itu

I will paste this text here, too: I thought that this (no logo thing) has to be confirmed, so I wrote to bartolini. Yes, they said, they do have produced few pickups without logos. No brands, projects, or artists were mentioned. It is possible, now we all know it.

Where could I possibly buy one...?

Isn't Aguilar only a tone tweaking unit, while John East and AGC (by J. E.?) are full mixers with active blend and all? Aguilar can be compared to Sadowsky and Artec, while J. E. belongs to the very few like EMG and Audere. The latter have a low impedance mixing which is rare and does not load the pickups (=the sound is not affected). Basic passive blend is a simple pot which has an effect on the pickup frequency response.

Sound. An instrument may look and feel good, but everything else comes after the sound. I may forget many things and issues while playing because I love the sound of the bass.

If money and weight was not an object, a Mesa 400+ and maybe a 4 x 10" or 2 x 12" or even a 4 x 12". That would be it! I had had one chance to play such Mesa in a gig. Loud, tough sound! Now my workhorse is a Glockenklang Soul. Works really well and weighs 24 lbs, which is about 1/10th of the 400+. Well, Mesa is actually 70 lbs.

Old Peaveys have something that resembles a comp, and GK micro series combos have comps. Sessionette bass amps had a switchable one pot comp. Some kind soul had opened up the Spectra's settings. I moved them to my HyperGravity and now I have four knobs to tweak the settings. Very powerful.

No, my suggestion is not free, but it is effective. Take a lesson or few from a teacher. Very efficient.

I had started playing piano at the age of 5, and was in music schools until I was like 25, so school gave me friends, not any musical education. This is like my son playing basketball in a wonderful team and the school teacher trying to tell him something about his playing skills. Or when I went to do my military service and my condition started to go down. There was simply not enough sports. When I was a kid at school there were levels in maths: if you were good enough you could learn more. Things have changed later on when everybody has to have an equal chance not to learn too much...

And please: cut the quotes a bit, there's no need to repeat everything.

There is also this former Modulus neck builder, whose name I tend to forget... Jerry Dorsch. He has built several necks for those who find him. He is in States, so customs etc. may affect the price quite a lot.

Basslab, another German company, any comments on that?

I certainly would try to find something that I already have. I can not see any benefit in doing this kind of sell-all-buy-something. If I use a retroscope, and think about the past, I do see many purchases that were funny and unnecessary. Live and learn...

Modulus Quantum neck (5-string) is very thin from the fretboard to the back, and 17.5 mm string spacing. Ibanez Veasley model (6-string) has 14 mm string spacing.

A simplfication: - nickels provide flatter response (= more mids), suitable for fretless and old skool - SS have a bit like 80's slap eq curve But: Depending on the manufacturer and gauge (not to talk about RW, GW, or flats), these generalizations aren't so sharp.

But I read from notreble that Louis used flats, too?

tce SCF, I rarely use other than the flanger side of the unit. That flanger sound is slightly similar to Prince's, and I like it. If there is a need to use it a lot, I mix it through a X-over (IE Divaricator).

The best is not chosen by "a democratic process". The article was just biased bull...

Tears for fears mentioned: Oleta Adams - Circle of one

I had the RC-2, but did not like it. Complicated use. Ditto x 2 was quite good, but sold it. Now I have this red Valeton and I try to learn to play and push the footswitch at the same time. Very hard for a bassist like me... but the response/feedback from the unit is very helpful.

The first thing is to consider any existing model. If there is one, I cannot see any reason to build another from scratch. The second is the requirements. What should the instrument have and why. Beware if it is something some other (like some star bassist) has. A custom is the custom for you! If something is unclear, we get to the third point... 3) The dialogue with the luthier has to work. If not, try the next one. Fourth point is to do the discussion and be honest with both: yourself and the maker. Any detail that feels strange or wrong has to be discussed now! not afterwards. 5) Play a lot and learn your new friend!

bartolini without a logo sounds like some other manufacturer. Their design is the logo, never seen a pickup without one. A short correction: I think that Zon has had bartolinis with kind of "bp" logo (bartolini pickups?) in them, so at least two logos exist.