scrumpymike

On 05/01/2024 at 21:20, Beedster said:

Folks

 

I've recently sold two pretty nice Mesa Boogie amps to two highly trusted members on here. On being played by the respective buyers both have been faulty.

 

On 05/01/2024 at 21:37, Beedster said:

 

As I just said to the buyer, I kinda regretted selling it anyway despite no longer gigging electric bass (I did tun a mag PUP from my DB through it a while back and it was rather massive), so this could simply be fate's way of telling me I must always own at least one Mesa rig, and who am I to disagree with fate (I'm sure many here would concur it's a reasonable hypothesis)  

Just spotted this topic and read the first few posts. I've been in exactly the same position as described above. Ended up taking both back and giving full refunds, no questions asked. I have a massive amount of respect for Mesa in general and for 'Agedhorse' Andy in particular.

I'll crack on and read this to the end.

2 hours ago, Opticaleye said:

I have 2 Sandbergs with flats on at the moment. 

 

My passive VS4 has Dunlop flats and sounds really woody. It took a while to break them in and get to that sound though.

 

One of my Umbos has the Galli Synthesis flats on and they are very similar in character to Thomastik Jazz Flats in tone and consruction but are less floppy and more even in tension. These are now my favourite flats although the Dunlops sound great on the VS4.

 

The Gallis do look interesting, particularly as a quick look at Thomann pricing suggests they are good value for money too.

14 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Never heard of those strings. Will need to investigate.

Dave

Great bunch of guys but they don't make flats IIRC.

7 hours ago, Teyeplayer said:

I’m really impressed with it. This modern run are built in partnership with one of the Japanese factories and it is the usual high quality build we’ve all come to expect from Japanese made guitars and basses. It plays really well and was almost perfect straight out of the box. Smallest neck I’ve ever encountered on a bass, but kind of fun for it. 

I've got a Vox Starstream A2S and the quality is as good as anything I've ever played.

7 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

 

Christ, always lusted after one of these...

You and me both!! Lee Jackson also used to play one in The Nice IIRC.

23 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

 

Not only that, the NWBB....

Hi Nos, for the sake of avoiding any further confusion, Frank meant the SWBB. Must have missed his medication yesterday 😊

Look forward to seeing you on the day. You'll be made most welcome - and won't need to eat for a week afterwards!

3 hours ago, vates said:

 

So. One month since we’ve finally reunited with my first (and so far the only) Serek.
10 gigs in 10 cities with an audience of roughly 4000 people in total. 10 rehearsals and a few dozen hours of practice. I think I have a proper opinion re.the bass’ durability, pros and cons. 

 

Well, the bass is durable alright. The finish albeit rather rustic (see below) is sturdy enough.
The hardware works as it should.

The gig-bag is not perfect (see below) but it works well. It saved the bass from the harsh loading and unloading on buses, cars, trains, hotels, station premises, lockers etc. Saved if from a few more than likely bumps and bruises. 

 

Cons. 
The body finish looks a bit amateurish up-close. Strong DIY vibes. The color is spot-on though. And a few feet away it looks fine. I personally don’t like the texture contrast between the stripes and the main finish: how it feels to the touch under my elbow. But it works and it’s rather durable. 
The neck heel plate is horrible. Just an unfinished square of sheet metal with rough edges. It will ruin the insides of the gig-bag one day. And it was hard on my clothes as well.
The pickup is rocking a bit inside the pickguard. And it’s unprotected: I had to rest my finger directly on the blades. I guess one day the perspiration will get through them to the coils and kill them. Rather unsustainable.
The gig-bag is nice in the pictures. Looks almost like a Mono. But in reality it’s a rather budget Chinese product: the quality of zipper seams and straps is not very high. The pocket is poorly designed and struggles to hold even the basic necessities (strap, cord, rag), the neck cushion is crooked. But again, it works.

 

(turned out to be) not a con. 
The presumably silly built-in fuzz circuit is surprisingly useful. And the rather radical switching between the full tone and tone cup is amazingly practical in real life situations. I got used to it and will not change it to the stacked vol-tone (as previously planned) until it’s broken. The purchased parts are going to wait for now.

 

Pros. 
The sound. It’s there. The stock rounds are fine. But I changed to Dunlop flatwounds right away and never looked back (

  Reveal hidden contents

well, actually the G string just popped and I had to change to a spare Pyramid Gold. the latter is awful but Dunlop just do not ship single strings and they just do not care about such complaints

