7string

Doing work on a Fender bass is no problem and even, at worst, if the bridge needed to be taken off and repositioned it's not a big deal. Knobs are freely available and easy to replace and saddle adjustment is a routine job within the remit of a setup. If you're not confident doing setup work yourself just take it to a shop and ask for a setup which should be around £30 + strings. Don't ask for anything special like bridge resetting as some places will fleece you! Also, if they say they can do a setup without changing the strings walk away as you can't properly setup a bass without them. There are loads of weird rattles and general weirdness which can be down to knackered strings!! Every bass players been through what your thinking about at the moment, so don't worry about it. Find a shop with a tech and let them sort it. If you're in Glasgow (your name doesn't say where you're from) I'll do the work for you

Looks wonderful Just don't give out the luthier's address as Mr. Fodera and his gang might pay a visit. Seriously though, it looks great and I like the mixture of gold and black machineheads, the dots on the board and the name inlay which makes the bass very personal. You must post some more detailed shots.

Cool. The Marseer bolt-on sounds an exciting proposition. I hope you're including the fishtail.

Ooooooooo. Wonderful

Nice to see that I'm not the only one doing more than the average setup I've even heard of setups being done without even changing the strings. Even that costs £30 +. At the moment, I do setups for £20 and the customer supplies a set of strings (if not I supply the strings at cost +£2 as I have to get them. I'm even do collection/delivery within 3 miles of the City centre for an extra £5 (other places available though). I've found players who are at work at all week and just don't want to waste part of their valuable weekend taking guitars to be set up and then collecting them the next weekend. Last weekend, I set a guitar up on Saturday for the owner to collect Sunday midday as that fitted into their lives.

Have a look at [url="http://www.guitarnuts.com"]Guitar Nuts[/url] . Lots of great shielding info on there.

Yup, it's those airpockets which, over time, can introduce moisture into the neck, swell it and create a "rising tongue". Making a ladder of shims which tapers is an alternative for those who don't have the facilities to cut wod (like me!).

I have Comfort Strapp (2 p's!) for my heaviest bass and I also use a Sadowsky neoprene strap which is very comfortable indeed. I had to try and find something for a new bass and I found DSL Straps. Made in Australia, they're available in the UK, and come in different colours with/without padding and different colours of suede on the inside. My wife bought me a padded, brown leather strap with green suede on the inside. Can't find a photo at the mo, but check their [url="http://www.dslstraps.com.au"]website.[/url]

Looking good. How are you finding building a J in comparison with the Marseer. More or less difficult?

Like some other members on this thread, my bass of the moment is one which I've been working on. With a new pickup, new controls and some natty knob, my Sei 7 is kicking the proverbial behind. There's a thread about it [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=70334"]here.[/url] As for GAS, my wife and her friend are off to the USA in May, so I'm thinking of what they could bring back for me At the moment, Carvin looks like a good bet, either their SB5000 (which got great marks in BP) or the AC50, a hollow, piezo only bass. I really liked the piezo ACG that was at the Moffat Bass Bash and that got me looking at them. Both basses have a huge range of choices (woods, colours etc) and the AC50 has a no-soundhole option. Carvin's international website is [url="http://www.carvinworld.com"]here.[/url]

Some new pics of my Sei 7. After replacing the pickup and the electronics I had to get some new knobs. Q-Parts [url="http://www.q-parts.com"]www.q-parts.com[/url] have some lovely stuff and I went for their gold, domed knobs topped with purple acrylic.

