rattley in comparison. I still like rounds though, but it takes a minute to readjust to the finger noise and clunk.

That sounds just perfect 🙂

Just bought a set of D'addario Black tapes for my maple necked Sandberg Umbo and I really like them so far.

I've previously owned LaBella white tapes, Fender Black tapes and Status tapes. The Status were way too floppy for my tastes and the Fender were also too bendy as well as having some sort of QC issue where the E string looked to be made  from a different material. The Labellas I initially liked but began to lose attack after a while. I wasn't fussed on the feel of the LaBellas either, they were the heavier set and felt too "thick" and dull to me.

The D'addarios have a medium light tension (nowhere near as floppy as TI flats for instance) and have a nice snap to the attack and a nice mellow tone. At the moment they have good sustain but I could live with shorter sustain with the same snap as the strings get older. I have no idea whether that's realistic😁

Not a great photo but...

I like relics if they're good basses and they often are (especially Sandbergs). It's not purely a cosmetic choice, they feel different IMO.

High gloss Sandbergs are not normally my preference due to the feel but I bought a black one because it played and sounded so good. I too have never really liked black basses but I now own 2 and have owned 5 in total since I started playing. 

I don't really care whether an instrument has an existential right to exist, if I like it nothing else matters 😀

I have a feeling that a VM would have neck dive given the smaller V shape body. The total weight would probably be around 2.6kg!

Express Music

I'm not sure whether my latest TT4 has Black label pickups or the older ones but they're pretty amazing. I have a set of Nordstrand in the drawer that I was ready to put in but I'm so impressed with the Sandberg passive J's there's no way I'd change them. 

With my VS4, I made it passive and put some EMG Geezer Butlers in. Very old school tone.

Further and final price drop Now £800

19 minutes ago, netcarlos said:

Source: https://www.bassplayer.com/gear/review-sandberg-california-tm-bass

 

I think that "Masterpiece" label is only matter of the finish.

I don't think that the Bassplayer article is accurate. The Sandberg website is mostly down atm but the Hardcore aged didn't used to include any ageing to the neck and the Masterpiece is a Hardcore aged with neck ageing and thermal and vibration treatment. Because of the long wait times for the Masterpiece they introduced a Hardcore reserve model with the neck ageing and, i think vibration treatment.

Irrespective of opinions regarding the Masterpiece I think that Sandbergs are still excellent value for money. Neither of my new shape Sandbergs are aged but it does add something extra to the instrument as with the Fender Roadworns IMO. Whether it looks right is as subjective as colour choice.

I think it's a mixture of being a Masterpiece build and the price that the retailer has decided to put it up for 🤨. The masterpieces are thermally and sonically treated and take a while to produce if you order one. Simply "hardcore aged" that bass would be about £1585 elsewhere.

The pickguard is removable. The screws are just heads glued to the guard.

11 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Did you order the TT4 specifically for low weight or did you just keep looking in the shops?

I bought it from Bass Direct off the shelf. They still have it up for sale online at this moment having forgotten to remove it from the in-stock page!

I'd made the visit to try the Masterpiece basses they had in but really liked the TT4 deluxe when I tried it. A 2 pickup lightweight to complement my VS4 for 3 set gigs was the requirement but it has become my primary bass due to its versatility.

 http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Sandberg_TT4_QMT.html

It's lightweight mahogany with a birds-eye maple top, passive and is perfectly balanced tonally and does a surprisingly good P tone. It can also sound a bit Gibson-ish at certain pickup blend positions. I've added the extra weight of a black pickguard ! 

I've tried a few things after badly breaking 3 ribs 18 months ago. One of the ribs didn't heal back up and I can really feel it with a typical 9 /9.5lb bass after a few songs. I now have 2 Sandbergs that are very light, a California II VS4 at 7lbs 7oz and a TT4 Deluxe at 7lbs 3 oz. This has helped considerably.

I also bought the Mbrace stand from Thomann that I mentioned earlier but haven't used it at a gig yet. It seems comfortable enough at home and the ability to step away from the bass between songs is good. It will come in handy when I'd prefer to use the heavier basses.

Here's a thread about the Mbrace. 

There's always the Mbrace guitar stand as used by the Fearless Flyers. No weight at all.

May be open to a trade deal for Telecaster guitar or hardtail Strat. etc. Or maybe a fretless Sandberg bass?