).  After the swap - it’s just the sound from my head. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s just right. Sits perfectly in our rather motley alt-country mix. It’s different from my preferred P-bass tone. But it works in the similar manner by being both unobtrusive but always present and fundamental, and by firmly moving the whole band in the right direction. 
The ergonomics. Although geometrically the shortest one from my stable, this bass doesn’t feel small. The body is shaped in such a weird off-set way that it feels like a full-size instrument. The upper frets reach is even better than on most of my “traditional” full-scale basses. And the balance is strange but somehow works properly: you may swear that you feel the neck dive but in reality there isn’t any. A rather uncanny feeling that goes away after a few hours of play. 
Overall, the bass feels to be meticulously designed by a rigorous engineer. A lot of thought went into this design. Heck, even the lower Dunlop strap lock once connected forms a firm standing base together with the lower bout of the bass’ body.
The neck feels and looks fantastic! Now, this is probably the best part of the instrument. I like everything about this neck: back shape, radius, how it feels in the hand, how the wood looks and the shade of it. 
It looks tasty and feels sublime. 
The color scheme is beautiful. It came right from my dreams and I’m happy that I didn’t pull the trigger on the earlier batches. The quality of plastic parts is on the highest level.

 

Conclusion.
A unique instrument with rather appealing vibes despite all the quirks.
I will definitely keep my eyes open for another Serek. 
Preferably a Midwestern with a single B-90.

 

Thanks for reading!
 

Love quirky, love this!

2 hours ago, MM Stingray 62 said:

 

 

Love that Ibby Musician! I gave mine to my son and can't get him to give it back even though he doesn't play any more.

20 hours ago, ped said:

Recorded a bit of my 66 Mustang today. Backing track is my band, used Moises to remove the bass and put mine over. Backing track is only a demo so not 100% full quality but it gives you some idea. Love the sound of this bass, it just sits and pokes out when needed. 
 

 

That's my favourite kind of bass tone - one you can slice with a carving knife! ☺️

PM sent.

On 11/04/2024 at 18:53, chris_b said:

Has anyone put flats on their Sandberg?

 

If so, which flats did you use.

LaBella 760FS-S on my Cali ll SL TM 4 SHORT. Band plays drop-tuned by a semi btw.

Gigged my recently acquired Cali ll SL TM 4 Short for the first time last night - absolutely superb!!

Away next week but will post mini review when I get back.

34 minutes ago, yangtze2000 said:

Hi all! First post here. Never played a bass before. 60 y.o., bad back, small hands, so short scale appeals to me. I'm thinking Ibanez TMB 30, Ibanez GSRM20B GIO miKro, or Harley Benton PB.

 

I promise I'll try before I buy because it's largely a subjective thing, but with that out of the way, please feel free to tell me what to buy, and/or make any comparative comments. I'm certainly interested in build quality and reliability, but other comments would be gratefully received

Greetings! In the lower price range, I'd recommend the TMB30 as being the best value IMHO and the one you're most likely to find in a shop to try out. You won't get the neck-dive issue mentioned on the 5-string TMB35.

Obviously, the bigger your budget, the greater the choice but I'd recommend starting off at the cheaper end. You'll soon find out whether you enjoy playing and can then trade up and move your first bass on without losing much money (there's always a market for good, used TMB30s). Alternatively, your next move could be to upgrade to a better set of strings.

3 hours ago, Obrienp said:

Thanks regarding the H1. Just about to post it.

 

If the A2S was a steal at £799, the current price of £399 must be complete madness on Vox' behalf!

They obviously need the storage space 🙂

42 minutes ago, Obrienp said:

Folks, While contemplating selling my Vox Starstream H1, I had a little look at the Vox website: they currently have offers on the twin pickup models. The passive one is £199 but the Artist A2S (active) is only £399! Given that the A2S has Aguilar pickups and preamp, plus Hipshot hardware, that must be a real bargain. I suspect that you would find it hard to buy those components alone for that money, let alone with a bass attached!

 

Interestingly the single humbucker models are not being discounted and remain at £449 (passive) and £799 (active), which (of course) will make mine a real bargain when I get round to listing it 😀👍.

There's been a few posts on here already from me and others about the Starstream basses. I absolutely love my A2S and consider it a steal for the £799 I paid. The original RRP was over £1300 and even then worth every penny IMHO. GLWTS if/when you get round to it.

23 hours ago, sandbergmarc said:

hi! Marc here from Sandberg!

 

first and foremost, I hope i’m not breaking any rules for the forum/this thread. if I am, someone kindly let me know (or give me a swift kick in the butt).

 

as for your frustrations, I can assure you that it’s not intentional avoidance. some of the insight provided in this thread is spot on, in that we (like many other companies) have had a number of issues with emails either getting to us OR getting to people. anything from spam filters to the email servers people us (eg Google) rejecting our emails entirely for a variety of reasons, most recently the SMTP authentication certificate. these are just a couple very real and often very frustrating things we’ve encountered and are working to fix that!

 

to address your specific concerns/inquiry, please don’t hesitate to contact me at [email protected] (yes, “.com” - I live in Chicago. you are also welcome to CC my personal email at [email protected] to make sure I see it).

 

thanks for bringing this to our attention!

 

-Marc

Hey Marc, full marks for jumping onto this in such a timely way. This is the kind of thing that restores/strengthens our faith in the Sandberg brand.

