Cuzzie

2 minutes ago, juanbcn83 said:

If you don't want this Marlowedk give it to me, I love that model 😁

 

About the communication problems, I had the same problem. I send an enquiry about my Enigma 5 but never answered me, a little bit dissapointing.

 

 

There is a queue!!!

@tegs07 spot on as usual

@scrumpymike decent insights for sure 

@sandbergmarc I don’t think rules are broken, you are offering to help someone.

Happy to say I am slightly biased, but it’s based on personal and friends experiences, one of which (for a friend) involved Hölger personally replying to something and going over and above what would be expected - that won’t happen in most companies.

i am saying this with no knowledge - but a big company probably has a tech division that can sort problems mentioned - Sandberg is ‘family’.

In true appreciation thread style - here is my old Shape MarloweDK complete with dog, toy and a bit of foot…

..

@Aidan63 It’s absolutely everyone’s right to spend where they wish to spend, but as said before Sandberg are definitively not in the big company arrogance bracket - they are very much a family company with a small workforce, this I can say with great assuredness with personal comms, many stories from others and also having been out and visited the factory and spent time with the team.

Build time is of course an issue, but, it’s due to the items being quality and a small team.

Unless it’s changed the configurator is there to do that, configure a bass and then the code generated can be given to a relevant ‘dealer’ to get what you need.

I can’t help thinking that Britains relationship with Europe may be a factor in how things proceed, but also Sandberg sits in that position of not being a big manufacturer like a Fender, but not being boutique/luthier/artisan type zone. if you go back to 2015 and the Sandberg subtle shape change on their basses it was driven largely by Fender saying to retailers, if you continue to sell Sandbergs we won’t send you our basses to sell. They are also not as aggressive as Hans at Warwick.

Anyways - hope you get what you need, Sandberg will always be there and be quality.

honestly - these pick ups - chat to Jaime at The Creamery he can modify how he does them for you - there is a wait - it is worth it

29 minutes ago, TRBboy said:

I think our aural tastes are similar: those pickups in the Marlowe DK are the Alnico V ones, the same as in the TT Passive 😉👌

I too think they're absolutely fantastic

Nice to hear we are both legends!!

popped it in to try to give context as we all hear things differently.

to add to what I said on black labels I would imagine Tim Commerford loving them, but also you pop them in someone playing funk, they would also give you that Shazam.

Nowt against Delano’s, brilliant pick ups, but you just gotta use em right.

Some Sandy’s also had Haussel pick ups - now they are great, very meaty even the jazz ones - they are practically a P pick up

Hello guys!!!!!

So I may be a little out of date on pick ups as I haven’t been on it as much as I normally am.

back in my day the TSBS used to have Seymour Duncan’s in.

But as a very brief brush stroke

as a rule I find the split coil Pick up to be their weakest offering.

Delano’s are more ‘hi-fi’ for want of a better word. It doesn’t make them sterile, they have character, but if you are someone who likes pre-amps, other baked in sounds - this is a really good option - it will let that sound go through and won’t colour too much

In house Sandberg ones - well at least the old ones in my MarloweDK are more vintage sounding and really are the bees knees. It has enough punch to not be weak if you solo’s the neck pup and can approach that P sound (evidently not there tho). These will also take effects etc brilliantly, but they are a nod to yesteryear and vintage.

black labels - they were prolly designed for when the superlight bases came in as they need more oomph. Delano is a right hook/power slap to the face - Black labels are a big old gut punch - not over powering, but very punchy and if you like slap bass these will do you right.

i haven’t read all the posts, but as an aside if you want to know what my ear hears dUg Pinnick, Glenn Hughes,Billy Gould, Mike Inez, muzz skillings, Pat Badger - all have bass sounds I like

if you can hear a sound bite the Perfect P bass pick up for me is the Creamery 58P - that’s where I sit, but I do love modern stuff too!!

hope that helps!

gotta get back to work!!

Hölger is a dude

2 minutes ago, BassApprentice said:

I always think the Panther looks like a bass made to play funk and slap on.

 

Probably does everything in between nicely too.

Exactly that - it does do everything else purrrrfect as well…

Black would look good

depends on your OCD and if you mind filled in holes.

Worth contacting Sandberg as they may have old stuff knocking around?

On 06/03/2023 at 22:29, ead said:

Just acquired this beautiful pre-loved Panther Special from our own cattytown.