Price drop. Now £830!

Took this out for a spin again the other night. It played and sounded great.

I was having second thoughts again but ultimately, I need less choice of what I take out and the active mode is wasted on me.

27 minutes ago, StevieE said:

That's a beaut, nice mods and interesting headstock info. Very cool 😎

What's the other sandy you're looking to move on?

Cheers.

Well I'm torn whether to sell one of my Umbos. If I do it probably won't be on here as it's already spoken for many times over.😉

*Now sold *

*Now £800*

For sale is my beautiful Sandberg "California" VM4 made around 2004-6 (I believe). 

It doesn't say California on the headstock instead it says "Custom Shop Instrument". From enquiries I made to Sandberg I believe this was a special bass built before Sandberg officially started making the California series.
I bought this on here in 2010 and have used it regularly since. It has a very reasonable weight of 9lbs 2oz and has terrific balance. When I originally bought this I really wanted a passive VS4 and I recently  bought one so I'm not really using this to it's full potential. A new model VM4 in this spec would cost around £1500.

I upgraded the old active circuit with a brand new Sandberg preamp as the old one did not have a passive treble control and I also upgraded to the newest style Sandberg bridge and string tree.
The finish is a really nice soft-aged white/cream. I don't think I added any further dings!

This bass now has a Sandberg P style rather than the original Delano as I tried a more recent VM4 and realised why Sandberg modified the design fairly quickly. I find the Sandberg P is less nasal sounding in the "reverse P" position. I kept the original Delano MM on as it sounds great. The aforementioned preamp is Sandberg's own 2-band with active/passive push/pull volume knob (made by Glockenklang for Sandberg)

The neck is 39mm at the zero fret, so a little wider than a Jazz but narrower than a typical Precision and has a fairly slim feel and plays very well. I believe that the body wood is Alder.

This bass is sale only (no trades) as I seem to have accidentally amassed 5 Sandbergs (!) and I really need to get this down to 3 eventually before I move house "up north". I'm currently based in Northampton. Collection or meet within reasonable distance only please.

The bass comes with a Sandberg gig bag.

On 24/07/2018 at 11:03, NancyJohnson said:

Well, let's initially just consider that Matsumoku were producing a lot of guitars for several companies, so it is feasible that parts could have gotten mixed up/shared during production.  They were producing Aria Pro II, Vantage, some Greco basses.  When I was researching my 1978, insofar as the serial number goes, I read yonks ago that the month of production is designated by the letter, A for January, B for February and so on, with the next two numbers being the year (1977) and the rest are the production number, so it's April 1977.

I don't think it's an Aria Pro II from that year...the 12th fret dots are too far apart (see below, this isn't mine BTW); they did go wider, but not for a couple of years.  Yours also has a skunk stripe on the back of the neck too (Arias from this period tended to be one-piece, with glued in pieces to allow for the Fender style headstock).  However, the bridge does look the same as the one that came off mine - with the two additional screws at the front.

Are you able to get a shot of the front of the headstock?  There's evidence of basses coming out of the factory without a logo...if the face of the headstock has been sanded, there's a reasonable chance that the facia will still carry an echo of what was on there originally (the wood behind the long gone logo will be lighter than the rest of the headstock colour).

 

 

 

I have a Matsomoku K78 ser. no. Aria Pro II Precision (with an odd headstock) that has the wider spaced dots at the 12th fret. The scratchplate was originally single ply white and the Jazz pickup added later. It also has the extra 2 screws in the bridge and has tuners with adjustment collars (like my 81 Tokai).

If you're after a smooth and clean HF response the Genzler Bass Arrays are the smoothest I've tried. Great cabs.

The NY121 is about the smallest 12" cab out there IME. The Markbass STD121HR is a really nice alternative but slightly bigger (but lighter I believe, mine is 27lbs).

One of those and a Quilter BB800 would do the majority of gigs that the 2 NY121's would do and can be tilted back for better monitoring. I imagine 2 would be excellent.

The Barefaced One10's sound nice (although quite dark) but I found 2 to be nowhere near as loud as 2 x NY121's.

1 hour ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

They are on Basschat!

They were also at Winter NAMM, but I managed to miss them altogether...

I think they are a different Marco Bass.

http://marcobassguitars.com/models/

Here's my Aria also from the same era (modified with bridge pickup and the original scratchplate was white).

The body is made from Sen I believe.