molan

I'm sooooo tempted to order a full custom build Fodera Monarch 4 - have a call booked with them next week to discuss body woods, top wood, fingerboard, pickups, pre-amp etc. Really looking forward to talking about what I want in terms of sound & feel and how they might be able to go about building this for me

Unearthed some pics of PT live with Jamiroquai playing the Fodera NYC5. Looks pretty cool to me!

[quote name='alyctes' timestamp='1319839015' post='1419317'] Been a fan for a long time. It was the segue from "Undercover Man" into "Scorched Earth", on 'Godbluff', which first trapped me. Guy Evans, what a great drummer. And Peter Hammill's solo stuff is up there with the best of them. 'Sitting Targets' is a hugely underrated album. I always sort of thought VdGG were an interesting version of Genesis, who I found very bland and noodly. [/quote] I still love Godbluff and play it fairly often. Can't really pick a favourite track these days but as an impressionable tenager I think Scorched Earth was probably the one that stood out the most: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQbfNZOH0Ag

I had a real Gong 'thing' going for a while around '75, perfectly timed for the Shamal era Saw Sham '69 at Reading Festival in '78 and Steve Hillage appeared out of nowhere to solo over the top of their final number whilst surrounded by a stage full of skinheads. They didn't know whether to lamp him one or stand well back because he was too much of a freak for them

I was monitor engineer for Hawkwind once - great night but very 'Spinal Tap' at times No-one was allowed to touch or speak into Dave Brock's mic at any time - not even a simple 'one tow, one tow' was allowed in case we passed germs' onto it. Their roadies all appeared to be some sort of cross between Aleric the Goth and and Obelix the Gaul but with the very poshest English public scholl accents. Upon arriving they asked "what kind of gear this town could offer". When one of the local crew asked what they might be looking for they reeled off a list of substances they had a large stock of already, but professed they were a bit short of really high quality, organically grown, grass. Had a long conversation with Dave Brock about the problems of rust around the wheel arches & sills of late '70's Merc SL's and what a "great town" Stevenage was because it had a ready supply of filler & just the right touch up paint for Dave's Merc - all very rock 'n' roll After a great performance the band hit the back stage area to partake of the, newly found, local refreshments. Our road crew were fiendishly fast and dismantled a massive rig in about 20 minutes flat. It was really funny to watch the band emerge from a cloud of fug in the dressing room to discover a totally empty stage with no signs of the 2 hour gig they'd just played - you could really see some of them having serious flashback problems and trying to work out if they'd already played a gig or had only just arrived Probably my favourite ever night working road crew. . .

I've played quite a few different Foderas, Monarch / Emperor / Imperial & 4-5 different NYC's (although I think this thread is really targeted at the custom basses rather than the 'production' NYC line). I currently own an '86 Monarch 4 which is an '83 & vaguely similar to the original Wooten in that it has the slimmer body, no rear cutaway, original EMG pickups, HAZ pre-amp, wooden butterfly etc. It is, for me, simply the best bass I've ever played. Sounds great, pretty flexible tonal options from the HAZ/EMG PJ setup, lovely neck, nicely worn in and ultra comfortable. Every Fodera I've played has been really nice and the build quality is only matched by Alembic (in my exprience) but I consistantly find Alembics harder to get on with - just that old 'horses for courses' stuff again.

[quote name='steve-soar' timestamp='1319666471' post='1417151'] The New York City bass that is manufactured in Japan? My head hurts. [/quote] It's complicated, lol. All materials come from Brooklyn - woods are selected from the Fodera stockpile & shipped to Japan for carving and routing etc. The guys that do the work were trained in the Fodera shop and Joey Lauricella & Jason DeSalvo (two of the three Fodera partners) visit regularly to help on quality control stuff. The bodies & necks are then shipped back to USA for assembly & finishing by the same guys that make all the customs. I really can't see how this saves them a bean in production costs as Japanese labour must be as expensive as New York! All I can say is that the newer NYC's Ive seen have all been, as PT puts it, "flawless", easily a match for any NYC Sadowsky I've owned.

