CameronJ

Have to agree, I’ve seen a lot of Markbass, Ashdown, Trace and a tiny bit of EBS/Aguilar. The odd l barefaced cab here and there. The only time I’ve seen Vanderkley or Bergantino has been in Scott Devine live seminars. Must admit some of the nicest live bass sounds I’ve experienced as an audience member have been through older Trace 4x10 combos.

And...

Those Betsys are bloody lovely

@Doddy how are you finding the Gruv Gear Club bag? I’ve been gently eyeing them up for a little while now...

@Al Krow the candy red Super PJ5 you’ve quoted there is most definitely not for sale. It’s still by far the best bass I’ve ever owned and the Xotic will have to be phenomenal to usurp it. Basically I’ve had GAS for an Xotic XJ in this exact colour scheme (“Electrum Gold” with dark tortoiseshell pickguard and rosewood board) for a couple of years now, and every demo I’ve heard of the Xotic jazzes have all sounded exactly how I like a jazz bass to sound. As it stands I basically have 3 almost identical (yet delightful) P basses. Some would call it a touch excessive. With the sale of my white & tort P4 and natural P5 and purchase of the Xotic XJ, I’ll have condensed my collection to one phenomenal PJ, one (hopefully) phenomenal Jazz and my Wingbass. Plus a decent amount of cash in my pocket too. If it weren’t for COVID I’d more likely be keeping my Dingwalls and buying the Xotic anyway, but that’s not so practical right now.

You can plug into whatever you like. The preamp pedal won’t care whether you’re plugging an active bass or a passive bass into it. I guess if you don’t have a passive switch on your jazz, just set the onboard knobs to flat so you’re only getting tonal colour from the outboard pre.

A word of mild warning - when I got my PJB Double Four repaired back in 2018, the UK repair centre (Selectron UK Ltd) took FOREVER to get the replacement part and perform the repair. I sent it off in mid May and it wasn’t returned to me until early September. There were apologies but I was left ampless and barren for almost a full 4 months. They said they’d only recently taken over repair centre duties for PJB in the UK and were still getting themselves fully up and running but I wasn’t informed of this until at least a couple of months into the wait. Communication was sparse at best, with me often having to send follow up emails asking for replies to messages I’d sent days prior. The icing on the cake was that I was due to move house during month 2 of waiting, so I sent an email requesting that the amp be sent to my new address once the repair was completed. Despite this, when the amp was finally repaired they very nearly sent it to my old address - packaged it up with my old details on the label and sent me an email informing it was about to go out for shipping! Imagine my chagrin when I replied reminding them I’d already requested an address change several weeks prior. Thankfully disaster was averted and they managed to catch it and change the address on the label before it was picked up by the courier. Could have been an utter shambles though. I should stress that I adore my PJB gear, but the repairs process was painful beyond belief. Hopefully they’ve sorted their act out by now.

A handsome rig!

The price has gone up to £16.20 already. Be quick, folks!

As you grow more familiar with what’s physiologically happening to allow you access to that softer part of your voice, you may well find that you’re eventually able to produce the softer tones without slouching, but instead engaging/relaxing the relevant areas of your larynx/pharynx, separate from your posture. The big thing with singing is the old cliché of “practice makes perfect” - there’s no way around it. The more you do it the more you get to know how your body works and what you need to do to produce a certain sound. For example, establishing your realistic range is very important. How low can you go and how high can you go (in both chest voice and falsetto)? Write it down for reference. Knowing at which notes you need to flip into falsetto is very important as you can pre-empt your “transition point” in a song and do it with control each time rather than just blagging it in the moment and potentially sounding like a strangled cat. Also, as @Cuzzie says, don’t be afraid of transposing the song for comfort. It can be easy for pride/ego to kick in as a singer - it’s natural - but as much as we may desperately want to sing a song in the original key, the truth is 99.9% of the audience don’t know if you’ve taken it down (or up) a couple of semitones, so don’t be afraid to make life easier for yourself. Better to sing the song well in a transposed key than to stubbornly stick with the original and struggle every night. This is where having a 5 string bass comes in handy!

Got this bad boy incoming. It will be my first ever Jazz bass, which is kind of weird when I think about it. NBD thread will follow shortly after its arrival no doubt, and I shall update here as to whether it falls into the best or worst bracket!

Do us a comparison video!

Honestly, it was just as good as my California! There were a couple of small factors that made the California technically “better”, such as a slightly better preamp (with passive tone which the Electra preamp didn’t have) and the mounting of the output socket which was slightly better thought out on the Cali (allowing for right angled jacks which the Electra didn’t due to the depth of the housing) but other than those minor things I struggled to justify the difference in price between the two! I actually sold the California and kept the Electra, and didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Other than the extra string and extra pickup of course, but you get the idea.

I can confirm that Sandberg’s customer service is second to none. I’ve owned an Electra VS4 and a California VM5. Both great feeling, well-built instruments. Only reason I sold either of them was cos I needed the funds! Great company.