The only reason this review has been re-written is because I wasn’t happy with the first version. It tended to focus on the build process rather than being a review of the bass itself and this is the “bass reviews” section after all. Sei basses have been around for 16 years or so now and their reputation for high quality, great designs and marvellous playability puts them up there with (and some might argue above), the likes of Fodera and Sadowsky et al. The brainchild of Martin Petersen, Sei basses are built in a small workshop in the basement of The Bass Gallery in London, the city’s premier shop for all things bass. I first came across Sei basses in 1996. It was a 6 string fretless, which was the type of bass I was playing at the time, and it was light years ahead of anything else I’d played. From then on, every bass I played was compared to a Sei. I ordered my bass in 2006 and received it nearly exactly a year later. This was behind the 9 months schedule, but the problems were exclusively out-of-house. The first stage in this build was to put a spec together and I did this with a combination of research and the views and opinions of the members of the Sei Owners Club on Talkbass. I had a basic spec together before I contacted Sei HQ and this was fleshed out during a meeting in The Bass Gallery a few weeks later. The spec was put to paper and this was used throughout the build to make sure that my bass would be as-ordered. Whilst at Sei HQ I was shown the lacewood and the birdseye maple that was to be used. Thinners were put on the lacewood to give an impression of the final result which was exciting too see. In the end, I went for quite a few optional extras above the “basic” Sei spec, which is already pretty special. There was no sales pressure for me to take anything though. [i][b]First pic of the lacewood boards.[/b][/i] Here’s the final spec (optional extras marked *): [b]Model:[/b] Sei Offset Flamboyant [b]Number of strings:[/b] 7* [b]Headstock:[/b] Headed* [b]Body core:[/b] Walnut [b]Veneer:[/b] Bolivar dyed claret [b]Facings:[/b] Full lacewood facings front and rear* [b]Neck-thru: [/b]7 piece maple and wenge with carbon rods* [b]Fingerboard:[/b] Birdseye maple* w/ purple side LEDs* & signature 12th fret inlay* [b]Headstock:[/b] Capped with lacewood back and front. [b]Hardware colour:[/b] Gold* [b]Tuners:[/b] Gotohs [b]Bridge:[/b] Individual ABM units [b]Pickup:[/b] Custom wound humbucker by Aaron Armstrong at Armstrong pickups [b]Controls:[/b] Volume pot with pull for the LEDs. Series/parallel switch on lower edge* [b]Outputs:[/b] 6.3mm jack and XLR*. The optional extras increased the price of the bass, but as all costs are detailed on the Sei Bass website this wasn’t a nasty surprise. Martin has to be applauded for such a clear pricing policy. The string spacing (17mm) and scale length (34”) were taken from my Conklin GT7, 7 string bass which I’d been playing for the previous 5 years or so. String spacing, number of strings and scale length can be altered to suit all customers. The pickup placement was decided by where my picking had normally lies, forward of a normal bridge Jazz pickup, more akin to a P bass placement in fact. Whilst I was there, I signed my name on a piece of paper a few times and picked the one which looked best. The chosen signature would later be laser-etched onto mother-of pearl and inlaid at the 12th fret. A deposit was required to get the build underway with the balance due when I was happy with the completed instrument. There were 3 problems during the build which no-one at Sei HQ had any control over: [i][b]Sourcing the veneer in the required colour[/b][/i] The colour I asked for was unusual and they really had their work cut out to find some. In the end, some bolivar which had been dyed claret was found. I was kept abreast of the situation and was offered substitutes just in case the product was a different colour than that printed in the supplier’s book or posted on their website. [i][b]Delays finishing the bass. [/b][/i] Due to restraints on space and the required equipment to spray a bass, this process is outsourced. However, if a bass is returned and is not up to the high standard that a Sei bass requires, it’s sent back to be done again. Several promised return dates were missed and I was just one of the customers caught in the logjam. The company involved does not handle Sei basses anymore. [i][b]Control cavity covers lost.[/b][/i] The covers for the control and battery cavities were lost by courier company, DHL. Usually the grain perfectly matches the wood on the rest of the rear of the bass. Due to this problem, mine are replacements, but they’re pretty darn close nevertheless. During the build, I only saw the bass once and this was after all the woodwork was done. At this point, the neck profile can be felt and altered if necessary, but had no problem with the standard shape. It was simply great to see and hold the bass for the first time. There’s no problem with owners wanting to see progress more often, but I live in Glasgow and so can’t travel the 400 miles to London too often. [b][i]The Sei 7 with the woodwork completed.