[quote name='Platypus' timestamp='1319666126' post='1417145'] Expect the PT style and tone will come across regardless of the bass he's using at the time... [/quote] I guess that's true of lots of pro players. I must admit that I've heard Paul on one of his old J's, my '63P and then a brand new Fodera Monarch and there was quite a difference in tone between each - however this was at a distance of about 3 feet and I was the only other person in the room so a bit different from a monster PA at a Jamiroquai gig, lol.

Just spotted an article in MiPro that talks about Paul Turner signing up with Fodera NYC via a partnership with BassGear [url="http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/read/bass-gear-teams-up-with-jamiroquai-bassist/015892"]http://www.mi-pro.co...-bassist/015892[/url] Looks like a cracking bass and I've done some searching around and found that he's been using it live with Jamiroquai on a couple of gigs already. In the past I've only ever seen him with a lovely vintagey Alleva Coppolo and a few of his old vintage Fenders so this is a bit of a departure for him. I've had the pleasure of meeting Paul and he really knows his basses, definitely the most knowledgeable player I've ever come across and he has an amazing 'ear' for tiny little subtle differences between individual basses, body and fingerboard wood types, pickup position, pickup age, string types etc. Really interesting that he's chosen to go with Fodera as a new gigging bass, would love to see/hear what it sounds like live

Uh oh - Stanley has just pulled out the Alembic! Just love his tone - no-one sounds like him on electric bass

Stanley, Lenny White, Watne Shorter, Michel Petrucciani Show is called Blue Note, probably repeated later in the week as well

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1319030404' post='1409076'] Nipple to the Bottle by Grace Jones has one of the simplest but funkiest basslines ever. Robbie Shakespeare isn't just a great reggae bass player... [/quote] This is my fave line from that era of Grace J & Robbie S http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHTkrXDeqSk

This is fun to groove along to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpr9qvuodVA

Just thought I'd check if anyone is going to this? I'll definitely be there, really looking forward to seeing some of Jens' creations! I've seen him talk before (with Joey Lauricella, Jimmy Coppolo and Mike Tobias) and he was really good at explaining his design ethics and build methods etc.

I've always found that courier prices go through the roof if you want to go direct and insure for over £1,000. I always use Interparcel at the full £1,000 limit and hope nothing happens. Never had a problem with them when sending overseas and they are great at tracking parcels down if they get bogged down somewhere in transit.

Here's a great little slice of early '80's funk from Firefly - you can hear lots of other people's influences in here but it really keeps a funky groove going throughout the full 7 minutes of the 12" version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCy5R-SE9Cw

I've also owned both and, when comparing the 'higher end' models, much prefer Spectors. As others have said the main real comparison model from Warwick is the Streamer and I find the newer ones a little 'antiseptic' sounding. I've owned a couple of Spector 5 strings and love the narrower string spacing - really worked for me as a bit of a 5 string newbie as I found the neck width on 19mm spaced bridges a bit too much to handle. I had one particular 5'er that wasn't the most exciting bass when played at home practice levels but it really came to life when gigging, maybe the best sounding bass (from my player's position) I've ever played live. Conversely I had another that sounded lovely at home but was simply too heavy, for me anyway, to gig with In general terms I think a lot of US Spectors sound very similar (because most of them have the same body woods). Not a huge tonal variation but, if you like that tone, then they sound great! My favourite Spectors have all been US models. I found the Euros to be good but just didn't feel as nice to play as the US ones. Obviously there's a big premium on the US basses which isn't really repaid in direct correlation to quality but I could afford the US ones so didn't really care too much about how much they were. I had an '86 Streamer for a while which sounded nice but had one of those open grained wenge necks which I never got on with. Traded it for a Kubicki with a pencil thin neck which I much preferred. As far as Warwicks are concerned I definitely think this is a brand that you really need to 'try before you buy' as I've gound different ones to sound & feel quite different.