lownote

Ah ha, you see how confusing it is! That's what i thought but the shop told me I was getting a Contemporary Jazz and it says that on the invoice. Plus that model with those features appears on dealers websites as the Contemporary Jazz. Also some of the their jazz basses are like twice the price of others but with the same name? . I don't know how such a prestigious manufacturer gets away with the random tangle of branding which is 'Overwater by Tanglewood' (and it only says Overwater on the bass itself), and the confusion over which model is which. When you buy any other bass it pretty much says what you're getting on the tin. Actually I don't think they do get away with their confused marketing. I suspect they would sell a lot more if they sorted it out.

Yes it was designed to be EADGC. I have seen posts by people tuning it B-G instead and claiming it's fine, but really the laws of physics and most other manufacturers reckon you need at least a 34 if not 35 inch scale for excellent B performance. However, I've been flamed for this opinion on Scott's own forum ages ago so I'll shut up.

You can't really buy a bad cheap bass. They're all there or thereabouts. With £200 to burn recently, Mrs 12 having decided to try reverse pyschology ("Darling, you MUST buy another bass"), I looked around for something newish or secondhand in the P bass line mainly, but I had an open mind. Obvious candidates were Squiers, the odd possibly suspiciously low priced MIM Fender Ps, also Yamahas, Ibanez and those underated gems, the Hohner Pro series and older Aria P basses. But having been there and done them all I wanted something fresh. And that's when I started for no particular reason to think about Overwater. Not the bespoke ones but the Tanglewood mass produced variety. Having looked into them a bit more I wasn't overwhelmingly keen. Reviews were mixed and the names of models and branding are so vague and random diving straight in isn't easy. But eventually I chanced upon a B Stock Contemporary Jazz from Nevada Music In Portsmouth for £189.99 and decided to give it a try on the basis I could always send it back. As I say the models are confusing but I sort of gathered this was their cheapest model with a PJ configuration. Which suits my jazz/blues interest perfectly. I was a little nervous opening the box but was reassured by what I saw, not least by what I couldn't see - the reason it had been sold as B stock. Looked new and unblemished to me. Everything seemed very well finished. I hate sharp fret ends and have had problems with them on several Yams and a Westfield. These were OK. The Overwater bridge was simple but more substantial than the usual bent tin. The pots worked fine. There were quality touches like screw-down ferrules on the tuner barrels to prevent them popping out. Best of all the single coil pup was silent. How Overwater do that I don't know. Quite impressive was that straight from the factory it was set up properly: relief, string height and intonation. Barely needed a tweak. So what did it play like? Wellll.... Awful. I was really disappointed. Thin, reedy at the top and lacking oomph at the bottom. 'Bland', the description used in several critical interweb posts, was the mildest word I used. To be fair, sustain was very good.... but. Bugger... I was on the verge of sending the bass back to Nevada, but then I thought I'd just try changing the issue Overwater nickel strings before I called time. So off with them and on went a very old worn set of my favourite D'Addario flats. Oh wot? Different machine! [u]Great [/u]top end, bottom end and everything in between. And not bland, for me anyway, characterful and very flexible sound. FWIW and YMMV, with the right strings the Overwater Tanglewoods are, in my experience anyway, fantastic value for money, certainly bear comparison with the competition and to my ears are anything but bland and cheap. One of these days maybe I'll engineer the chance to compare it to an Overwater Overwater and see if ten times the price will mean ten times the quality. I'd pretty much bet folding money that the poor relation will stand up well.

I don't know nuffing about nuffing, but i struggled for a year to get a tone out of my TC head that I liked. Then I bought a 400w Warwick Pro Fet IV and fell instantly in love and have persuaded it to come to bed with me. Clean clean bass sound with EQ totally flat. I'm not sure my current TC 210 cab is the ideal partner for this threesome but on the head side of things I am sorted.