[/i][/b] [i][b]Unusually, the routing is done after the finish has been applied.[/b][/i] The bass was completed nearly a year to the day that it was ordered and I opted to collect it in person. A courier service is available though and as Sei basses come with a Hiscox case (which can withstand 500kg of force) this helps to ensure a safe delivery. Later on, I would accidentally test the case and although it was bent out of shape, the bass inside was safe and sound. [b][i]Sei 7 completed. Full front view.[/i][/b] [b][i]Sei 7 completed. Full back view.[/i][/b] When looking at this Sei bass, the sheer quality of the workmanship is undeniable. Every part of this bass just oozes quality and both the woodwork and the finish are top-drawer. Every part of the instrument just flows into the other and details like the veneer and the way the full facings are set into the body are just to be marvelled at. Personally, I have not seen this quality matched by another other luthier. The bass weighs in at 10lbs which makes it comfortable for long periods and it’s 4lbs lighter than my Conklin GT7. The quality isn’t just skin deep either. Remove the cavity covers and you’ll find the inside clean, smooth and coated in conductive paint. The covers are backed with metal (aluminium maybe?) completing the shielding of the electronics. As the dimensions were taken from a bass I already own, this Sei bass feels like ‘home’. Due to the slim profile of the neck, it’s easy to play and the finish on the back of the neck isn’t that sticky gloss which afflicts so many basses nowadays. The fretwork is top-notch and the 12th fret inlay is flawlessly created and set into the highly-figured birdseye maple fingerboard. As planned, the pickup is placed in just the right spot for me to play over. The fretwork is top-notch, the nut well-cut and the action is low.. In fact, since I’ve had the bass, I’ve taken the action up slightly putting a tad more relief into the neck and raising the saddles slightly. Interestingly, when I changed strings for the first time I noticed that the neck actually back-bows with no string tension.. Not until the all the strings are nearly at pitch does the back-bow go away. With string tension, the neck has with the slightest amount of relief. Shaping the tone was very simple. The bass came with just 1 volume control on the top of the bass as the series/parallel button and the 2 outputs are on the lower edge. This look gave the bass a clean, uncluttered look which I’d first seen on another Sei belong to member #1 of the Sei Owners Club. I did ask if I could use the idea before I put it on the spec sheet! [i][b]Sei 7. Close up of body. Front.[/b][/i] [i][b]Sei 7. Close up of body. Back.[/b][/i] Initially, the bass sounded good,but I just wanted more rounded, more aggressive sound. It didn’t really have the rock tone I wanted and was a bit too polite. After 5 months, I had a Schack preamp installed, that slightly improved it and I had two more holes in the bass. 1 volume knob was now 2 concentric pots and a really tiny switch for the LEDs. Just a couple of weeks ago, I decided to sort the sound once and for all so I wrote to Aaron Armstrong who wound the first pickup. His answer was that the pickup in my bass was really a bridge pickup and he wouldn’t have installed it at that position on a bass. Aaron really brought his “A game” to the table and wound a fantastic replacement pickup. While I was working on this, I found that the nuts that hold the pot on the front face of the bass are recessed into the facing itself. This shows the amazing level of detail on a Sei bass and again, something that I haven’t seen anywhere else. The recessed nuts on the face of the bass. I removed the Schack preamp as in its place went 2 CTS 250k pots and a Sprague .33 capacitor. New knobs came from Q-Parts [url="http://www.q-parts.com"]www.q-parts.com[/url] They’re gold, dome knobs with purple acrylic tops. [i][b]The new Q-Parts knobs.[/b][/i] [i][b]Close-up showing the veneer. The Bolivar, dyed claret has a pinkish hue.[/b][/i] It’s only now that I feel that I have the bass that I always wanted. The sound matches the playability and it’s an unbelievable instrument to own. I compare it to owning a Saville Row suit or a dream sportscar. When I first collected the bass my Dad, who admits that he knows nothing about basses, asked if it was worth the money. Yes Dad it is. Every single penny. [i][size=2]My thanks to Martin Petersen, John Chapman and Alex Carter at Sei HQ and Aaron Armstrong at Armstrong pickups. Thanks also to all members of the S.O.C., my family for putting up with my excited babbling and my wife for all her support and understanding.[/size][/i]

