Misdee

Regarding the weight of Wal basses, I remember reading that Pete Stevens had a stock of particularly dense mahogany that he kept for the body core of fretless basses because he thought it improved the tone. This made them a bit heavier. For my taste a fretless needs a bit of an edge to the tone to make itself heard , probably because you lose the top end you take for granted from a steel string on metal frets.

Yamaha BB 2024 is a great call! That bass is a beast. Seems like it was designed to rock, but still has great subtleties to the tone. A unique sounding bass, for sure.I don't play mine very often, but I would never part with it. It has a something in common with a Wal in so much as it has its own unique tone with a very consistent midrange that makes it present in the mix.

I think the wood combination in Warwick basses really does emphasize an aggressive, up-front sound. Wenge is so dense that it gives crystalline high end as well as midrange punch.The bubinga body on a Thumb accentuates that even more. Even the Streamers with a maple body and wenge fretboards can sound pretty nasty in the right hands. I loved Stuart Zender's tone on the first Jamiroquoi album, for example. Low action and light gauge strings for plenty of grit and grind.

I remember half- fretless basses from around the time I started playing in the late 70s/very early 80. Probably saw them in the Ibanez catalogue and the Kramer catalogue too( for those too young to remember,back in those days before the internet, we had catalogues.) Come to think of it, I also remember an Ibanez poster in a local guitar shop featuring Alphonso Johnson. Who no one round our way had ever heard of. Still never seen a half fretless bass in the flesh. Probably a good thing these basses never caught on, not least of all because if you were selling one on Basschat you would invariably get comments saying " if only the top half/ bottom half was fretless I would snap this up."

Well, from a collectobilty point of view, in the fullness of time the Fender VB will have a greater rarity value and therefore potentially a better resale value than the Sadowsky. There will always be a demand for Fender basses, especially relatively esoteric ones. If you have to sell the VB and put a substantial amount of money to what you can currently get for it to buy the Sadowsky, that is one consideration. The Sadowsky may well be a fine bass but ultimately it will always be a Japanese copy of the NYC version. In contrast, an American-made VB is the ultimate version of itself, if you see what I mean. The Sadowsky and Fender VB are in essence different versions of the same thing ie an active Jazz Bass. That is another thing to consider. Some would see swapping one for another as a sideways move. The Sadowsky might (or might not) play a bit better than a Fender bass straight from the factory, but bear in mind a decent luthier could easily make the Fender VB play just as well as the Sadowsky. Which bass sounds better /best is a highly subjective opinion. The Sadowsky preamp is a very good one, for sure. It plays a big part in giving those basses their own signature sound. On the other hand,the VB preamp and wood combination were tweaked by Victor to cater to his needs and taste. You don't find many koa/rosewood/mahogany bodied Jazz Basses, that's for sure. That bass was something a bit special for Fender, from what I remember.

Tried a set of Lo-Riders myself a while back. Superb tone but way too stiff for me. My fingers hurt for days after one nights playing! The thing about DRs for me is that the hex cores are too tight and the round cores are too elastic. Sound good though, and if you are going for that scooped midrange modern Jazz Bass tone , Hi,-Beams really accentuate that.

I use 40,-120 on my 5 string . I wouldn't want to go any lighter than 120 for a low B for the sake of clarity, but bear in mind that how taught that gauge will feel can vary greatly from one manufacturer to another. I don't like a very taught feel, and I find Dunlop strings offer the perfect balance between tone and tension. I don't think a 120 would feel out of keeping too much with a 55 -95 set , but your other choice would be to find a 115 guage string. I seem to remember GHS offer a Boomer in such a gauge, but you would probably have to special order it.

The 1990s are getting to be a long time ago, my recollections from the decade are starting to be hampered by old age!😄 I do seem to remember that you had to turn up pretty loud to hear the different eq settings from the switches. Nowadays I would probably appreciate their subtleties more.

Wals are great basses with a unique tone and an identity all of their own, but I definitely think a lot of people see them through rose tinted spectacles nowadays. They were always a niche instrument, but nowadays short supply amidst rising demand has led to a certain amount of mythology surrounding Wal basses. Myself, I wouldn't pay the current asking price for a new one, but then again I wouldn't get the opportunity because Paul Herman is not taking any more orders for the foreseeable future because of overwhelming demand. Good for him!👍 The tone is undeniably wonderful, but as with most other manufacturers, you get good 'uns and not-so-good 'uns. Most of them are heavy or very heavy ( just like most Foderas, for that matter) and the necks are fairly chunky. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely a thing. Also, they may be pretty hefty , but they are not particularly robust. My experience is that they are prone to niggling faults. Wal have always been very helpful sorting them out, it must be said, but if I lived somewhere further afield that didn't have easy access to the Wal workshop I would think twice about buying one. That said, the basses Paul is making now are probably the best made Wals ever, so don't be too put off by anything I say. I only mean to make the point that Wal basses have many great strengths but are not perfect for everybody by any means.

