NickA

Boire and Barts? It was hearing Schalk Joubert playing a five string one of those that really set me wanting a dolphin. Never had the chance to play one or compare with my "modern" ( ovangkol and MEC) bass. I think their sound is warmer, less "brittle" which I'd put down to the pickups not tbe wood.

Queue invasion of American Rush and Tool fans waving bunches of dollars! These things are generally £6k plus these days....4 string mk2s being the most expensive for some reason. And remarkably they still sell at those prices. What are they thinking?!

At my ( great) age, I'd have to pay £5k-£6k and all I'd get is some crappy beat up fender. Shan't bother.

"Mush"!!! ???? Not a word I'd apply to a dolphin..... not even a set neck one. The pro1 is a very different bast tho. Clarity in excess. Fantastic for soloing, sometimes hard to drop in the mix.

Amongst many things, Brexit has totally f#£_&d the cross Europe trade in 2nd hand instruments. Really dumb as the UK govt were not forced to charge vat on imported 2nd hand goods, they just decided to do so for extra revenue.. Hand carrying a personal possession tho, you are unlikely to get questioned ... best leave the country with one bass and return with another. Ferry ports less intrusive than airports btw ( especially if the bass stays in your car ). 😉

I see you like the sound in "passive" mode. I guess you know it's not really passive, the pickups themselves are active and all pulling that switch up does is turn off the onboard EQ ... should be the same as turning the EQ knobs to neutral as you're still sending a buffered and actively mixed signal to the amp. Or am I wrong? I find the whole sound a bit "thin" unless I crank up the EQ knobs a bit. Ps: looks just like my ovangkol one (2001) so I'm guessing not boire. Might have a wenge neck tho ( don't know if that alters the sound, but it looks nice). Here's mine

I've got one of those. And the massive case. It has the best ergonomics of any bass. usually in "jazz" mode = even pickup balance and coil tap, lovely clear tone, great for slapping and tapping too. I'd wanted a 5 string, and a wenge neck, but dolphins are so rare you just have to grab what comes up! Enjoy.

I don't ever use my acg-eq-01 bass live.... I sometimes find a really good sound on it and plan to take it out with me "pre set" ; but then dither and take the Wal instead. That one is easy to tweak on stage. For some reason as the evening progresses the filtering gets reduced and the pickup balance heads towards the bridge. It's a problem with owning a fretless Wal ... other basses get ignored.

Ooph. There is no limit. Think I'll stick with brass. 😁

When I retire ....I'll map out the frequency responses. Meanwhile, Life is too short and I'll stick to tweaking the knobs. It's an amazing preamp tho.. that treble stack is great; it's supposed to be a variable "pick attack" but does so much more. You can even choose what blend of pickups to put through it (internal trim pot).

No no no...not those awful hat pegs. For some reason I can't explain I really don't like them.

Ah you cost-no-object pennng bass owners! Beautiful. I'm going to ask the bloke who has my bass in bits for a quote on those baker ones. But those Rubners do look ok, so long as the plate fits the space or could be cut down. Healy tuners? Web search returns no info. My bass is probably not worth more than £10k, so I don't want to put too many ribbons on it!

Used it again this week, with just the pjb flight-case (no pb300) with the amps high mids and high EQ cranked up. Sounded good from where I stood. I didn't bother fitting the sound clamp. Hard to separate the different sound of the pickup from the different sound of this rental bass, but it's a mellow one and maybe not totally suited to a copperhead. But the copperhead has a good tone with lots of fundamental and a nice high output. Could be excellent on a brighter bass ( eg my own bass ).

Doesn't sound like my Wal at all. Then again, mine has no frets and doesn't get played with a pick 🤔. More fun than a squire Jazz bass tho ...

I also pretty much use one fixed setting for everything on my active twin humbucker bass ... but that fixed setting needs two humbuckers, two active filters and a blend control! 😂. Amp dead flat EQ, no effects. Joe Dart seems to use a direct wired, usually single pickup, bass but a whole truck of off board processing. Many ways to kill a cat.

The realist sound clamp is also ok for Arco with a sufficiently hifi amp, I've used it on my cello too. Needs a fair bit of experimentation with placement, weights and tension though. I use a bit of bike inner tube twixt it and bridge to soften the sound too. Bit disappointed in the copperhead, as trying it at home it sounded great; then playing in a band it lacked treble. Found a little mixer in my bits and bobs cupboard and blended the sound clamp with the copperhead ..and that sounded really good.... at home anyway. But too much faff for me. As said, matching to the bass really matters!

Go active. Trouble with passives is that you're drawing current through the pickup, which robs the high frequencies. The more low pass filter you put in the worse it gets, plus you get a change in tone when you turn the volume knob down. Precisions aren't noted for tonal range, after all. Sure some people like all that, but you get a better tonal range with a few buffer amps. Or like NancyJohnson says .... straight to the (high impedance) amp and let the amp do the tone shaping. 😁

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So many people making Wal clones! Wals sound great, I live them myself,.. but you don't see anyone much playing them these days. Why the sudden enthusiasm?

I have a borrowed bass right now (1880s German, swell back, viol shape). It's set up purely for jazz (spiros, low action, no bevel on the fingerboard) it came fitted with both a shadow and a realist pickup. The shadow is really harsh and clacky ( the reason I stopped using my own shadow pickup), the copperhead has loads of warm bass but is very light on high frequencies. I took it out for a gig and tho the copperhead sounded lovely it had no projection. Ended up using my usual realist sound clamp .. still much darker than my own bass, but ok. So it's a very warm sounding bass.... but are copperhead pickups usually so bassy? I wondered if the idea is to use both pickups ( shadow and realist) through a mixer. Is that "a thing"? I'm sure plenty of people use just a copperhead tho.

For new laminate and hybrid basses in the uk you can't beat Bassbags.co.uk. But I doubt his shipping costs are cheap. For 2nd hand, thedoublebassrooom.com ... But that's a place you really need to visit to see & try.

Good tip. No-one in my orchestra does that! From Monday they shall! Think my mutebisna fake ( no Torte lettering !! ) but it works just fine.

Tough one... I realised you're in Norway after posting. I think it's a long jouney in the UK if I have to go 100km to see a bass! Hopefully someone here has played one; as just being the same construction as the Hora doesn't mean it's the same quality; some plywood basses are better than some hybrids. I guess it'shis one? https://www.danmusikk.no/arvada-db-820-kontrabass But if you go to Oslo at least you can try these for comparison: https://bassanova.no/butikk/kontrabass-1/3-4-4-4 ..or come on holiday to England, we have lots of bass shops within a distance you probably think of as a short walk 🙂 Good luck.

Whatever the recommendation, don't buy anything until you've tried it...and some others for comparison. Seems it's only available in Denmark, so I'm guessing it's Chinese made for a Danish import company. Unlikely anyone outside Denmark has one. Looks ok and certainly cheap for a hybrid. Bu, you might get a better / more interesting bass second hand ... and one that's properly set up too ; basses from Thomann etc generally need a lot of work doing to them to get he best sound.