Thanks guys Here's a couple more pics. First up, here's the pickups. New one on the right, old one on the left. Look at the size of the magnets!! The circuit board for the Schack pre was stuck to the control cavity cover to save space (what a great idea). Even after a couple a years, this didn't budge without a fight!! I really didn't want to damage the finish

My Sei has always been a bit frustrating. Immaculately built, plays superbly but I always wanted the tone to be a bit more rounded. The sound always wandered to that bridge pickup J-bass sound that I just can’t stand (some love that, I just don’t). It wasn’t that the tone was bad, but to me it was just OK. After having the bass for a few months, I had a Schack pre-amp fitted. That was fine for a while but gradually got more and more frustrating. The Schack pre-amp has a gazillion different options (I exaggerate it’s only a million), but nothing really worked. It was OK. A slightly better version of OK, but still OK. Nothing more. Something had to be done. I thought that if the pre-amp wasn’t helping then it has to be the pickup itself. I figured out that wasn’t too near the bridge, so I should have had a good tone from its placement. It was time to take the darn thing out. I knew that it was a Kent Armstrong pickup, so seeing a Kent Armstrong sticker on the bottom was no surprise. The hand-written numbers though, made no sense to me at all so I decided to go to the source and e-mail Aaron Armstrong. Aaron winds the pickups for ACG, I have them in my ACG bass and they are really something special. The news from Aaron was bad but good. The pickup was designed to be a bridge pickup and not necessarily to be used further towards the neck. Also, the pickup couldn’t be rewound, so I’d need a new pickup. Problem found, I needed a solution. I asked Aaron what he could do for me. Wanting to have a look around I asked Wizard what they could do but, unfortunately, they don’t carry cases large enough for a 7. Nordstrand seem to have such a reputation at the moment, so I e-mailed them to see what they’d suggest. The reply was friendly and prompt: they could make a pickup for me and I should contact Mark at Bass Direct. His replies were also prompt and friendly, but the more I looked at the cost of the Nordstrand the more I winced at the pain I would feel in my wallet. £175 plus £50 fitting. No doubt I would get a quality product and the install would be extremely well done, but that to me was very expensive. Aaron’s reply was that he was absolutely sure he could make something to suit. Also, he could make exactly the same size, so re-fitting wouldn’t involve any routing or drilling and be relatively painless. I unsoldered the pickup, packed it so that it would take Aaron at least 20 minutes to open it, and sent it off. I also went to PayPal’s website and sent Aaron £75. Yup, £75. With the pickup being made, I decided that I would change the controls and the preamp myself. This way I would save some money, but more importantly, I’d learn something about bass electronics on the way. I made diagrams of the wiring, unsoldered some connections and took the whole shebang out of the bass. I ordered 2 new CTS 250k pots, a couple of different Sprague capacitors and trawled the net for wiring diagrams which were basic enough so I could understand them. With the new pickup delivered (and the old one returned with it), it was time to resurrect the Sei. The wiring wasn’t complicated, but the series/parallel switch was a bit awkward. I found that the stand I had for my soldering iron spoilt the tip badly, so I’ve got to do it all over again to tidy it up a bit but heck, it works. The result: well it sounds pretty darn amazing!!. The bass has a richness to it and, finally, some aggression. Played with a pick it sounds huge and growly. Played fingerstyle, the sound is round and full. Throughout the full range of the instrument it sounds as if a blanket has been taken out of the bass! The difference between before and after is absolutely night and day. The only thing now was to find some new knobs. The controls with the Schack pre were 2 concentric pots and now I have 2 regular pots with a ¼” shaft. I wanted something different, something special and that was hard to find. Eventually I came across Q-Parts ([url="http://www.qparts.com"]www.qparts.com[/url]), who have a great range of knobs (and pickguards, pickups &straplocks) With my wife’s advice, I went with gold domes with acrylic purple tops to match the purple LEDs on the edge of the fingerboard. This is the first time in my nearly 20 years of playing bass that I have changed a pickup and I wouldn’t have believed what a massive difference it can make. Not only that, but the way I play and respond to the bass has changed and it’s looking better than ever as well. It’s like owning a new bass! My thanks to Aaron Armstrong for an amazing job.