I had a Fender Jazz with those SD pickups in . You had to strain to hear any difference between the different settings, from what I remember. Sounded pretty good though. The early Warwick's also offered OBL ( Original Bill Lawrence) pickups as an option too, from what I remember.

I seem to remember reading in a feature in Bass Player magazine many moons ago that the original track was recorded with Rotosound Swing Bass on his P Bass. However, the strings in this YT clip are most likely Ken Smith Burners, Freddie's string of choice in more recent times.

I'm definitely from the "older Warwick basses were better" camp myself. Slimmer neck profiles ect. (Not that later ones are necessarily bad or not worth having, by any means.) I could easily be wrong about the fingerboard wood. It's worth mentioning that the EMG pickups on the original basses were also probably a significant contribution to the unique tone, too.

I did notice on a YT video plugging Ernie Ball strings that Justin Chancellor has got an impressive estate in California with his own teepee on it. There must be money in dark, odd-meter, doom laden naval-gazing somewhere, obviously.

Fretless Thumb Basses are indeed very special. I'm sure the combination of woods contributes a great deal to that. I remember when Thumbs first came out and ( as the name implies) everyone commented on the phenomenal slap sound, which is also probably in no small part due to the use of wenge and bubinga ect( I know Thumb Basses have ebony boards now, but didn't they have wenge fretboards back in the 80s?). Anyhow, back in those days a good slap sound was a major consideration! The natural compression from that wood combination really delivered the goods.

I remember that era so well and a Rickenbacker bass was an object of religious reverence for aspiring bass players of the rock/prog persuasion. And plenty of other genres too, for that matter. I've still never owned a Ric for one reason or another. Should have bought a 4004 while they still made them. And now they have stopped laquering the fingerboard on ,4003's!😯

I too need a bit of fretbuzz and grit in my sound or I don't enjoy playing the bass. Just so long as it isn't choking too much and taking energy out of the vibrating string. The thing is, some high end basses are do well made to such fine tolerances nowadays that it can be difficult to get sufficient fret buzz and grind with my preferred string heights!

I know for a fact that Pete Stevens used to recommend more relief in the neck and then lowering the setup at the bridge to suit taste and playing style accordingly.

Fair enough, good point. It's a great strength in life to have a clear idea of what you want. 🙂 Even the G&L Jazz width necks have some meat to their profile. If your not a Fender- derived design guy I totally get it. I sometimes muse that my dad had, as I so wanted at the time, been able to shell out a bit more and buy me a Rickenbacker 4001 instead of the Jazz Bass copy I ended up with how different my taste in basses might have been.

Exactly right. But this case isn't so much against the record company. It's against the artists. Both legally and in terms of public perception, it's against the creatives involved at the time.

Make sure you play one first. Great basses, but not for everybody.

They offer a selection of neck profiles to order. Unfortunately my L1500 was a bit too wide at the nut for me, with an overall profile like a classic vintage P Bass. If it had been more like a Jazz or Stingray I would still own it. G&L make some superb instruments, no doubt about that.

I would suggest that if this young man's image had been used in the same way by a someone who wasn't a creative artist whose work countless millions of people know and love folks might have a more open mind about the merits of his case. The fact that he cooperated with the anniversary shots is an irrelevance, by the way. He expressed his ambivalence at the time, and he is under no obligation to behave in a uniformly consistent manner than anybody else. People are inherently inconsistent. That inconsistency does not necessarily undermine his case. You like Nirvana, you like the album cover, and then this guy comes along looking for money and trying to spoil the party. What's his problem,? But if his image had been exploited in a comparable way by some massive corporation that people had no particular affinity for would you be so dismissive and so damning of his claims for injury? I think not.

I used to have one of these and it was indeed a beast of a bass . I would best describe it as a Stingray on steroids, and a Stingray is already on steroids, if you see what I mean. So these basses are probably more like a Stingray on steroids and antibiotics at the same time.