 

Panther is a complete sleeper bass - so good and underrated - it’s phenomenal

Also remember, the dials are sensitive, small turns each time and re-assess 

It’s as said above - if you pop it infront be prepared for noise unless you properly tweak, but of course that’s the beauty - take a preset, patch it to an empty slot and tweak to your settings and then save

some of the guitar sounds work very very well for bass

That’s a ridiculous deal

12 hours ago, Quilly said:

I appreciate they were trying to move away from the “German fender copy” tag but I still prefer the body of the old ones , but the headstock of the gen 2 look much better. 

They were forced into the change 2015 due to ‘pressure’ from Fender.

Fender realised they were making basses better than they do, and they contacted stores and retailers to say if they stocked Sandberg, Fender would no longer send their stock to that shop to sell. Being by far the most common sold bass they had to agree.

Sandberg to their credit just got on with it, changed the shape and voila - quality basses still being produced.

To look at on a stand I agree the old shape is probably better, but ergonomically the new shape slays and you get used to the look, it’s now just common place

Had a passive VS4, lovely bass, wasn’t quite there for that ‘Fender’ sound, but then again if I had popped a pick up of choice, something like the 58p from Creamery, then it prolly would be.

Again it’s your preference of sound, but the framework you get it in is immense with a Sandy 

1 hour ago, Osiris said:

The Magellan preamp is an excellent, extremely versatile but really simple to use and virtually impossible to get a bad sound from. I say that as someone who has been using the amp since 2017 and have gigged and rehearsed with it numerous times with 3 different bands, and it has never failed to deliver an excellent sound. And I can't see how this pedal won't deliver the same flexibility and sound quality. Unfortunately it lacks the fantastic drive channel of the Magellan 800 which would have been the icing on the cake for me, it's arguably the most convincing valve emulation out there rather than a typical pedal style overdrive or distortion, but Genzler currently offer two different drive pedals and they have added an adjustable HPF instead which is a more than generous trade off. 

 

Most of my gigs are using IEM's these days and while I'm happy with my current preamp pedal I'm still tempted to pick one of these up at some point. 

 

 

 

 

the man speaks the truth here, if I wasn’t so wedded to Tech21 and the Ultrabass amp, DP3X and PSA 2.0 this would be what I would get, and I would consider the consequences of an affair and messy divorce.

Great products

For all the chat about the MM pup it’s important to realise it will not sound anything like a Ray when solo’d because it’s not designed to.

It’s not in the Ray position nor is it voiced or does it have the Ray Pre-amp.

Its main purpose is to be n adjunct to the P pick up and allow you to cut through and provide clarity.

That’s what it is designed for

Tech21 DP3X is exactly what you need

The Tech21 Steve Harris is also stellar

This year they will release a Frank Bello pedal

That’s a lot of EQ and tight distortion 

If you had to go Darkglass nothing beats the AO

2 hours ago, walshy said:

I looked at this last night, must resist 😂

don’t resist!!!!

I can’t believe no one has done this……

I like big butts and I cannot lie,

The saturation can’t deny,

When I walk in the place, a tiny pedal and a bass,

And a loud amp in your face you get sprung!!!

8 minutes ago, Osiris said:

 

Thank you for your patronising and condescending post, as charming and adorable as it is. 

 

By way of response here's a little extra background information, although the reasonable part of my brain is telling me just to ignore you. More on that later. 

 