Can anyone teach "feel"?? .....and that's another can of worms flicked open.

That's a darn shame about your bass. It's different if you inflict the damage as it's your own bass, but to have someone else do it (and so have no respect for the fact that it's yours) is damn annoying.

[quote name='eude' post='674172' date='Dec 4 2009, 01:55 PM']Having a go of this beautiful instrument was one of the highlights of the Moffat Bash for me (that and your loverly rig).[/quote] Agreed I just bought a new pickup for my Sei and had the option of Nordstrand or a Kent Armstrong. As I have Armstrong pickups in my ACG, I knew that they could wind something great, so I just asked them for something big and rockin'. Just as in the Shuker, the Sei has come alive. Seems like the UK pickup gurus can more than hold there own.

I remember hearing that it was a cheap wood which is used for a lot of furniture over in the USA. Nothing wrong with it mind. Doesn't sound as good as Dragonwood or Malaysian Mystery Wood though....

My wife and her friend are going over to the States in May, so I might be able to get a Carvin bass sent to their last stop in Boston. Fingers crossed.

Over-rated should be defined as whatever you think it should be. Personally, I reckon that Jaco, Wooten, Marcus Miller and Richard Bona are all over-rated. I have Jaco's solo album and I've heard Heavy Weather. Didn't do anything for me I'm afraid. The Beetle (VW) sounds the same everytime I hear him. I have the Yin Yang CD and some Flecktones stuff and play them every now and again. I end up turning it off after about 5 minutes. Marcus Miller has a great tone with his slap style but then the compostions are all a bit vanilla. I've heard that Bona makes people cry with his playing, but personally does nothing for me. Each of these guys has a legion of fans and is highly respected it's just that their music doesn't move me at all.

Try [url="http://www.intunegp.com/"]In Tune picks[/url] Great service and a brilliant product. As [b]BigRedX[/b] says some promotional picks are not up to the job, but these guys deal with players around the world. When I was hosting a Hospital radio show (The Melodic Rock Show), I asked them to make some picks which I could give as momentos to interviewees. They're excellent quality and I'm still using them both on bass and guitar a few years later.

What a woman

At the Bass Bash in Moffat, I had the chance to try the ACG chambered bass. This bass only had a piezo pickup which was wired into an ACG pickup. It was a great instrument, so it got me thinking about other brands which offer a bass like that. Rob Allen came to mind, but they're expensive, and then I found this Carvin. Just like a like of bass players on this side of the pond, Carvins looked the part, but could only be seen online, in magazines and on their own DVD as they never shipped to the UK. Now they do. I found a review at [url="http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Electric+Bass/product/Carvin/AC40/10/1"]Harmony Central.[/url] It looks good, the price starts at $799 and they have a 5 string as well as "no soundhole" option. Shipping seems to be around $110 and the VAT and Duty is prepaid. The best thing is that the colour, woods and so on can be chosen through the builder at [url="http://www.carvinworld.com/home.php"]Carvin World[/url] Has anyone got any views/opinions on this Carvin or piezo only basses in general?

Useless "Country Boy" fact: the original bassist was Chas Hodges who went on to be the Chas of Chas & Dave.

Try checking the wires coming out of each pickup. They should read around 8 - 10 k ohms. If they're fine then it'll be a case of finding a dodgy connection. Could be worth getting hold of some new CTS pots to replace the originals. They're only 4 quid each or so and are really good quality.