As someone who spent my working life in sales and marketing, I'm finding this debate over Sandberg's comms very interesting. The bottom line is that every business theoretically needs to communicate effectively with its existing and prospective customers. I say 'theoretically' because the one exception is when a business can't meet existing demand for its products. With a 2-year waiting list for customer orders, you'd have to say that's where Sandberg are at.

However, lifting the lid off that situation is pretty much like opening a can of worms. You could write a book about it - lots of people have. Let's just say that, in business terms, it's unsustainable and will probably bite Sandberg in the bum sooner or later. Certainly over-reliance on social media doesn't help you much when a significant segment of your market demographic doesn't use it, either properly or at all.

Cuzzie, well done for posting your experiences and sticking up for a company you obviously believe in.

I think we are all united in wanting what's best for Sandberg, but I'm not sure they're going the right way to get it.

48 minutes ago, Pirellithecat said:

This is a great shame.
Might be the wrong thread, but is there an equally well built/great playing/well priced alternative with better customer focus??   

Andyjr1515 and Jabba_the_gut of build-diary fame on here - if they're still taking orders 🙂 

5 hours ago, Aidan63 said:

I have made three more attempts to contact Sandberg by email, using their website, service@ and home@ email addresses and still no reply. Why bother having a contact form on the website and hiding your sales phone number ?

Any company that is only open to using social media for customer contact can do one afaic

I'd say it's typical big company arrogance, their way or no way.

What's the point of having a configurator if you won't discuss the details with the customer.

If they can't be bothered to deal with a potential individual customer in order to make a sale they are unlikely to be responsive once they have the customer's money. If they replied and said I need to go through Bass Direct or another dealer they are happy to use as intermediary I'd understand that but no reply at all ? wtf

I love the Lionel fretless but they won't be getting my money for a fretted one, they have lost a sale, I'd much rather give my money to a UK luthier who will actually appear to be interested in making me an instrument, or even give Fender too much money for a JMJ with a finish I hate but a pickup and neck I like 😲🙃

Good for you mate - couldn't agree more and I wouldn't put up with it either!! Luckily for me, those nice (and responsive!) folks (or should that be Volks?) at Thomann had what I wanted in stock.

A couple of observations:

Following my initial skirmish with the user-unfriendly Sandberg website, I ended up contacting the lovely guy at Classic and Cool. At the end of our nice long chat, he confessed that it's hardly worth his while spending time on the Sandberg brand any more because prospective customers disappear when they find out there's an 18-month waiting time on orders (he was surprised when I told him that it's now 2 years!!). I'd say it won't be long before Sandberg's distribution network is reduced to one company, namely Thomann. There's obviously a special relationship there, presumably based on the fact that they're both in Germany and that Thomann have the funds to buy for stock. 

Comms with Maruszczyk are similarly dire!

The only reason they can get away with it is that their products are of consistently high quality and generally don't need after-sales support.

4 hours ago, Paul S said:

 

Sounds like some sort of euphemism - following the court case, he expressed regret at flogging his lionel in Sainsbury's.  

Yet another one to add to the already long list for what Basschat calls the 'pink torpedo'!

6 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

Right. I am definitely attending this one, hopefully, unlike 2 years ago, I won't have to leave after 30 minutes rather than punching someone!

No, this time you can punch someone AND leave after 30 minutes.

3 hours ago, Buddster said:

Don't tell Santa you're selling it! 

She may not do the buffet again! 

This is a used one I bought off here a year back. The new one Santa brought is a keeper!

On hold subject to receipt of payment.

15 hours ago, JohnDaBass said:

Absolutely lovely @scrumpymike.

Body looks sooooo lush  with a lovely maple neck. 

I'd be really interested to hear how the mix of the single coil neck Pup blends with the MM Stingray Pup. Congratulations on your latest acquisition,.

BTW

Have told Mrs Scrumpymike or are hiding it under the bed when it's delivered while she's out shopping?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 

I'm the one hiding under the bed 🙃

16 hours ago, BassApprentice said:

I knew you could spec the Cali for short scale, but didn't realise retailers were ordering them for stock. Looks good!

It just appears to be Thomann who are doing this. Jump on their UK website and search Electric basses > Short scale > Sandberg and you'll get around 20 basses with delivery times ranging from 'stock' to a number of weeks / months or 'to order'. What I like is that the selection isn't limited to what you might call standard basses. There's always a few SL and roasted maple necks in amongst what's on offer. This makes a lot of sense given that the waiting time for special orders is now 2 years!! I was lucky enough to find ex-stock almost exactly what I had recently designed on the Sandberg configurator, which would have cost me around £600 more and been subject to a 2-year wait. The only thing I configured that mine doesn't have is a roasted maple neck, but now I've got it I really like the mix of the lighter maple neck with the green burst and gold hardware.

Short-scale Sandberg basses at Thomann UK