I've been playing bass and gigging for some 40 odd years, maybe 10 years or so before owning the Trace rig, which I bought new in the early 90's. Now while I don't consider myself an expert on anything bass related I have picked up a few things over the years, including the basics of how to use an EQ as well as what constitutes a workable, usable tone when playing with other musicians. Obviously I wouldn't have been so clued up on bass tone at the point of buying the rig and have vague recollections of being caught up in the hype at the time as it was the rig to been seen with. I have played through many different amps over the years from cheap and cheerful starter amps through to high end gear, and have been able to get a usable sound from just about all of them. Notice I say a usable sound, that's because I'm not trying to get 'my sound' because what sounds good when I'm noodling away at home doesn't necessarily translate to what sounds good and/or works in the mix with a band. I consider myself a 'live' bass player and have played hundreds and hundreds of gigs over the years with many different musicians. So I EQ in a sound that works with whatever is going on around me. But most amps have a baked in sound and some of them take more time to dial in than others. And one or two haven't been able to give me what I needed no matter what, and one of those happens to be the Trace Elliot SMX I owned and gigged for some 10 years as well as the other SMX rig that I mentioned. During the years of ownership - believe it or not - it did actually cross my mind to try tweaking the EQ and various other controls to try and get some other sounds out of it, and I did exactly that on countless occasions. Yup, I really did, I even tried switching the mid scoop button in and out 👍. But no matter what I did with the various EQ options, pre-shape buttons, tilt control, pre-amp voicings etc it just had this constant baked in sound that sounded weak and gutless to me, there was no noticeable weight/heft in the lows, at least none that projected through the pair of Trace 1153 cabs that I was using, there was an ever-present mid scoop that even a sad face graphic EQ curve could seem to fully alleviate at least not in any meaningful way to my ears, and there was an ever present fatiguing spike in the upper mids/treble that I could never fully attenuate either.

 

There is of course the possibility that my amp was faulty in some way, or maybe it was Friday afternoon special put together when the Trace guys got back from the pub? Are there any any known faults with the SMX series that match what I was describing it'd be helpful to know that, why not share that information if you have it?

 

But I grew to hate the amp with a passion and if could have afforded to replace it sooner than I did then I gladly would have done. Since then I have played through a Trace combo, not sure of the model number but it was the simpler 7 band EQ model, and that had all the punch and weight that TE are renowned for, it was indeed a great sounding amp - but it was also the polar opposite to what I could get from the SMX during the years that I owned it. So I'm not anti TE, just anti the SMX series simply because the 2 different ones that I have played over the years sounded gutless, more like a guitar amp than a bass amp. That's just my experience and yours in obviously different, and that's great. But why not share your experience instead of assuming that I don't know my arse from my elbow? Surely that's the point of a forum like this? Or maybe seek some clarification on the assumptions you immediately made - including the one that I had no idea what I was doing? That would have been more helpful and maybe even have helped to make yourself look less of an arrogant tool who posts ill considered knee-jerk responses? 

 

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion - just as I am entitled to mine. And yes, maybe if I'd have added an emoji or 2 to my original comment it would have made it clear that the comment was intended tongue-in-cheek, even though it's still my opinion that the SMX remains the biggest turd of an amp I have ever played through. It looked great, and I liked the dual band compressor, but that was it, IMO/IME. 

 

Congratulations, you have the dubious honour of becoming the first person in my 14 years on Basschat to be added to my ignore list. 

In short - i have spoken with @Osiris at length over the years on all bass related issues - and we differ on approaches and sounds but have a commonality on our themes.

He knows his onions theoretically and practically, nothing said is a cack handed glib comment without substance, the fact @Baloney Balderdash he wrote a reply detailing this shows this.

Now I know I always ‘sound’ good no matter what I do cos my gear is ace, BUT, I play like crap - that’s all my fault.

If you are an Apple user - garageband, that’s free and  iRig is decent

Darkglass element

17 hours ago, Dood said:

I'm just having a think about the various (countless) pedals I have video reviewed over the years and which ones were notable for their flexible tones. 

 

I liked the GR Bass distortion, the EBS as previously mentioned. I tell ya a great pedal that you wouldn't usually associate with mid frequency drive: the Tech 21 Steve Harris pedal does a superb grit when you get it in its sweet spot. The Darkglass Vintage pedals on low settings are good and you'd do well to give Barefaced's Machinist a whirl as it has the ability to parallel blend fuzz, distortion and clean low end together. It's a bit pedal though off you need space on your board. 

The Orange Bass Butler sounds great and, well, if you have deep pockets, Neural DSP's Quad Cortex will do everything you want and a whole lot more, but that's outside of requirements! 

Ah yes Barefaced machinist is a cracking pedal - so many great tones.

I had a good back and forth chat with Alex about it, ultimately I sent it back, not because of lack of quality (sound and build) but because compared to how and where I play on the bass, existing pedals I had suit me better.

For reference I mainly play pick near the bridge and compensate EQ etc accordingly 

18 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Run the PSA on the floor next to it 😁

It's hard to not find the distortion you're after in the PSA, it's an amazing little thing. I'm slightly ashamed that mine isn't getting used.

That’s what I would do, or DP3X - it’s what they are designed for