Bridgehouse

It’s a bit odd, it’s Charcoal Frost, with tort, and it’s a mid-relic and stack knob. Plays absolutely beautifully and sounds cracking. Whether it was worth the just-under £4k new price is something I will have to think on, but it was definitely worth the not-much-more-than-an-American-Ultra that I paid for it. Seller was an absolute gent as well so he will be getting a glowing feedback post tomorrow as well.

Went to see a CS today. Bought it. It’s a 62 stack knob jazz which has appeared on an Andertons video, and cost significantly less than the price it sold for from Andertons earlier this year. Putting some flats on it and I’ll do a NBD post tomorrow, but short and sweet summary is that it’s flipping fantastic.

But seriously guys, it does look awesome, no?

Mmmm. That colour is "Absynthe Frost" Which certainly explains why it gave me a headache similar to that long weekend at uni I don't remember much about....

Well, vintage basses have gone up a lot in the last few years. When I started playing guitar/bass and collecting the mantra was always “don’t bother with 70’s fender - it’s heavy and the tooling was wearing out”. For quite some time they were affordable. Now, not a chance. I’ve seen a few 74s in the past week or so and there’s no way I’d pay the asking price. I’ve been offered a few custom shops as well - and the used prices for these have been very reasonable, and a lot less than a mid-70’s equivalent. A _lot_ less

I struggle to trust myself with one of my basses let alone anyone else!

Well, a lovely chap has contacted me on here about one and I'm going to see it on Saturday. I'll keep you all posted.

I have absolutely never experienced gear snobbery as a bass player. I’ve turned up to small venue gigs with vintage basses and reasonably large festival gigs with basses that I actually did make myself. I have never had a bass player approach me and comment on a bass at all. In fact, every bass player I’ve ever met out gigging has been a real gent (or lady) and been thoroughly decent. I do sometimes take a Helix floor out for gigs and get the odd bass player asking which patch I’m using or how easy I find it to dial in a decent sound. However, I’ve witnessed guitarists invade the stage after gigs to ask the guitarist in our band why he dared to show up with an Epiphone, or whether he realised that the Carlsbro amp he was using was cráp. He gave absolutely no cràps whatsoever. I’ve also witnessed a drummer walk on stage and stroll up to our drummer to ask him if he had any coke or weed on him and a keys player ask if anyone had a USB-C to USB-A converter. Either this all says something about the kind of gigs I go to or…

A sweat worthy concern if ever there was one.

See, I’d give another Sandberg a go - I’m not _that_ closed minded, but experience has shown me that I’ve just never got on with them. I notice there’s a masterpiece goldburst at Bass Direct which I feel like I ought to try, but it’s active with an MM/J combo. Why do they have to make it active/passive?!

Nope. Hate it.

A CS Jazz wouldn’t have to be 70’s spec. The standard spec would be fine.

Yeah - I did see that one, and looks nice, but it’s probably not relic enough for me (I really like the way CS relics are done)

And in balance to my last post every CS Fender guitar or bass I’ve tried I’ve really liked. I’d agree that for the standard US, MiJ or MiM Fenders there can be some huge variation, and there’s variation in the CS offerings as well, but for the CS ones I’ve tried I’ve found them to be pretty spot on every time.

Every Sandberg I’ve ever tried - and I’ve tried a lot over the years - I’ve thoroughly disliked. On no occasion have I even come close to enjoying playing one. Now if it were one or two then fair enough, but I tried a stand full at the guitar show a few years back and really didn’t like any of them.

Yeah. I can imagine that actually. The CS Strat I had was extraordinarily good. I reckon I tried 3 or 4 alongside it, and they were all good. One or two were really good and the one I bought was exceptional.

I’ve been thinking of getting a 4 string fretted for a little bit, as I’ve mostly been playing my Shuker fretless over the last 6 months or so. I put a WTB ad up for a Jazz/Precision from 74 (YOB) but I suspect that might take a while to surface. In the meantime, I’m considering a Custom Shop. Now, I know the usual arguments here - all that money for a bolt on neck etc. but, back in my guitar days I had a CS relic strat - and it was by far the best guitar I ever owned. Resonant, beautiful to play, sounded fantastic, the complete thing. Knowing that, I know a decent CS bass will be the same. So, popped up another WTB ad, but nothing forthcoming so far. I’d like to try a Jazz, as I’ve never had one before (I know, right?) - I might have to consider going retail and paying full whack. If I did that tho, I’d get a full range of choice. So, the question is, which CS would you go for?

Jon decided not to charge me. I was floored by that alone.

Yep. It’s had some serious work over the years now. It’s been back to Jon and basically rebuild, and all the electronics have been stripped and replaced. The under saddle piezos are original, but there’s a nordstrand jazz pickup along will a full set of East preamps and stuff in there as well.

Lol - not quite, but kinda!

It’s very controllable - there’s a boost on the preamp as well which can emphasise it. If you dial in the under board jazz pickup you get a pronounced upper mids boost.

If you dial back the treble on the East preamp and reduce the sweep you can remove those clicks completely

I’m playing finger style - those clicks are the high end of the piezo picking up my nails as they dig into the strings a bit - mostly on purpose but sometimes due to lack of practise

It's a simple track and a simple bassline, but I'm not doing anything particularly complex with the state of my arm at the moment so this was a nice track to give a sample of the general kinda tone etc. (And yeah, I know it isn't very fretless either.. )

OK, I've popped a bass line on an old band track.. I had the master without bass and it lets me pop bass on easily so I thought I'd do that for context. The original track was a P bass. This is recorded in Logic, with the bass L/R coming from a Helix with a MESA amp/speaker model but nothing else. It's pumped right up in the mix so you can hear what's going on, so far too high, no compression, no fiddling or nothing, pretty much the original track with the raw bass tracks on it.